On Monday 18th March I will be filming Houdini playing live. I really enjoy getting stuck in with live performance, moving around the throng of the crowd with the main camera to get nice close angles on the performers, with a camcorder set up on a tripod getting a good angle of the band and crowd to use as cover shots.
Sometimes I manage to convince someone to lend me a second camcorder so I can get two angles as cover which gives me a few more options when putting the final cut together. It's good to have more than you need when filming something live and unrepeatable.
Until the 18th I will continue to plug away at a new Astralis video. It was only yesterday that I finally got all the footage labelled, catalogued and inserted. So now I have my ball of clay, but I definitely don't have a sculpture just yet.
I'm still working with Final Cut Express as I haven't quite saved up enough for Final Cut Pro X yet. The difficult part will be the changeover, for simplicities sake I want to completely finalise all my projects with my current editing software before moving over. This means finishing Where's My Milk You Bastard and the Three Sided Football footage as well. The former is being polished up and added to on a weekly basis, the latter has been sadly sidelined while I wrestle other projects but should be receiving some attention soon.
Projects... so easy to start so hard to finish. Must be more disciplined.
Showing posts with label houdini. Show all posts
Showing posts with label houdini. Show all posts
Thursday, 7 March 2013
Monday, 28 May 2012
Houdini/Frau Pouch split now available
Here is it! This is the split EP recorded at Soup Studio by Houdini (vid) and Frau Pouch (vid). You can download the tracks for free, or for £2 you can get a hard copy of the CD posted to you, in a choice of sleeve colours, plus band stickers (!) plus a link for the digital download. For the price of half a pint of beer, you really can't argue with that.
Check out the songs at the link, and if you like it, buy it!
Support independent musicians!
http://houdinisaur.bandcamp.com/album/houdini-frau-pouch-split-ep
Friday, 25 May 2012
The Soup Studio videos - post production
So the footage from Soup Studio is finally up! Last Monday saw the video for Mittens by Frau Pouch go online, and Monday this week was the debut for Don't Look Down by Houdini. I even put together a little teaser the weekend before Mittens. I did say I would do a post about the editing process, so here it is. If you're a Final Cut Express user, if you edit music footage, or if you're just curious about the process then you might find this interesting. Otherwise, it might be a little dry!
Putting the footage together was a new challenge for me. It's not the first piece of multi-camera video work I've done, some of the live gigs I've filmed have used three cameras (two camcorders and one Canon XL1S). However, the live gigs were simpler to edit together because although I had three angles, I was working with the same performance. This meant I only had to align one point on all three video tracks to bring them all in perfect allignment (it's good to use a short sharp cue such as a camera flash or snare hit).
But with the Soup Studio footage, I was taping the bands from different angles while they performed several different takes of the same song. Timings weren't always precise, sometimes the songs ran a little fast or slow and some takes could be a few seconds longer than other takes. This meant that if I lined the tracks up precisely in Final Cut, they would eventually drift from one another and no longer be in time. I hadn't had to deal with this before and I knew that getting so many different video tracks with different timing in sync would be tricky, possibly painful.
Importing
The first step was importing all the footage from my tapes on to my computer. On the day of recording I had kept notes of the timecodes (start and end) of every run through of the song. I had made notes as to what song was being played and also of any "extra" footage that might have been usable, such as anything good from the recording console, interviews, any behind-the-scenes stuff that might have been interesting. I imported it all over the course of two days (working around my job) and had it all labelled on the computer, which made the rest of the job a lot easier. it's really good practice to be disciplined with making notes on the day and importing everything neatly. It saves so much time and disk space. Many books and guides recommend you record a huge amount of data about each shot during filming, but to be honest I only really take note of the information that is useful to me. As a non-professional this usually includes basic notes, info and timecodes. Also number your shots to some kind of order (either chronological on the day or how they will appear in your project) to save you multiple headaches later on.
Tapes
Because I use miniDV rather than a purely digital format, I have to import from tape. You're basically importing in real time, plus all the spooling and cueing that happens between. If you're patient you can watch the footage as it uploads, looking for things you'd missed before and taking more notes. I'd recommend watching it on the camcorder screen or perhaps by hooking the camcorder to a TV or monitor first. This is because Final Cut Express does preview the footage as it uploads on your screen but it's jerky and often at the wrong ratio. Maybe other software does it better, but I wouldn't know! You certainly don't want to spend a whole day importing, watching, taking notes, which is why it's good to note down all the important information during the shoot. I only imported about half of what I shot.
One good tip I want to pass on is that importing footage can take a heavy toll on your camera mechanisms, it's a lot more rewinding and fast forwarding than you get from normal use. For this reason it's best to use a cheaper camcorder as your main importer, and save your good camera for filming. If you only have one camcorder, and it's a good one, it might be worth investing in a cheap second hand camcorder purely for importing. If you're a pro you might have a proper miniDV tapedeck which you use to import your footage, but I doubt many people reading this will have one of those!
If you do switch your tape between cameras, always use the same brand of tape (I use the Sony MiniDV Premium
, they are widely available and good quality, plus cheap when bought in bulk), or be fastidious about cleaning your decks between tapes with a tape head cleaner (those special cassettes that clean gunk off your tape heads). Different tape brands use different lubricant and mixing those lubcricants can create a thick gloop that can clog up your decks and cause strange visual effects, slowed down taping, and audio drag. I did it once out of necessity (only once!), and ever since, despite repeated cleaning, I will often import footage from my camcorder and find a delay of exactly 17/25ths of a second between the audio and the visual. Not always, but enough to be a pain in my bottom. I think I have probably been more unlucky than most people but it pays to be aware of this kind of thing.
The Footage
While filming the bands in the studio, I tried where possible to focus on a particular band member for a whole run-through of a song, so that I would have full coverage of everyone. Keeping notes on every piece of footage meant that I could keep all these different takes organised. Some angles and shots work better than others and sometimes you can't even tell the good from the bad until you get some distance. Hopefully this will improve with experience. Once I got home I realised that due to the position of the bass players for both bands, I hadn't captured much footage of them. The walls around them and the location of the other band members made it difficult to get good shots, and as I was going through the footage I realise I had very little footage of Houdini's bassist's face (but some good shots of his hands). Sorry Giles, it wasn't on purpose! Luckily I had a whole take of him captured from a static camera, so he can still confirm that he does in fact play bass for Houdini.
Audio
When it came to audio, I was using an MP3 of the final unmastered mix of each song, which would be replaced with a high quality mastered MP3 when it was ready. Both versions would have exactly the same timing which made it easy for me to swap them out, so this wouldn't be an issue. However, keeping the differently timed videos synced perfectly to the single audio track would be tricky.
I do not know how the pros do it, so I played around with the editing software until I found something that worked.
Markers
In Final Cut, as in other editors, you can place markers on individual video tracks, audio tracks and on the project as a whole. I decided I would use markers to enable me to bring the tracks and the audio all in time with one another. I played through the MP3 of the song for each band, sometimes in slow motion, a 25th of a second at a time, so I could place a marker on the first drum hit, the first note of each keychange, verse and chorus, a marker on the final note, basically anywhere that had audio signifcance and would be easy for me to use a a syncing point. I used about a dozen markers on the song.
I then played through each video track and - as carefully as I could - applied the same markers on the video track. I had about 15 video tracks for the Houdini song (taken from my Canon XL1S and a static Panasonic camcorder on a tripod) and a little less for Frau Pouch. Once I had gone through them all I dragged the video tracks in line so that all tracks were synced for that first hit of the drums, and then synced the audio too to that marker too. The first twenty seconds of the song would be pretty tight across all video tracks but then they start to drift out of time and look "wrong". I would come to this later.
The next step was to go through each video track and cut out chunks any footage that were out of focus or of the camera pointing at the floor. This meant that in the long run I would have to filter through less footage and would save me time.
Now it was just a case of looking at all my options. As I started the song I checked every available video track to see which one looked the best. My ratio of good looking footage to crap looking footage is about 3-5. Good looking footage often happens by accident, and when I try and plan good footage I often get cold or distant looking video. I was careful to use as much of the good footage and as little of the crap footage as possible.
So now, over the course of one weekend per video, working around six hours a day, I went through every second of video footage making sure to only use the good stuff. Sometimes I knew exactly what part I wanted to use, other times I would try out a variety of video tracks on one part of the video to see what worked. It's not only important that the chosen piece of footage works with the music, but it also needs to work with the other video clips around it. I was careful to edit where possible so that the cuts would fit the music and the mood, and did my best, for example, to have really drummy footage for really drummy parts of the song. Of course, I could only work with what I captured on the day.
This is where the markers I placed would come in. As I worked through the video, the tracks would drift and no longer be synced up. As the video tracks were by this point largely chopped up - thanks to the editing process and also to removing duff footage - I had lots of space around that I could drag the individual shots back and forward on the timeline to sync them up with the correct marker. The markers were good for bringing everything closely in sync but I still made small adjustments by eye and ear just to make sure.
Other Post Production
I finished the Frau Pouch video before I began working on the Houdini video. I had noticed with the Houdini video that the intensity of colours and light would differ between shots and needed to be brought closer together. Once I had all the shots in place, I took some time to add a colour corrector filter to each shot of the Houdini video. Some video tracks were very consistent and I could apply the same filter to all shots from that track, other video tracks needed a little more individual attention. Because of the low level and the hue of artificial lighting in the studio (it is made to record music, not video it!) and the colour of the walls, I found the footage came through very orange, even bleeding into skin tone. By playing with the colour correction wheels and adjusting the saturation levels, I could essentially change the white balance and the hue of the recordings into something more realistic and uniform. Colour correction was something I only applied to the Houdini video, by virtue of experience gained on the Frau Pouch video. You can see for yourself how the two have different colour palettes. Here's some stills of Tom drumming taken from the edit of the Houdini video showing the difference before and after the colour correction. Forgive the quality.
Exporting
I would play the song back again and again, leave it for a while, come back fresh, play it again and edit it again. Once I had a version I was happy with I could export it as an AVI (the default full quality export mode from Final Cut Express), convert it to mp4 (much smaller file size, better quality), put it on youtube as an unlisted video and send the link to either Frau Pouch or Houdini to ask their thoughts. I would then implement any recommended changes (where possible) and listen carefully to their observations. By this point I am far too close to the work to be entirely objective and I'm possibly missing some simple errors so the feedback from the fresh-eyed musicians is useful. Also, I really want them to like it, so I want their opinion on what works and what doesn't. Greg gave me some great feedback about the pace of the video and which segments were slowing it down, and because of that we made a better video.
Once the video is optimised as much as possible (or as much as is reasonable) I once again export to AVI, convert to MP4 using a free program called MPEG Streamclip which is a really good compression/conversion program, and then upload to Youtube.
Why am I complicating my export? Well, Final Cut Express, which is now old and outdated, doesn't have the compression options of it's more expensive brethren Final Cut Pro or Final Cut X, but I'm stuck with what I can afford for now! While Final Cut Express can export different formats, I find the sheer amount of options and vastly differing levels of quality in the results to be unreliable, so for now I use MPEG Streamclip to convert where necessary. The best bit about converting to MP4 is the drastic drop in file size, while maintaining the same quality. This also means my computer isn't uploading to youtube all night long, which holds up our internet connection and is prone to fail if we have any sudden interruptions of service.
And once the files are up on youtube and everyone is happy, then the work is done!
Finished
Well that's about it for my not-at-all anticipated "behind the scenes" glimpse into how post production works for me. Working on these videos actually took very many hours more than I had anticipated. All in all I would guess I spent one full day filming, one evening doing pick ups, and then probably a further 45 hours putting it all together. That's not 45 hours of solid graft of course, uploading the tape footage is slow and laborious few hours (but I do kinda like it) and a number like that doesn't make me sound very efficient. But I am learning to obsess over the details, because I want my videos to be good and I honestly feel like I'm getting better with each experience. I'm not good enough yet, but I'm getting better. I like the tiny details, I just need to make sure I keep an eye on the big picture too.
Right, that's enough blabbing I think.
Thanks for reading!
Putting the footage together was a new challenge for me. It's not the first piece of multi-camera video work I've done, some of the live gigs I've filmed have used three cameras (two camcorders and one Canon XL1S). However, the live gigs were simpler to edit together because although I had three angles, I was working with the same performance. This meant I only had to align one point on all three video tracks to bring them all in perfect allignment (it's good to use a short sharp cue such as a camera flash or snare hit).
But with the Soup Studio footage, I was taping the bands from different angles while they performed several different takes of the same song. Timings weren't always precise, sometimes the songs ran a little fast or slow and some takes could be a few seconds longer than other takes. This meant that if I lined the tracks up precisely in Final Cut, they would eventually drift from one another and no longer be in time. I hadn't had to deal with this before and I knew that getting so many different video tracks with different timing in sync would be tricky, possibly painful.
Importing
The first step was importing all the footage from my tapes on to my computer. On the day of recording I had kept notes of the timecodes (start and end) of every run through of the song. I had made notes as to what song was being played and also of any "extra" footage that might have been usable, such as anything good from the recording console, interviews, any behind-the-scenes stuff that might have been interesting. I imported it all over the course of two days (working around my job) and had it all labelled on the computer, which made the rest of the job a lot easier. it's really good practice to be disciplined with making notes on the day and importing everything neatly. It saves so much time and disk space. Many books and guides recommend you record a huge amount of data about each shot during filming, but to be honest I only really take note of the information that is useful to me. As a non-professional this usually includes basic notes, info and timecodes. Also number your shots to some kind of order (either chronological on the day or how they will appear in your project) to save you multiple headaches later on.
Tapes
Because I use miniDV rather than a purely digital format, I have to import from tape. You're basically importing in real time, plus all the spooling and cueing that happens between. If you're patient you can watch the footage as it uploads, looking for things you'd missed before and taking more notes. I'd recommend watching it on the camcorder screen or perhaps by hooking the camcorder to a TV or monitor first. This is because Final Cut Express does preview the footage as it uploads on your screen but it's jerky and often at the wrong ratio. Maybe other software does it better, but I wouldn't know! You certainly don't want to spend a whole day importing, watching, taking notes, which is why it's good to note down all the important information during the shoot. I only imported about half of what I shot.
One good tip I want to pass on is that importing footage can take a heavy toll on your camera mechanisms, it's a lot more rewinding and fast forwarding than you get from normal use. For this reason it's best to use a cheaper camcorder as your main importer, and save your good camera for filming. If you only have one camcorder, and it's a good one, it might be worth investing in a cheap second hand camcorder purely for importing. If you're a pro you might have a proper miniDV tapedeck which you use to import your footage, but I doubt many people reading this will have one of those!
If you do switch your tape between cameras, always use the same brand of tape (I use the Sony MiniDV Premium
, they are widely available and good quality, plus cheap when bought in bulk), or be fastidious about cleaning your decks between tapes with a tape head cleaner (those special cassettes that clean gunk off your tape heads). Different tape brands use different lubricant and mixing those lubcricants can create a thick gloop that can clog up your decks and cause strange visual effects, slowed down taping, and audio drag. I did it once out of necessity (only once!), and ever since, despite repeated cleaning, I will often import footage from my camcorder and find a delay of exactly 17/25ths of a second between the audio and the visual. Not always, but enough to be a pain in my bottom. I think I have probably been more unlucky than most people but it pays to be aware of this kind of thing.The Footage
While filming the bands in the studio, I tried where possible to focus on a particular band member for a whole run-through of a song, so that I would have full coverage of everyone. Keeping notes on every piece of footage meant that I could keep all these different takes organised. Some angles and shots work better than others and sometimes you can't even tell the good from the bad until you get some distance. Hopefully this will improve with experience. Once I got home I realised that due to the position of the bass players for both bands, I hadn't captured much footage of them. The walls around them and the location of the other band members made it difficult to get good shots, and as I was going through the footage I realise I had very little footage of Houdini's bassist's face (but some good shots of his hands). Sorry Giles, it wasn't on purpose! Luckily I had a whole take of him captured from a static camera, so he can still confirm that he does in fact play bass for Houdini.
Audio
When it came to audio, I was using an MP3 of the final unmastered mix of each song, which would be replaced with a high quality mastered MP3 when it was ready. Both versions would have exactly the same timing which made it easy for me to swap them out, so this wouldn't be an issue. However, keeping the differently timed videos synced perfectly to the single audio track would be tricky.
I do not know how the pros do it, so I played around with the editing software until I found something that worked.
Markers
In Final Cut, as in other editors, you can place markers on individual video tracks, audio tracks and on the project as a whole. I decided I would use markers to enable me to bring the tracks and the audio all in time with one another. I played through the MP3 of the song for each band, sometimes in slow motion, a 25th of a second at a time, so I could place a marker on the first drum hit, the first note of each keychange, verse and chorus, a marker on the final note, basically anywhere that had audio signifcance and would be easy for me to use a a syncing point. I used about a dozen markers on the song.
I then played through each video track and - as carefully as I could - applied the same markers on the video track. I had about 15 video tracks for the Houdini song (taken from my Canon XL1S and a static Panasonic camcorder on a tripod) and a little less for Frau Pouch. Once I had gone through them all I dragged the video tracks in line so that all tracks were synced for that first hit of the drums, and then synced the audio too to that marker too. The first twenty seconds of the song would be pretty tight across all video tracks but then they start to drift out of time and look "wrong". I would come to this later.
The next step was to go through each video track and cut out chunks any footage that were out of focus or of the camera pointing at the floor. This meant that in the long run I would have to filter through less footage and would save me time.
Now it was just a case of looking at all my options. As I started the song I checked every available video track to see which one looked the best. My ratio of good looking footage to crap looking footage is about 3-5. Good looking footage often happens by accident, and when I try and plan good footage I often get cold or distant looking video. I was careful to use as much of the good footage and as little of the crap footage as possible.
So now, over the course of one weekend per video, working around six hours a day, I went through every second of video footage making sure to only use the good stuff. Sometimes I knew exactly what part I wanted to use, other times I would try out a variety of video tracks on one part of the video to see what worked. It's not only important that the chosen piece of footage works with the music, but it also needs to work with the other video clips around it. I was careful to edit where possible so that the cuts would fit the music and the mood, and did my best, for example, to have really drummy footage for really drummy parts of the song. Of course, I could only work with what I captured on the day.
This is where the markers I placed would come in. As I worked through the video, the tracks would drift and no longer be synced up. As the video tracks were by this point largely chopped up - thanks to the editing process and also to removing duff footage - I had lots of space around that I could drag the individual shots back and forward on the timeline to sync them up with the correct marker. The markers were good for bringing everything closely in sync but I still made small adjustments by eye and ear just to make sure.
Other Post Production
I finished the Frau Pouch video before I began working on the Houdini video. I had noticed with the Houdini video that the intensity of colours and light would differ between shots and needed to be brought closer together. Once I had all the shots in place, I took some time to add a colour corrector filter to each shot of the Houdini video. Some video tracks were very consistent and I could apply the same filter to all shots from that track, other video tracks needed a little more individual attention. Because of the low level and the hue of artificial lighting in the studio (it is made to record music, not video it!) and the colour of the walls, I found the footage came through very orange, even bleeding into skin tone. By playing with the colour correction wheels and adjusting the saturation levels, I could essentially change the white balance and the hue of the recordings into something more realistic and uniform. Colour correction was something I only applied to the Houdini video, by virtue of experience gained on the Frau Pouch video. You can see for yourself how the two have different colour palettes. Here's some stills of Tom drumming taken from the edit of the Houdini video showing the difference before and after the colour correction. Forgive the quality.
 |
| before colour correction |
.jpg) |
| after colour correction |
I would play the song back again and again, leave it for a while, come back fresh, play it again and edit it again. Once I had a version I was happy with I could export it as an AVI (the default full quality export mode from Final Cut Express), convert it to mp4 (much smaller file size, better quality), put it on youtube as an unlisted video and send the link to either Frau Pouch or Houdini to ask their thoughts. I would then implement any recommended changes (where possible) and listen carefully to their observations. By this point I am far too close to the work to be entirely objective and I'm possibly missing some simple errors so the feedback from the fresh-eyed musicians is useful. Also, I really want them to like it, so I want their opinion on what works and what doesn't. Greg gave me some great feedback about the pace of the video and which segments were slowing it down, and because of that we made a better video.
Once the video is optimised as much as possible (or as much as is reasonable) I once again export to AVI, convert to MP4 using a free program called MPEG Streamclip which is a really good compression/conversion program, and then upload to Youtube.
Why am I complicating my export? Well, Final Cut Express, which is now old and outdated, doesn't have the compression options of it's more expensive brethren Final Cut Pro or Final Cut X, but I'm stuck with what I can afford for now! While Final Cut Express can export different formats, I find the sheer amount of options and vastly differing levels of quality in the results to be unreliable, so for now I use MPEG Streamclip to convert where necessary. The best bit about converting to MP4 is the drastic drop in file size, while maintaining the same quality. This also means my computer isn't uploading to youtube all night long, which holds up our internet connection and is prone to fail if we have any sudden interruptions of service.
And once the files are up on youtube and everyone is happy, then the work is done!
Finished
Well that's about it for my not-at-all anticipated "behind the scenes" glimpse into how post production works for me. Working on these videos actually took very many hours more than I had anticipated. All in all I would guess I spent one full day filming, one evening doing pick ups, and then probably a further 45 hours putting it all together. That's not 45 hours of solid graft of course, uploading the tape footage is slow and laborious few hours (but I do kinda like it) and a number like that doesn't make me sound very efficient. But I am learning to obsess over the details, because I want my videos to be good and I honestly feel like I'm getting better with each experience. I'm not good enough yet, but I'm getting better. I like the tiny details, I just need to make sure I keep an eye on the big picture too.
Right, that's enough blabbing I think.
Thanks for reading!
Monday, 21 May 2012
Don't Look Down video - Houdini
I was in the Limehouse recording studio "Soup Studio" with Frau Pouch and Houdini when they were recording their upcoming split single. Here is the second music video from the day, Houdini recording "Don't Look Down".
The first video, Mittens by Frau Pouch, is available in an earlier post.
I always enjoy working with these guys and I love their music. If you ever get a chance to catch them do a show don't pass up on it. More audio goodness at:
houdinisaur.bandcamp.com
fraupouch.bandcamp.com
The split single is out on Monday the 28th May!
You can read about the day's recording here (in excessive detail), and in my next post I'll talk about the editing and post production work.
Enjoy the video!
The first video, Mittens by Frau Pouch, is available in an earlier post.
I always enjoy working with these guys and I love their music. If you ever get a chance to catch them do a show don't pass up on it. More audio goodness at:
houdinisaur.bandcamp.com
fraupouch.bandcamp.com
The split single is out on Monday the 28th May!
You can read about the day's recording here (in excessive detail), and in my next post I'll talk about the editing and post production work.
Enjoy the video!
Monday, 14 May 2012
Frau Pouch - Mittens (vid)
Frau Pouch - Mittens
Footage taken from the recording session at Soup Studio, Limehouse.
Mittens will feature on the Houdini/Frau Pouch split single which will be released on 28/05/12
Meow meow meow meow meow meow meow!
Had a great time getting this footage, and I adore this song. Vive La Frau Pouch!
Coming soon - Houdini's recording session.
Full write up of the experience will be on the blog at a later date.
Want more? Here's some links:
fraupouch.bandcamp.com
houdinisaur.bandcamp.com
www.soupstudio.co.uk
Sunday, 13 May 2012
Houdini/Frau Pouch split single - video teaser!
From the Soup Studio session
Split single released on 28/05/12
Still to come:
Frau Pouch - Mittens video - 14/05/12
Houdini - Don't Look Down video - 21/05/12
Thursday, 3 May 2012
More from David Lynch night!
David Lynch Night at the Urban Bar Whitechapel -
Part 2 of 3 now online!
This was the main fruit of yesterday's time in the editing chair. I have to say I really enjoyed putting it together. The fades are something I haven't really used on other video projects but, as with part one, the dreamy/nightmarish audio just works really well with a softer, dreamier edit. It was a damn shame I didn't manage to get a better audio recording on the night, you can really hear people chattering away over the music. So far I have never got a separate audio take, I always just amalgamate the camera mics together, but it's something I want to do, especially if it leads to a better video.
Tomorrow I'm in Soup Studios with Houdini, taping Greg's vocals for the promo video I'm working on. Should be a relatively quick affair, but as always, I'm excited to be behind the camera.
I have some more work to clear before I can really start looking forward, but soon I will be bringing two worlds together! As some of you may know I'm also working with a small team of indie developers on an Xbox 360 "Indie Games" title. I will be helping assemble a video to publicise the upcoming entry of our game into the Dream Build Play competition, which we're entering in the prelude to the completion of the game. Watch this space for more info, we're really excited about this game and we hope that some of you will get to play it.
As for the rest of the week, I will be home Friday as I'm going to be working all Saturday. It's a good thing as I will probably be tired after the Soup Studios session on Thursday, more so from the schlepping on public transport with the camera than the work, which will of course be fun.
By partially complete coincidence, World War II stealthy shooter Sniper Elite V2 will be arriving on my doorstep that very same Friday morning. Any gamers reading this tried it yet? I must have played the demo about 30 times. I cannot wait to get stuck into this bastard. As a reward for getting footage uploaded and more work on the Houdini videos of course.
I have to say Friday can't come soon enough! After a day of shooting Nazis in the face and some primo time in the editors chair, Dee and I will get our feet up and hopefully get our teeth into Caprica. We totally nerded out this Easter on the entirety of the re-imagining of Battlestar Galactica. I know I'm late to the party, but it was tremendous! We want more!
I hope you're all having an excellent Wednesday. Thanks for reading and I hope you're gearing up for a nice long weekend!
Sunday, 18 March 2012
The Pink Room - by Houdini/Frau Pouch @ The Urban Bar
Here's another vid from the recent David Lynch night at The Urban Bar Whitechapel. This is members of Houdini and Frau Pouch playing music from the Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me soundtrack.
If you're familiar with Twin Peaks you might recognise the music from The Pink Room at The Roadhouse.
Got more from this set to come.
Tuesday, 13 March 2012
Recording studio shoot with Frau Pouch and Houdini
Found myself the recipient of an offer I could not refuse yesterday.
Houdini and Frau Pouch are recording a split single next Monday at Soup Studio in Limehouse, East London. They had plans to film the occasion but for whatever reason the plans fell through. Greg from Houdini contacted me and asked if I would be interested and/or available to join them in the recording studio and capture the session on video.
I agonised over it for about five minutes, I had already used so much of my leave allowance doing projects just this month, and I need to ration my days off carefully. But this is exactly the kind of thing I want to be doing so it really was a no-brainer. I emailed my line manager, requested the leave and told Greg that I would be there with bells on. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, money is tight, so I had to ask Greg if he would be able to cover the cost of transport and tapes. I've never asked before, and it won't be a lot, but it's money I'd otherwise be losing on every shoot.
Houdini and Frau Pouch will be recording two songs each over an 8 hour day at the studio. They'll be recording in the live room, so they'll perform as a full band rather than going into soundproof booths and recording tracks separately. I'll be there to get footage of them in the live room and just hanging about in general. I also want to see if I can get some talking head segments. I'll probably bring along my consumer camcorder as well as the Canon XL1S, the battery is running really short but I can plug it into the mains and still use it.
I don't think I've mentioned it on the blog before but I used to play bass in a band called The Contortionists several years back. Joe from Frau Pouch was our guitarist. We used to gig quite a bit around London and it's great to meet bands from our day who are still going strong. Managed to see the ever-impressive Yokozuna (I really must video those guys soon) at the Urban Bar in Whitechapel recently, a venue that I'm growing to like more and more. I also fired off an email to a band we shared bills with a few years back called Silent Front, I don't know if they'll remember me but I've offered my services for one of their upcoming Camden shows. Be good to get more experience and get myself out there. Plus they are fucking good!
There's a lot about being in a band that I miss, especially playing live but I think I'm better at taping shows than I ever was at playing bass (I'm not very good at taping shows so you can only imagine how unmusical I was). I get to relive it a little whenever I film a gig, I get a buzz! It's not too late to get back into being in a band of course, but sadly I sold all my gear about a year ago, times were tough and I didn't have much of an option if I wanted to make the rent. It actually came to that. I'm sad that it's all gone, but I was never much of a musician. But I feel a really strong connection to working with video. I think this is more... me. But working with musicians and filming live shows, I'm getting the best of both worlds. It makes me happy.
Houdini and Frau Pouch are recording a split single next Monday at Soup Studio in Limehouse, East London. They had plans to film the occasion but for whatever reason the plans fell through. Greg from Houdini contacted me and asked if I would be interested and/or available to join them in the recording studio and capture the session on video.
I agonised over it for about five minutes, I had already used so much of my leave allowance doing projects just this month, and I need to ration my days off carefully. But this is exactly the kind of thing I want to be doing so it really was a no-brainer. I emailed my line manager, requested the leave and told Greg that I would be there with bells on. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, money is tight, so I had to ask Greg if he would be able to cover the cost of transport and tapes. I've never asked before, and it won't be a lot, but it's money I'd otherwise be losing on every shoot.
Houdini and Frau Pouch will be recording two songs each over an 8 hour day at the studio. They'll be recording in the live room, so they'll perform as a full band rather than going into soundproof booths and recording tracks separately. I'll be there to get footage of them in the live room and just hanging about in general. I also want to see if I can get some talking head segments. I'll probably bring along my consumer camcorder as well as the Canon XL1S, the battery is running really short but I can plug it into the mains and still use it.
I don't think I've mentioned it on the blog before but I used to play bass in a band called The Contortionists several years back. Joe from Frau Pouch was our guitarist. We used to gig quite a bit around London and it's great to meet bands from our day who are still going strong. Managed to see the ever-impressive Yokozuna (I really must video those guys soon) at the Urban Bar in Whitechapel recently, a venue that I'm growing to like more and more. I also fired off an email to a band we shared bills with a few years back called Silent Front, I don't know if they'll remember me but I've offered my services for one of their upcoming Camden shows. Be good to get more experience and get myself out there. Plus they are fucking good!
There's a lot about being in a band that I miss, especially playing live but I think I'm better at taping shows than I ever was at playing bass (I'm not very good at taping shows so you can only imagine how unmusical I was). I get to relive it a little whenever I film a gig, I get a buzz! It's not too late to get back into being in a band of course, but sadly I sold all my gear about a year ago, times were tough and I didn't have much of an option if I wanted to make the rent. It actually came to that. I'm sad that it's all gone, but I was never much of a musician. But I feel a really strong connection to working with video. I think this is more... me. But working with musicians and filming live shows, I'm getting the best of both worlds. It makes me happy.
Tuesday, 6 March 2012
The story behind the video - taping Frau Pouch at the Urban Bar
Last Friday the Urban Bar in Whitechapel was playing host to Frau Pouch and the excellent Houdini, on a David Lynch theme night. This means outrageous costumes by band and audience, bizarre props and a Badalamenti soundtrack between the bands. It's a small gig run by decent promoters (Motherboy and Double Edge Scissor) who are in it for the music and not the money, who make sure the bands get paid every penny that comes through the door. Good people, good bands.
I've wanted to shoot a video with Houdini for a while, we even got into talks about doing a proper music video together but the London-Medway distance was too much of a hurdle. I decided to take this opportunity to tape them in their element. It would be great practice and I would get to give two of my favourite bands the gift of some live gig footage. Even better if that footage looked a little bit fucked up because the frontman is dressed as the sodden corpse of a raped and murdered prom queen wrapped in plastic.
Last time I shot Frau Pouch live I used my Canon XL1S and two minidv camcorders held by two gracious volunteers. As the band was a three piece I assigned each cameraperson to a band member and then spliced the footage together afterwards. This time I had no volunteers so I had to set my two side-arm camcorders (one mine, one borrowed from the ever-gracious Greg Houdini) as static cameras while I used my main camera to get the interesting shots.
Initially I had trouble finding a safe place to set up two camcorders so I got mighty Macguyvery and gaffer taped my mini tripod to my lightweight camcorder tripod (the heavyweight tripod for my XL1S stayed at home) so that I could stand the tall tripod in one corner and have two cameras pointing in different directions, one for the band, one for the audience. I was pretty pleased with myself. The set up worked, but then the band relocated their stage position and a large space behind the band appeared. I knew that a better camera position had just presented itself so using my house keys (I must be better prepared next time) I sawed through the gaffer tape and peeled my contraption apart while trying to stay clear of the stage re-organisation. I set up the tall tripod behind the band, looking down over the drumkit and out into the audience. I set the mini tripod out to one side to capture the band side-on. This camera was in the audience area on an unused wooden chair, which would normally make me nervous but the venue was run by good people and I knew more than half the audience personally. Some of my closest friends were stood in the vicinity of the mini tripod so I wasn't too worried.
While these two static cams recorded constant footage I would use my main camera to get close-ups and more dynamic shots from multiple positions around the venue, so I would have a choice of three angles to splice together during editing.
The venue was small and didn't use a PA, except for vocals. The drums were unamplified and the guitar/bass audio came solely from the amps (often in larger venues the sound engineer would put microphones on the drums and amplifiers and control the sound from the sound-desk). This simple set up meant I didn't have to worry about annoying a sound engineer or knocking carefully placed mics over as I set up my tripods. I asked Joe to give me a two minute warning before they started so I could run around and turn on all the cameras. He graciously did.
Frau Pouch opened the night with a great set. Greg from Houdini played guest bass on the first track. Joe was dressed as the Log Lady from Twin Peaks, Greg as the washed-up corpse of Laura Palmer, Suzanne as Audrey Horne. After the first song Greg hopped off the stage and full time Pouch bassist Jim took over. I moved around the audience and the stage and got as many good angles as I could. Unfortunately my side-on camcorder died halfway through their set which was was my own fault for leaving the viewing screen on. I wanted to be able to see the footage when standing near the camera and I had no idea it would drain the fully charged battery so quickly, I guess it must be getting old. This left me with only two angles to assemble the rest of the set from.
Sadly Houdini were down a member, but Greg was still playing the slot that evening, assisted by Joe from Frau Pouch and Matt (brother of Houdini drummer Tom) on percussive duties. They played a medley of Lynch music from various TV shows and movies. I captured their set with the two remaining cams.
I packed my gear, speed-drank a beer, got the penultimate train home from the venue around midnight withand went straight to bed. Poompf.
I worked on editing the footage over the last few days. As I mentioned one camcorder only caught half the set before dying. Sadly the first few minutes of another camcorder were scrambled. But the main camera looked good. It was dark at the venue, with not much lighting, but rather than boost the gain while taping (which I did for the previous Frau Pouch vid, with grainy results) I decided to leave the settings unboosted and have a better looking image, even if it was dark. For focus I set the camera to autofocus, knowing that both myself and the subject would be in motion and that lighting would be scarce. The autofocus may not always be perfect but it will work quicker than I can, and everything I'm filming is live, not staged, so I won't get another shot. For the video mix during editing, I used the main camera footage wherever possible, substituting it with camcorder footage whenever I was moving around.
The audio was not captured professionally but was a composite of all three cameras. It sounded pretty good, not crystal clear but it captured the live feel of the sound and the overwhelming volume pretty well. The main camera was balanced for the volume level, the other two camcorders (which have no such controls) were predictably overloaded. But layered together, it sounded good. The vocals get a little lost in the mix sadly.
Visually I feel the video is an improvement of the New Cross taping, even though a few things didn't go to plan, it still came out okay. The footage from the Canon ended up looking really great, better than before. I'm glad I didn't boost the signal with gain otherwise it would have been washed out and grainy.
Still need to finish the second part of the video, which is Greg's set. I think I'll also take one song from the Frau Pouch video (which covers the whole set) and put that up on youtube as a stand-alone video. People don't always want to watch a 22 minute full set, they want to hear their favourite song.
All in all, looking forward to doing more live recording. I'm really happy with how it all went.
Thanks for reading!
I've wanted to shoot a video with Houdini for a while, we even got into talks about doing a proper music video together but the London-Medway distance was too much of a hurdle. I decided to take this opportunity to tape them in their element. It would be great practice and I would get to give two of my favourite bands the gift of some live gig footage. Even better if that footage looked a little bit fucked up because the frontman is dressed as the sodden corpse of a raped and murdered prom queen wrapped in plastic.
Last time I shot Frau Pouch live I used my Canon XL1S and two minidv camcorders held by two gracious volunteers. As the band was a three piece I assigned each cameraperson to a band member and then spliced the footage together afterwards. This time I had no volunteers so I had to set my two side-arm camcorders (one mine, one borrowed from the ever-gracious Greg Houdini) as static cameras while I used my main camera to get the interesting shots.
Initially I had trouble finding a safe place to set up two camcorders so I got mighty Macguyvery and gaffer taped my mini tripod to my lightweight camcorder tripod (the heavyweight tripod for my XL1S stayed at home) so that I could stand the tall tripod in one corner and have two cameras pointing in different directions, one for the band, one for the audience. I was pretty pleased with myself. The set up worked, but then the band relocated their stage position and a large space behind the band appeared. I knew that a better camera position had just presented itself so using my house keys (I must be better prepared next time) I sawed through the gaffer tape and peeled my contraption apart while trying to stay clear of the stage re-organisation. I set up the tall tripod behind the band, looking down over the drumkit and out into the audience. I set the mini tripod out to one side to capture the band side-on. This camera was in the audience area on an unused wooden chair, which would normally make me nervous but the venue was run by good people and I knew more than half the audience personally. Some of my closest friends were stood in the vicinity of the mini tripod so I wasn't too worried.
While these two static cams recorded constant footage I would use my main camera to get close-ups and more dynamic shots from multiple positions around the venue, so I would have a choice of three angles to splice together during editing.
The venue was small and didn't use a PA, except for vocals. The drums were unamplified and the guitar/bass audio came solely from the amps (often in larger venues the sound engineer would put microphones on the drums and amplifiers and control the sound from the sound-desk). This simple set up meant I didn't have to worry about annoying a sound engineer or knocking carefully placed mics over as I set up my tripods. I asked Joe to give me a two minute warning before they started so I could run around and turn on all the cameras. He graciously did.
Frau Pouch opened the night with a great set. Greg from Houdini played guest bass on the first track. Joe was dressed as the Log Lady from Twin Peaks, Greg as the washed-up corpse of Laura Palmer, Suzanne as Audrey Horne. After the first song Greg hopped off the stage and full time Pouch bassist Jim took over. I moved around the audience and the stage and got as many good angles as I could. Unfortunately my side-on camcorder died halfway through their set which was was my own fault for leaving the viewing screen on. I wanted to be able to see the footage when standing near the camera and I had no idea it would drain the fully charged battery so quickly, I guess it must be getting old. This left me with only two angles to assemble the rest of the set from.
Sadly Houdini were down a member, but Greg was still playing the slot that evening, assisted by Joe from Frau Pouch and Matt (brother of Houdini drummer Tom) on percussive duties. They played a medley of Lynch music from various TV shows and movies. I captured their set with the two remaining cams.
I packed my gear, speed-drank a beer, got the penultimate train home from the venue around midnight withand went straight to bed. Poompf.
----
I worked on editing the footage over the last few days. As I mentioned one camcorder only caught half the set before dying. Sadly the first few minutes of another camcorder were scrambled. But the main camera looked good. It was dark at the venue, with not much lighting, but rather than boost the gain while taping (which I did for the previous Frau Pouch vid, with grainy results) I decided to leave the settings unboosted and have a better looking image, even if it was dark. For focus I set the camera to autofocus, knowing that both myself and the subject would be in motion and that lighting would be scarce. The autofocus may not always be perfect but it will work quicker than I can, and everything I'm filming is live, not staged, so I won't get another shot. For the video mix during editing, I used the main camera footage wherever possible, substituting it with camcorder footage whenever I was moving around.
The audio was not captured professionally but was a composite of all three cameras. It sounded pretty good, not crystal clear but it captured the live feel of the sound and the overwhelming volume pretty well. The main camera was balanced for the volume level, the other two camcorders (which have no such controls) were predictably overloaded. But layered together, it sounded good. The vocals get a little lost in the mix sadly.
Visually I feel the video is an improvement of the New Cross taping, even though a few things didn't go to plan, it still came out okay. The footage from the Canon ended up looking really great, better than before. I'm glad I didn't boost the signal with gain otherwise it would have been washed out and grainy.
Still need to finish the second part of the video, which is Greg's set. I think I'll also take one song from the Frau Pouch video (which covers the whole set) and put that up on youtube as a stand-alone video. People don't always want to watch a 22 minute full set, they want to hear their favourite song.
All in all, looking forward to doing more live recording. I'm really happy with how it all went.
Thanks for reading!
Monday, 12 September 2011
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!
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!
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