Suzuki Bandit 1250 / Bye-Bye
Now: I’ve never anthropomorphised a machine in my life. And I’m not about to start now.These things are milled, forged, pressed and constructed out of materials. Anyone who calls a machine ‘He’ or ‘She’ probably needs to w**k more. Anyway. It’s farewell to my Bandit 1250 this week. 60,000 miles, no breakdowns, lots of punctures, heaps of speed and fun. In many ways it’s a mundane, utilitarian machine but deserves admiration for the basic, reliable engineering that’s gone into it. Plus the fuel injection is just luvverly. When I bought it, I was cash strapped and needed a bike to do…Everything…From 600 miles/week commuting, to hooning around at the weekend and 5000 mile tours of Europe. It did all of them and never attracted any attention from either the Dibble or undesirables with staffordshire terriers and a Red Bull dependency. Great bike. Recommended.
Am I sad to see it go? Not really. It’s only a bike after all. Although…I always felt it went better after a polish 🙂
Tasha Blackmore / Nothing Compares / Vegas Demo
And so we wake. Yawning from the slumber of Ichabod Crane, in other words…Blog re-booted and you won’t believe the stuff in store. As a sweet taster, here’s Tasha Blackmore and a demo of ‘Nothing Compares’ written, performed and filmed in a Vegas hotel room in around, er, 12 hours.
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Don’t Leave Me / Tasha Blackmore – Video Production Notes
Here’s a very sweet and beautiful song by Tasha Blackmore – “Don’t Leave Me”. This was filmed in November last year and from what I seem to remember a lot of chocolate was consumed on the day of the shoot. It helps relax the vocal cords so I understand. One day I’ll have to treat everyone to my John Cooper-Clarke impression. It’s like he’s in the room. No, really.
The original idea of the shoot was just to do a simple one camera, live take of Tasha performing the song, but then it seemed like a good idea to get some different angles and shots but sync’d up to the vocal take we had already in the bag. I think it worked quite well.
Production Notes:
Camera : BlackMagic Cinema Camera (EF Mount)
Format/Codec: ProRes 422 HQ
Lenses : Canon F2.8 24-70L & Canon TS-E 24L
Lighting : Dedo Lights
Mics : SE Electronics 2200 (Vox) & Rode NTG-4 (Guitar)
Sound Capture : Via a Canon XF100 (didn’t use the video)
Mix : Not my expertise at all but I think I added a little bit of compression & reverb
Playback : Through the living room hi-fi
NLE : FCP 7 & graded in MB Looks
Dust : M-Dust plugin
All in all it came out very nicely and for once no-one got wet feet, hypothermia or dysentry. Result!
Hyperspace / gasmask platforms and eggtimer / @JasonKyrone
Hyperspace may refer to:
In fiction:
- Hyperspace (science fiction), a concept that makes faster-than-light travel possible
- In the video game Spacewar!, “entering hyperspace” instantaneously moves the spaceship to a random place on the screen
In technology:
- Internet, the World Wide Web
In mathematics:
- Hyperspace (topology), a topological space whose elements are subsets of another topological space
- higher dimensions including Kaluza-Klein‘s 4-dimensional space and Superstring theory‘s 9-dimensional space and Supergravity‘s 10-dimensional space
- n-dimensional space, the original meaning of the word hyperspace, common in late nineteenth century British books
- Non-Euclidean space; see non-Euclidean geometry
In music:
- An exciting song from an exciting musician – featuring a gas mask, some very nice shoes and yes, an egg timer. Such are the tools we need. Production notes to follow shortly, but in the meantime, enjoy and play loud.
A bell, a cabin, a location
In the ceaseless search for glamorous music video locations, we investigated this place recently. It’s lush and in a prime location. And the roof is good. Anyway, we liked it so much we made a little video of it. Quite why there was a little glass bell on the window sill I have no idea. Thoughts of “The Blair Witch” project were going through my head as I tramped my way around, however, luckily, I wasn’t forced to stand in the corner although I will admit my nose did run a little. What a place though. So, if any musicians would like to shoot a music video here – let me know. A full health and safety has been performed 🙂
IC-double me and you / production notes / @joeshendry @topclasskennedy
Shortly before Christmas we were engaged by two fellows – “Local Hero” Joe Hendry & “Agent to the Stars” James R. Kennedy to produce a music video for a song about Insane Championship Wrestling called “IC double-me and you”. Having a lifelong fear of burly men I can’t say it was top of the list of my priorities given it was a few days before Christmas (when buying M&S discounted Prosecco obviously is) however…When the song was sent over the night before the shoot it was plain that it was a hit and it was important to be involved. I can truthfully say there was no threat of legal action from Mr Kennedy. The shoot itself was quite easy – although keeping back the hordes of inquisitive onlookers & autograph hunters did prove troublesome – still that’s the price of fame I guess.
Production Notes:
– Storyboard & Shot list : Prepared at Starbucks 20 minutes before the shoot
– Shooting time : Around three hours
– Cameras : Blackmagic Cinema Camera, GoPro Hero 3 (slo-mo) & Canon 5DII (wide-angle)
– Lens : Canon 24-70, 70-200 & 17-40
– Edited in : Final cut Pro (around 3 hours)
– Graded : Magic Bullet Looks
– VFX : Dust ‘n’ snow by M-Dust
– Locations : Edinburgh, Calton Hill, Waverley Station & a bar at the back of the station
– Titles & compositing (as in above) : Motion 4
All in all the video came out rather well. Here it is – enjoy!
La sociĂ©tĂ© tout entière repose sur l’industrie / I couldn’t have said it better myself
We’ve been here before, but it can handle repeated viewing. Fayl-Billot / France. And it couldn’t possibly be more French. Fingers crossed it’s still around next year.
“Last December” the video / By Tasha Blackmore – Now released! @Tashabmusic @BlackMagic_Cine
As promised, here’s the latest video from Tasha Blackmore : “Last December”. Shot on a remarkably cold day in just over three hours, in a somewhat inaccessible place within the legendary kingdom of Northumbria….It turned out rather nice! Mixing and sound magic from Iain Petrie, great performance, song and vocals from Tasha. Thanks to Colleen for make-up and hair curling (Tasha’s, not mine) and the lovely folk over at Blackmagic Design in Australia who developed, delivered and produced the quite incredible Blackmagic Cinema Camera. Gentlemen…You have opened my eyes.
Other stuff: The light leak effect is nothing more than me waving a sparkler in front of the lens, while the odd bits of subtle movement were created using a Glidetrack Shooter. As always everything was edited in Final Cut Pro 7, graded in Magic Bullet looks with a tiny bit in DaVinci Resolve. Anything else? Oh a top handle for the BMCC from Zacuto and a Tiffen variable ND. In some ways we didn’t get all the footage I originally intended as A) It was freezing and B) Some eagles with their own paparazzi arrived! Not to worry though – we pulled it off. So here we go:
“Despair” | Bram Knol : Over a year in the making / 5 astounding minutes
Feeling very lucky to have had a sneak preview of “Despair” – a short film that has been produced, directed, designed, edited & written….By Bram Knol. He’s probably done a load of other things also, but there’s not enough room in this blog to list them all….Designed as an addition to Bram’s portfolio to help him get  an internship at the Weta Workshop the film is to have it’s premiere shortly – once available publicly I’ll post the link here. What’s it like? Through the use of colour & incredibly designed costumes the like of which I haven’t seen before and which seem at the same time, completely authentic, it transports us to another place, time and space. All the costumes were designed & produced by Bram – and once you see them they inhabit your dreams and thoughts for a long, long time. Here’s a taste.
We’ve been here before but…
In July 1968, I was 14 months old and probably doing something unspeakable in a nappy. Meanwhile, over in Fayl-Billot and the Mecanique Generale, Â someone was doing a roaring trade in either car repairs or television sales. That’s 45 years ago. 45 years later I’m wandering around the increasingly crumbling and derelict garage and find the ‘Caisse’ lying on the ground outside a broken window. Being in France of course, the temptation is to go all Proust like – but unfortunately, my first exposure to Proust was Monty Python’s ‘Summarising Proust Competition’ so I’ve never been able to take “Remembrance of things past” seriously. But look at this still from the video – July 1968 M.Fernand 30FF, M.Raymond 40FF and this particular sales ledger was full on every page and went up to 1975….It’s a piece of ordinary history. Of ordinary people, working hard – but no less wonderful for it. History just isn’t made from the stuff of the extraordinary.
In 40 years from now, what kind of physical ordinary history is going to be left lying on a damp windowsill in provincial France, or indeed anywhere ? Me, I do my accounts on a spreadsheet. I type everything, so that even if I were hand-scribing my ledgers, they would actually, be illegible.
There’s a real connection to the people who created this ledger. A human connection seen in the firm stroke of the pen and the flourish on the capital letters. The age of the document is both palpable and visceral. This isn’t about nostalgia, it’s about a very beautiful old building, going through it’s final death throes and knowing once, that it was thriving and lively with shouts and the smell of Gauloises & coffee. I suspect in the next year or two the building will be no more as it’s decline has accelerated over the last year, so here is, what maybe, it’s last video epitaph.
