Happy Monday Everybody!

Going to try to keep a Mon/Thurs update schedule for the blog. Got enough on at the moment to keep this up, it should be a good motivator for me, too! Thought I'd give the blog a cleaner, less cluttered look too. I've got a couple of new pages up as well, including a friends page on which I list people I work with, want to work with, or recommend. Check it out, I'm sure it will grow as time goes on.


Codename: "New Project" 

Got the majority of rough storyboarding done for this now, just working during the evenings sketching out ideas with a biro and clipboard. Some scenes are going to be re-worked but I should be meeting with Mark and Frazer soon over a beer to discuss the exact changes, and then I can prepare a storyboard that we can shoot our rough cut to!

We plan to be finished by February.

I've been cherry-picking bits on shot grammar and shot formation from some books in the library. I used a browser-based brainstorming tool (http://www.popplet.com/) to create a handy visual flow chart that I refer to when I storyboard scenes. This is my main board for that purpose:

(click for larger)

Obviously this is something I've put together using my own shorthand so it might not be as useful to someone else, but I'm including the image as it's an exercise I highly recommend (popplet is a great site for creating something presentable, alternatively many people prefer to brainstorm more creatively by hand. There is no right or wrong way to do this!). It really helped me crystalise the process I need to go through when thinking about my shots. It's so easy to forget to be mindful of everything you need to pay attention to, especially when you're working essentially as a one-man crew. Of course, my shots and framing are usually far from perfect, but I am working on this! It's a good thing if your own work disappoints you, it keeps you moving forward. Here's that excellent Ira Glass quote on the subject of self-disappointment from a previous post if anyone missed it.


Bacalao Performance Company

The talented people at Bacalao have their own website up and running and you can find it here:
http://www.bacalaocompany.com/
You may remember I shot the trailer for Sofia The Show for Bacalao, and not too long ago I was delighted to be invited to a special one-off performance of the show. Sofia The Show is an autobiographical performance by Sofia Marques that takes place in her own house as she celebrates her birthday, and looks back on the particular tragic connection she shares with the date, as well as events that shaped her childhood in Portugal and her adult life in London. It was certainly the most intimate show I'd ever seen, and very moving! The whole evening was wonderfully put together and rather than slip out after the show ended, as I expected I would, Dee and I stayed for drinks and to talk with the other audience members, as well as the talent themselves, Marianne and Sofia. I felt honoured to be able to sit in on such a wonderful show.

Several months ago I introduced Sofia and Marianne of Bacalao to a friend of mine, Andy, who runs his own website development company. Andy worked closely with Bacalao to build the website they needed and his dedication and talent are not to be overlooked. If you're ever in the market for a professional website, I highly recommend him. Here's his site:
http://www.syncrovise.com/

Poetical Cabaret

One more very worthy plug! As well as being one half of Bacalao Performance Company, Sofia also co-runs the Poetical Cabaret, a multi-faceted performance night that runs a few times a month in London. It's free (although you can make a small donation to children's charities on the door) and the night features everything from poetry to comedy to burlesque to bands. It's a wonderful night out and I really recommend you go if you are ever in the neighbourhood! Regular nights are held at the excellent White Lion in Streatham and the Moustache Bar in Stoke Newington.




Well, that's me spent for today, check back on Thursday for the next installment. I hope you like the new look. Also, feel free to send any sympathy my way, I'm currently suffering under a heavy cloud of illness that has kept me out of human circulation for far too long. I will also accept cash, liquor, miniDV tapes or Xbox games.

Sofia The Show trailer - finished!

Sometimes it's hard to find a good balance between a full time job, home life, and not one but two time consuming hobbies. The night before last I spent the entire evening putting together a video for Bacalao Performance Company, the footage we shot a while back (mentioned in my last blog) and some footage I had shot since, when I met Marianne, the director of the piece, to film a spoken-to-camera pitch asking for help or funding for the project. The aim is that the finished video trailer will go on the Bacalao website, whereas the trailer followed by the video pitch is now live on a website called Sponsume.com, which is a place where people can show snippets of their work and ask for help funding their projects. Please, check the page out, read about the project, and if you can spare some change, please make a contribution to the show and help Sofia and Marianne, they've worked so hard to get the show off the ground. You'll get a beer out of it!!!

http://www.sponsume.com/project/sofia-show

I was really pleased to get the video done. Putting the parts together and making something that works is really satisfying. I love editing, it's probably my favourite part of the whole project. It's like building something out of clay. You start with a mess and end up with something beautiful. Now I'm not saying my work is beautiful, but I'm learning about how to get there!

I had actually put together a trailer a few weeks earlier, using a scene we filmed of Sofia singing some fado (a beautiful genre of classical style Portuguese folk music) with some shots from the footage. Ultimately though the trailer focused too much on the sad elements of Sofia's story and not enough on the redemptive, joyous part, and wasn't quite representative of the whole performance. Sofia and Marianne were both very honest and forthright and gracious, and their openness was refreshing and really allowed me to see what the video was lacking and what parts of it worked.

I cut a second trailer using a piece of fado music by Amelia Rodrigues recommended to me by Sofia and Marianne and it's a very beautiful piece of music. I've heard it 100 times and I still really like it. This time Sofia and Marianne collaborated with me to help get the right feel across, and sent me detailed notes. I've been working on it for a few weeks, but last night I put in a solid few hours and got the video to a finished state. I then spent the requisite hour exporting the video by trial and error to produce a copy that was the correct ratio, a good size, and below 500 megs (Vimeo has an upload cap), but I got there in the end! The new trailer was uploaded last night and has been met with positive comments from Bacalao, so I'm very happy!

I've created an account on Vimeo to upload the videos and as a newcomer to the service (having only really used youtube before) I'm impressed by how open, friendly and directed the site is. It's specifically created for people like me who want to upload their own work and it looks really nice. I don't know why it took me so long to get here!

I have to say I'm a little intimidated by the visual quality of the videos. There is a sharpness and crystal clear quality that I have just not been able to replicate so far. There is a also probably a bit too much slow motion. It seems these days that you're not showing off your tech or your talent if you're not filming in HD and in extreme slow motion. Makes everything look like an advert for Sky Sports or the latest flatscreen TV. If I had a HD camera capable of slow motion like that, I think I would go crazy with the awesome novelty and document my entire life in slow motion, so it would take ten lifetimes to watch. But I'm digressing!

Anyway, get your ass over to the Sponsume.com page so you can see my video. Read about the show too, it's an exciting and ambitious project.

http://www.sponsume.com/project/sofia-show

Filming with Bacalao

Just a quick update to say that I had a wonderful time filming with Bacalao the other night. Sofia and Marianne were both so personable and professional and the whole thing went so very smoothly. We're putting together a teaser trailer, and we had a very productive discussion and implemented some last minute ideas which went really smoothly. The whole evening was a lovely stress-free experience. Even though this was our last chance to get some meaningful video, I really felt like the weight was off, and everything just went right. Here's hoping the footage is good enough! Will be having a good close look at that soon (I took the lens cap off, right?).

Time, the great enemy of the clueless videographer (especially when working weekday evenings on a tight schedule), was on our side. We managed to get a lot of footage recorded and it never felt rushed or compromised. Some of the scenes we shot with Sofia were very powerful, dealing as they were with moments of tragedy/cruelty in her life, and to be there, holding the camera towards someone who is experienced at using their emotion to communicate is quite exhilarating. She managed to silence the room on more than one occasion, and goodness - I know this sounds silly - but at times I could physically feel the energy of her performance, like a force.

On the lighting side, having left my new lamp at home, the worklight proved it's mettle and powerfully lit the household spaces. I used a fast shutter speed to make up for abundance of light and I will be interested to see the results. To the eye, it was too much, but on camera, it looked great.

I also got to see more of Nigel Hine at work, who brought only small backpack but managed to pull a veritable studio out of it, reflectors, softbox lighting on a telescopic stand and a lovely Canon camera, before setting about photographing phenomenal promotional portrait pictures of Sofia and Marianne for their upcoming website, all on location at the house that will be the venue for Sofia's performance. Nigel was good, he was working in a non-ideal location that he wasn't able to scout beforehand, but the quality of the images was astounding.

Ah well, until next time!

:-)

(It's nice to be able to write something really positive for a change!)

Wailing and gnashing of teeth

THE LAMP part 2

Remember my clamp-lamp from the previous post? Well, I found one online and bought it. It's basically a heat lamp with a metal dome reflector for use in vivariums. Well my lamp arrived quickly from an online reptile house and yesterday I bought some filament bulbs for it so I could give the lamp a test run before tonight's shooting of Sofia and her show. The important thing to note here, and which shows a lack of foresight on my part, is that tungsten filament bulbs are being phased out in favour of energy saving bulbs. We're already at a stage where you cannot buy bulbs of a high wattage in the store (I had to settle for 60W). Good news for the planet, bad news for the no-budget film-maker.

Well, instead of a clean sharp light with bold shadows as this youtube video had showed me, I was treated to some of the ugliest light I've ever seen. Harsh patchy concentric rings of light all bunched together, like the headlight of a 70's car. It was awful. Thus commenced the wailing and gnashing of teeth. I spent some time trying to fix it. My first thought was that it was the super shiny dome that was causing these reflective rings, so I tried to remove it, only to find the particular lamp I had bought had an irremovable dome. Quick thinking Dee rushed to the bedroom and brought out a white shirt. We stretched the fabric over the dome and it diffused the light quite well, but not well enough. This light certainly isn't the holy grail of budget lighting I was hoping, in fact, until I make some kind of modification, it is beyond useless.

I'm beginning to think I should perhaps spray-paint the inside of the reflective dome with a matte white finish so the light is still reflected but it loses the harsh ringed reflections from the dome. Come to think of it, my dome is a lot more glossy than the dome in the video. I'm talking reflector dome here, and not my head, although let's be honest, my dome does get glossy.

I pulled out my old worklight to compare it to the horrible unusable light the lamp was giving off, and the worklight, despite giving off the light and heat of a small nuclear explosion, gave a far more consistent light. Why did I ever doubt you, worklight?

It's hard to escape the feeling that sometimes travelling on this journey is basically lurching from one disappointment to the next. Maybe I shouldn't have let myself get so fucking excited about a lamp, like it was the answer to all my problems.

TONIGHT - BACALAO FILMING

Got a lot of stuff to take to work with me today, because I'm going straight from work to meet Sofia. On previous trips to work when I've had to come "equipped" I have injured my wrists carrying all this stuff across various trains and tubes, so today I have opted for the big dusty suitcase on wheels. Pulled it out from under the bed, vacuumed all the dust off it, and loaded up. I got my camera case, big tripod, worklight, worklight stand (the nuclear fucker will burn a hole in whatever it sits on otherwise), external microphone and leads. The camera case itself takes up 85% of the suitcase, the rest is wedged all around it. The tripod is massive, but it's wedged into a large outside pocket on the front of the case. Get in! Moving this around the streets of London is still a chore, but it's not the it complete bummer it has been previously. As I dragged the case along the uneven cobbled streets, the rattling of the wheels concerned me. I know that the camera is not meant to be subject to vibration, and I was having bad visions of the camera being shaken into tiny pieces inside it's foam casing. I'll keep you posted.

Ran out of time for breakfast this morning because I forgot the microphone and had to rush to find and pack it. Powered down through some mini cheddars and a fruit corner once I got to work. I'm feeling powerful. Let's see how long that lasts.

Catch-up time!

Been a bit of a while between updates.
HOUDINI

The big news is that I have got a new project, filming a music video for Medway noiseniks Houdini. They are friends of Frau Pouch, the band I filmed live a while back at New Cross. We're just in the planning stages at the moment, but it's exciting, and this is a first for me - to be filming a video for a band that I wasn't already friends with. This is the litmus test, my first foray into commissioned work. They are a tight, furiously talented band and I urge you to see them live if you get the chance. They play Medway and London on a semi-regular basis. Catch them with Frau Pouch if the opportunity arises, for a double whammy of filth and noise.

Check them out here: http://www.reverbnation.com/houdinisaur

LIGHTING

So the new video is in the pipeline and I really want to use this opportunity to elevate the visual quality of my videos (only time will tell if the opportunity is utilised) so I have ordered a new light to illuminate my video subjects. I want to keep it simple and inexpensive, although I do admit I did have a browse through some "proper" lights with tripods and dimmers and barn doors and all that fancy malarkey - however, money is too tight to mention, as the wise man once said (before contradicting himself by talking about money money) and it behooves me to seek a more frugal measure. I have written before about worklights, and how I utilised a worklight I had bought several years ago (to illuminate a night-time barbecue party) as a possible film-making solution. Some of the budget film-makers on the net don't rate worklights as a decent lighting tool and insist that proper lights are the only way to go, and while some of that may be equipment snobbery, there is actually a valid argument here. This excellent little tutorial video makes clear points and actually proposes an even cheaper solution than worklights which works a lot better.

The video suggests using reflector lamps as a point light, the kind you might use to illuminate and heat a reptile vivarium. It's a simple average glass bulb in a metal reflector dome, and it comes with a clamp so you can fix it to objects.

A far cheaper solution and a more controllable light than worklights, which can be a little overpowering as they are essentially halogen floodlights.

A top tip from the video is to use bulbs where the visible filament is small and straight, rather than curly, twisted or circular in shape. It means checking your bulb before you buy, but it means you get sharp crisp shadows (thanks to the straight filament) rather than the fuzzy, graded shadows that are caused by light rays being thrown every which way. I paid a little more to get a lamp that could take a bulb up to 250watts so I had the option to go bright. When the lamp arrives I'll let you know how it works! I'll be using it as a point light for the Houdini shoot and also next Monday, when I will be filming some footage of a theatre show performance for the Bacalao Theatre Company, a project I took on a little while ago.

BACALAO

Sofia, an old friend of mine and a talented performer, singer and actress is promoting her one-woman show, titled simply Sofia - The Show, an autobiographical piece about her childhood in Portugal and her life in London. What's interesting about the show is that it will take place in unusual spaces, such as people's homes which will be opened as public space. Sofia contacted me to help her and her director, Marianne, get a video sample of their work for their website, with the eventual aim of using the footage to show to possible backers to get funding for their new show. I filmed some footage of Sofia performing the show in a theatre space recently but time ran out on us, and I was really disappointed with the quality of the footage once I got it home. The room was dark and we had no extra lighting, so I had to use a wide open aperture, which when combined with the zoom meant that I had a really shallow depth of focus which made it hard to focus on Sofia as she moved about the stage. Sofia's vibrant red clothing - which looked fine on the viewfinder - came out bizarrely blocky and pixelated once I saw the footage enlarged. Another blow came in the form of the audio, which suffered from the loud air conditioning in the studio space. While human ears soon tuned out the drone, the microphone was not so kind. A little more experience (and equipment) and perhaps I could have taken steps to minimise this, but I learn hard lessons on every shoot I do.
Marianne and Sofia were both really great on the night and gave it their all, and I felt gutted that I couldn't give them something that reflected that.

I loved Sofia's work and both her and Marianne are really lovely genuine people, so I want to give them something that can benefit them. I hope I can salvage some footage of the performance and combine it with what we film on Monday. They've both worked so hard to organise all of this and I really want to help.

This may sound really obvious, but I am discovering that it's really not easy to do something well. It's difficult.

SURVIVING THE TOILET CIRCUIT

This project has not gone away, but has been put back a little. Not too much to talk about at this stage, things are still happening behind the scenes, and it all still feel a little vague and up in the air. I must admit, Mark from the Explorer's Collective has been prodding me for a meet-up, and I really should get together with him and talk about it. I've been keeping myself out of the loop because the guys involved have some stuff to work through - outside of the filming - and I don't want to muddy that. Time to catch up though.

BRAIN FIGHT

This has also slipped into the background as I have been so busy lately... now I am worried that it will soon be too cold/dark/wet to be able to organise a large group of people for an outdoor filming session. I must contact Joe of Frau Pouch and have a chat.

BIKE

Not video related, but I bought a bike last week, using my workplace cyclescheme. Should be picking it up in a few days. I'm unfit, overweight, and broke... so cycling should save me a lot of money on my exorbitant monthly train fares. Well, we'll just have to see how it goes!