Virtus, Vlogs & Blogs, VR Comfort: Medium

Aeffect Radio x Higher Space 420 puppet rave!

When puppets invade the RAVE

Welcome to the AEFFECT Radio x Higher Space 420 party, where the DJs get down while the puppet aliens get lifted 🛸🌴💨

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Unbelievably Fried Outworlders

So my cousin, DJ Songco, hosts and DJs a mostly-weekly live stream on Twitch, AEFFECT RADIO, and it’s basically like a backyard house rave every week. On his live stream, they invite DJs and music acts from around the world to get on the decks and experiment with whatever sound they wish. A hiphop DJ wanting to spin noise & glitch? Sure. A hyperpop DJ has been dying to try doing a hardcore jungle and drill music set that eventually evolves into ambient nature sounds? Have at it. Aeffect radio is an incredible laboratory for music artists, and thus it came no surprise when my cousin said he’s gonna do a collaborative stream with some adult/raunchy puppets to celebrate 420. Par for the course. Enter, Higher Space.

Live from the party

While I’ve snuck my old Vuze camera into a live music event before, I never actually captured a party atmosphere that also had live music. What I think most people get wrong about capturing live music in VR180 is that folks tend to focus on the music act’s performance, and place the camera on a tripod in front of the musicians. But in VR, we’re experiencing what’s being captured, and if all that’s captured is a bunch of musicians staring at you (the camera), it can feel awkward.

Why are these grown ass musicians staring me down? Why are they forcing smiles while playing at me? Why can’t I see the crowd that’s cheering? Am I in the way of the audience behind me since I’m standing on stage in front of the main act???

My philosophy for capturing a live music event in VR180 has always been to pull the camera back to where the crowd is, so the viewer can feel like they’re with the crowd and can feed off the audience’s energy. But at the same time, to capture the party itself, I wasn’t too sure what to capture. If a party were part of some scripted narrative, then I would have more ideas for what shots to get and how to block the crowd; but for an actual party, how do you capture the feel? The “essence” of the party? But it’s a live music event as well, so… what exactly are we focusing on?

I didn’t really invest too much thought into it though, because “DJs and alien puppets” seemed like simply being there might be a fun enough watching experience. And once I got a couple of drinks in me and got into the vibe of the party itself, I pretty much just hit record and let editing-Kuya worry about it. The space itself was small, which led to a lot of squeezing in between folks, but that all worked out for the better. It made the space feel like it was packed, and thus the attention could be directed mostly towards the puppets and DJs, with the crowd at the periphery.

SO MUCH PUPPET GENITALIA! – Shay Elys

The risque adult designs of the Higher Space puppets definitely added a fun edge to the party, and it was great way for attendees to get in on the action by getting to pick up a puppet and make them dance on camera. It gave me a great visual to capture and gave motivation to keep the camera around the DJ booth since party goers would move in and out of that space as well.

The set design was cool. It’s the interior of a space ship and the exterior was a wall-to-wall black drape with a bunch of small blue string LEDs to serve as the stars. It was tough for me to slide behind the DJs with my camera rig in hand, so I couldn’t get a good capture of the space ship interior, but at least I got a couple of light sweeps of the exterior which you’ll see in the virtu. Big ups to the Higher Space crew for such creative set design and puppet craft! Besides the beginning skit, if I could do it over again, I would’ve loved to have capture some interview type of content with the puppets themselves.

Hope yall enjoyed this virtu, it was def a lot of fun to shoot! Till the next one, stay immersed.