NEW WEBSITE!

Hey everyone, just wanted to let you know that I’ve got a brand spanking new swish website that you can now visit and see all my most recent work! Check it out at http://toddmacdonaldmedia.com/

 

On Loop – Shooting People and Pond5 short film competition

On Loop from Todd MacDonald on Vimeo.

‘On Loop’ depicts life as an adventure where every generation searches for the same hidden treasures. The film cycles through snapshots from historical archive footage to show that although our lives are fraught with uncertainty and setback, we must not be afraid to persevere in the pursuit of our dreams. In truth, we may never find the treasures we seek, as there is always more to strive for. But this cannot subdue our spirit, curiosity and drive to improve during this short time we are alive. No matter our dream or discipline, the desire to succeed remains the same.

All footage provided by the Public Domain section of Pond5 (pond5.com)

‘On Loop’ is my entry to the Shooting People (shootingpeople.org) & Pond5 ‘Journeys and Hidden Treasures‘ competition.

London to Brighton – Veteran Car Run 2014

Last November I travelled on the Veteran Car Run from London to Brighton in a car that was over a hundred years old. I travelled in a 1903 Maxim – the only known survivor of a small production of 37 cars and built by the London General Automotive Company.

The journey was a totally unique experience travelling along the just under 60 mile route. The Maxim only had a top speed of roughly 20mph and so the ride took us about five hours.

It was difficult to comprehend that there are still even as many as 500 cars made in 1905 or earlier still capable of driving this run. Each one of them extraordinary examples of early motoring engineering.

I’ll never forget weaving in and out of the traffic in London as part of some kind of veteran boy racers’ convoy, jumping red lights just to keep the engine going!

I made this film as a reminder of the day for the car’s owner Ian Strang who has done the run for many years. I hope to join him again next year.

To find out more about the run visit: http://www.veterancarrun.com/home

Georgina Strang – Making Colour

Georgina Strang – Making Colour from Todd MacDonald on Vimeo.

Highlighting the simple process of the making of colour, this project aimed to explore the intricacies in the creation of a coloured cloth via weaving techniques. Through the alteration and manipulation of colour quantities through the weft of a jacquard loom, the subtle differences in the final cloth’s sections are highlighted by the delicate shifts in the use of thread.

The project observed the whole process; from the dying of yarns to the blending and subtraction of colour through the yarns woven through the warp. From a distance, a beautiful gradation in colour can be seen in the fabric, but on close up inspection, a network of finely interwoven colour can be seen. The selvage of the fabric has been left to act as a code; an understanding of what has constructed this piece.

The concept is currently being developed into a collection of throws to be made available for the home.

Winterfalle – Deadbeat (Official Video)

Deadbeat has been a while in the making but we have had a lot of fun creating it. Following on from Winterfalle‘s first single video ‘I Know‘, we wanted to create something that was very different in style and challenge ourselves to go about things in a very different way. Shooting in Jersey once again during both the summer and winter months, what we have made is a video that captures the sense of isolation and insular emotion of the music and pairs that with the beauty and picturesque aesthetic that Jersey offers. I’ll be posting another Music Video Making Of post about this video very soon. For now though, I hope you like it as much as I did making it.

Winterfalle – Deadbeat from Todd MacDonald on Vimeo.

Music Video Making Of: Winterfalle – I Know

Winterfalle – I Know from Todd MacDonald on Vimeo.

Background

Towards the end of 2012, my good friend Sam Falle took it upon himself to venture into the singer/songwriter arena as Winterfalle. Having come from a background of playing in bands, taking to the stage as a solo act was a daunting but exciting new challenge for him to embrace. I was delighted when he asked me if I would be interested in helping visualise the world he wanted to create by setting his music to video. As a filmmaker, at this point, my work on promos had been limited and I was eager to get my teeth into developing that side of my portfolio. As luck would have it, I’d end up doing this with someone whose music I loved and had already enjoyed a longterm friendship with. Sam has big plans for the visual side of the Winterfalle project and we both wanted the video for the first single to be a clear statement of those ambitions.

Concept

In early 2013, the first Winterfalle recording ‘I Know’ came out of Sam’s bedroom studio. The initial ideas for the music video were abundant. We let our imaginations run wild for some time before we were able to calm down and focus on a simple concept. At the drawing board stage, you can get lost while birthing  ideas and lose sight of the job that the video is actually supposed to be doing.

‘I Know’ is about the darker side of being young and carefree. It raises questions about that feeling of invincibility we had at a time in our lives when we were perhaps at our most vulnerable. As twenty-somethings now looking back on that time, it is a struggle to recall it with fondness; instead it is recollected with a recognition of our past wrecklessness and naivety. Even so, we still idealise those moments. We look back through a rose-tinted lens, likely because that past cycle of late night binges has now been replaced by a tedious monotony of pubbing, clubbing and living for the weekend.

We wanted the ‘I Know’ music video to be a reaction to our dissatisfaction with young adult nightlife. We decided to stage the sort of night we’d have had before legal lashes and extortionate door prices and return to a time of simpler amusements when all that mattered was where you were and who you were with. Or, at least, we set out to repeat how we wanted to remember those days. The end result is a music video which is designed to create a tension between the narrative in its imagery and the narrative of the lyrics.

Location

We chose to shoot the ‘I Know’ music video back home in the Island of Jersey. This is where we grew up after all. We know it well and could use several public spaces without incurring high location fees or going through complicated location agreements. Also, we knew that the aesthetic qualities of this unique and beautiful place had huge potential for the video.

We got a group of us together in a car and over the course of one night, travelled to a series of locations and comprehensively documented what we did. Elements of the journey would be planned in order to take advantage of the locations whereas others would be left to chance. I wanted to maintain a sense of spontaneity about the evening so that events could play out in the same way they would have done had we not been filming.

Shooting Style

We used DSLRs, GoPros and iPhones which I encouraged each of us to use over the course of the night. I wanted all of us to take part in the actual filming itself in order to make things look as realistic as possible rather than solely relying on shooting everything in a cinematic way. Getting the shaky personal viewpoint shots on the phones were just as important to me as the more filmic images captured by the DSLRs. The shots on the DSLRs would provide the storytelling checkpoints of the journey whereas the iPhones would offer a different and perhaps more authentic experience of each moment. I also wanted to play with that modern social obsession people have with documenting events in  every way possible, as if preserving it digitally somehow makes a moment unforgettable. The iPhone footage would help to achieve this. Using smartphones to film an evening like this would not have been possible when we were teenagers. This led me to wonder what that time would have been like had we had access to that kind of technology back in the day.

We shot primarily on a Canon 5D Mark III and a Canon 60D. We were limited to fast zoom lenses rather than primes for the shoot although we did have a 50mm 1.8 that was used when we really needed it. Our problem was always going to be the extremely low light levels; apart from a small battery powered studio spotlight and some handy LED bars, we had to use the little natural and street lamp light available to us. The nature of our shooting wasn’t one that would allow for continually changing prime lenses either; we had to be fast and efficient. Plus, image stabilised lenses were imperative. Most of our shots were taken with the 17-55 2.8 IS on the 60D and the 24-70 2.8 on the shoulder mounted 5D. The car dashboard and bonnet were rigged with GoPro Hero 2s that took timelapse and video recordings through the night. Our phones (iPhone 4s’s) were also used at several points.

The Shoot

For the journey, we enlisted two old friends: Max Burnett (visual creative and photographer) and Ryan Crawford (dog’s body, scapegoat, comedy punchbag and all-round great guy). At sunset on 23rd February, we piled into Sam’s battered VW Polo and got the show on the road. Here’s how we scheduled the evening’s locations (click the map to see image references):

15.45 – 16.15 West Hill Car Rig

16.30 – 17.30 L’Ouziere Slipway

17.30 – 17.45 Grande Route des Mielles

18.00 – 19.00 Le Chemin de la Corbiere

19.15 – 20.15 Rue des Vignes / Jersey Airport

20.20 – 21.00 Jersey Rugby Football Club

21.15 – 22.00 The Chippy

22.30 – 23.45 Harve Des Pas

00.00 – 00.45 Mount Bingham / La Collette

00.45 – 01.15 Esplanade & Victoria Avenue

01.45 – 02.15 Queen’s Valley

02.30 – 03.30 Archirondel Beach

04.00 – 05.30 SLEEP

06.00 – 08.00 St. Catherine’s Breakwater

08.30 – 14.00 SLEEP

This was A LOT to get through in one night. But it was crucial to do it this way in order to maintain a sense of urgency and adventure. We had to rigorously stick to these timings, not least because some of the shots were time specific, for example the last hours of daylight at L’Ouziere slipway, the last plane taking off from Jersey Airport at 20.10, the turning off of the promenade lights at Harve Des Pas at 23.50 and sunrise at 6am. Keeping all of this in check AND ‘having fun’ was probably the best part about shooting this video. We were all totally committed to the cause, but couldn’t help but laugh at the chaos of it all! We were able to play fast and loose with with schedule in places, but this wouldn’t have been possible without the plan being in place to start with. It just goes to show, the better organised you are in advance, the easier you’ll be able to adapt.

Working in this breakneck way for the ‘I Know’ video sounds crazy but it made it REAL. This was the most important aspect of the video to me. As a teenager I had frequently had one of these aimless nights where we ended up doing the most random things to entertain ourselves. Re-capturing that spirit of adventure was what this video was all about.

We put the fire out on the beach at 4am and went to sleep at Sam’s house nearby for barely an hour before we needed to be up and making our way to St. Catherine’s breakwater for sunrise. OK, so maybe this is one of the not so verité unseen moments of the video. When we were 17, sure, we would have just stayed up and seen it out in one go like we have implied in the final edit. Had we not needed to concentrate so hard on making sure we achieved our shot list, maybe we wouldn’t have needed any sleep this time! Unsurprisingly, it turned out that lying down for barely an hour did nothing to help any of us so we were inevitably haggard and short-tempered by the time we climbed back into the car at 5.45am. By the time we reached St. Catherine’s Breakwater at 6am after barely one hour of sleep, we were all visibly drained of colour and energy. Our exhaustion was visually important so that the continuity of the story would be convincing.

The Next Day

Weirdly, I remained awake all day after I finally got home at 8.30am. I digitised the footage and had breakfast with my parents who reminded me how insane they thought I was for enduring freezing temperatures for so long. That night, it hit -4 degrees. The cold didn’t leave my bones for days after. Always be prepared to suffer for your art!

The Cutting Room Floor

A few of the places we visited for the ‘I Know’ shoot do not feature in the final video, most notably the Jersey Rugby Club and Queen’s Valley Reservoir. Initially I thought that intertwining some of Sam lip-synching to the track would give us good way points between locations and provide useful storytelling emphasis at key checkpoints on our smash and grab grand prix. We shot Sam doing lip sync underneath the flood lights of a rugby pitch. Half way through shooting this, we were interrupted by two very big gentlemen who were  interested in exactly what the hell we thought we were doing on their training pitch. They were quite surprised to hear that I had (of course) arranged everything with their chairman, coach and groundstaff and we were saved a potential flattening at the hands of Jersey’s No. 8 and Scrum-half. In the end though, this anecdote was all we got from this location. The desired effect of Sam standing under the flood lights simply wasn’t powerful enough. The lighting wasn’t as stark and dramatic as I hoped that it would be. Instead it was quite dull in tone and didn’t give the image half the amount of contrast and depth that I had anticipated. In fact, I even wonder how on earth the rugby team train underneath these poor excuses for floodlights!

We did two other setups where Sam was lip synching but they simply weren’t needed to shunt the story along. I still think it was absolutely right to get this material, not least because it provided us with a valuable safeguard against something not going to plan, like, for example, our stop-off at Queen’s Valley reservoir. I don’t think I’ve mentioned that this was shot on a very, very cold evening. It was 1.30am and Queen’s Valley was our next port of call. But we were drawn there by sentiment rather than logic.. This is a unlit reservoir in the middle of a valley in the countryside. I don’t think I’ll forget desperately trying to convince Sam that going there was an utter waste of time.

“It will be pitch black.” I said.

“Let’s just try it.” He said

“But it will be pitch black.” I repeated.

“I’d really really like to try it.” He pleaded.

If you ever find yourself on the hunt to find a prime example of perfect darkness, a pretty damn good place to start would be Queen’s Valley Resevoir in the Island of Jersey in the early hours of a cold winter’s night in February. We laugh about it now…

Post-production

The edit process was lengthy for several reasons. For starters, we had a 14 hour long journey shot intermittently on four cameras. More than enough (if not too much) material to be making a four minute version of events with. The video’s release also had to synchronise with Sam’s own Winterfalle launch plans. Being his debut single, all of the other release elements had to be in place before everything could go live. Sam chose to use the video to launch Winterfalle publically and to wait until the video was ready before putting out the song itself. This was a smart move in my opinion because in the nicest possible way, who on earth is going to suddenly pay loads of attention to an artist they’ve never heard of before? Speaking from my previous experiences as a musician, building an audience takes real time and effort so how best to try and engage with people from the off? Give them something to watch rather than just something to listen to.

I carefully ploughed through the material in the initial stages. At first, I was a bit overwhelmed by the task ahead simply because of the documentary style we used on the shoot. One thing that was always certain though was the idea of following the actual journey we took that night rather than trying to fabricate it. This gave us a good skeleton for the narrative. The nuances and detail of how we transitioned between each location would come with time but telling the story of each place once they had been mapped to specific moments of the track was the main focus at this stage.

I made assemblies for each of the locations. These consisted of the shots I wanted to use to tell the story of that place. I did this without bringing the track into the project at all because I knew that if I wanted to connect properly with the footage, I needed to engage with it independently of the track first. There was simply too much material to start making choices and dumping things over the track to see what worked. I needed to first discover what the most interesting footage was to me and get a solid sense of the shots that best told the story of that night. Only then did I start listening to the track again and began imagining how it mapped to the locations we visited.

Sam would periodically join me for edit sessions. Having a guide in our minds for how to map the story to the track was incredibly useful. Yes, we reworked ideas and how they transitioned between one another as we went along, but making the decision to closely follow the journey we shot that night gave me direction for what to choose from the ocean of material. I found this particularly gratifying in the knowledge that if we had chosen to spread this shoot out over a number of days, we would have gone through a much more lengthy selection process and further lengthy discussions about how to order the chronology of our activities in the cut.

Release

After almost eight months in the edit (part-time you know, I have a job) and having endured one total hard drive failure towards the end, ‘I Know’ was released on October 28th 2013 via Winterfalle’s Youtube channel. It was key to kicking off Winterfalle and Sam’s music has since appeared on BBC 6 and was featured on the front of the BBC Introducing blog over Christmas and New Year.

What now?

When I think about the scale of this video production, I am reminded of a particularly eye opening blog post by another singer songwriter, Olly Knights (also the front man of Turin Brakes). In a post called ‘The Changing Face of Music Videos’ hosted on filmmaker Philip Bloom’s site, Olly wrote about his journey making huge budget but often shambolic promos through the record label he and his band were signed to. The landscape for music videos has completely changed over the last decade. The cost of respectable production values are a fraction of what they once were and more and more often, people are being original and inspiring with freely available technology to make videos which can go viral, giving a band the break they need to get to the next level. It’s an exciting time to be making stuff with the tools we now have at our finger tips. After my experience making ‘I Know’ for Winterfalle, I have to agree with the sentiment of Olly’s post, that you really don’t need much money to fund the making of a successful promo.

My collaboration with Winterfalle is ongoing. Sam’s music provides me with a platform to continue to conceptualise and execute ambitious promo video ideas and I am very grateful for this. Do follow Winterfalle on Twitter and Facebook.

And also discover my photographer friend Max Burnett out at: http://500px.com/Maximillius

Sam and I both owe a huge debt to Max for his involvement in the project since the shooting of ‘I Know’

As we enter Spring 2014, Winterfalle’s next single ‘Deadbeat’ is rapidly approaching release. And guess what? There’s a video on its way for that too and it’s ENTIRELY different. I’ll tell you about that in a future blog.

If you haven’t yet seen the video for ‘I Know’ watch it on my Vimeo channel below:

Winterfalle – I Know from Todd MacDonald on Vimeo.

February 2014

I realise that this is much later than billed but it’s surprising how much going on a very chilled out holiday sets you back! I also realise that I’ll shortly be having to post my March photos but at least I’m keeping the ball rolling with the tradition!

Check out more photos on my flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/toddmacdmedia

January 2014

They say that January is the most depressing month of the year and I can certainly agree that once Christmas is officially over on the 6th, it seems like there is nothing imminent to look forward to. Luckily or unluckily for me, my birthday is on the 18th which offers some respite during an otherwise murky pit of weariness, grey skies and forgotten resolutions! My month in photos posts aren’t falling by the wayside though so here’s some of things I’ve seen through the lens this month.

Check out more photos on my flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/toddmacdmedia

December 2013

I spent most of this month at home in Jersey over the Christmas period. It’s a great place to get out and about with a few more scenic options than London town. Despite the chaos of Christmas, there’s an element of calm in the photos I took this month with the exception of some stormy seas! I also made a video of my family Christmas so we could remember it for years to come!

COOL YULE 2013 from Todd MacDonald on Vimeo.

Check out more photos on my flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/toddmacdmedia

November 2013

This month saw my first visit to the Natural History Museum since I was 10, several walks on Hampstead Heath, more and more and more collaboration with my good friends Tom Hyatt and Winterfalle, and some very bright autumnal sun. Too bad it’s all gone now. Check out more photos on my flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/toddmacdmedia

Gravity: A force that defies belief

Gravity must surely exhibit the most successful use of 3D technology to date. It’s weightlessness puts the viewer slap bang in the middle of the void with viewpoints that pay as little attention to which way is up as the objects that float around the characters. Long takes that start from distance and conclude in extreme close ups via seamless and somewhat unmotivated routes. As a result this gives you the impression that the camera is probably just floating around up there as well. What you gain from the visual experience of Gravity though is slightly compromised by the weaker narrative path that it moves through in a more clunky and heavy fashion. The premise is simple: get back to Earth safely. This is the task of Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bulllcok) who is on her first ever space mission. A series of illogical alleys that Stone navigates leave you slightly frustrated and in some cases despairing plus the back story feels shoe horned in to accommodate the Hollywood form. Stone’s torturous and untethered time in space is difficult to watch for the duration, particularly because you feel yourself to be untethered up there with her.

October 2013

This gallery marks a return to stills photography for me after a lengthy and unreasonable absence. The last time I uploaded a set of photos was over three years ago and despite still using a camera very often since then, I haven’t taken it as seriously as I could have. This is odd but I’ve rediscovered how much I enjoy it. Most of my snapping in recent times has been through my phone and onto my instagram. This is great because of its ease of use and that it’s so instantaneous but you can only do so much, and your shots will only look so good after a while. I have my friend Max to thank purely for invigorating me into it again. I keep all my photography on my Flickr site here. Click on one of the images to view in a fullscreen slideshow.

Sapho and Phao Production Stills

Sapho and Phao Production Stills, a set on Flickr.

Back in June I shot some production stills for an Illuminations shoot. The piece was an extract from a play by John Lyly called Sapho and Phao.

You can watch the full extract below.

Head over to shalt.org.uk to check out the full range of video resources they have available about Shakespearean London Theatres.

Videos of the Week

First up we have a video that I first watched once it won the Vimeo Awards Grand Prize in 2012. It really is one that delivers on repeat viewing and demonstrates the age old mantra that the simplest ideas are often the best. The Everynone team have a broad collection of similarly enticing videos on their website including Moments which I cannnot even begin to understand the approach to its execution. Once you start to get a feel for Everynone’s work, all of the films maintain the idea of simplicity but you begin to wonder how they all came together when the range of material required to achieve them is so vast. Truly great work.

Symmetry from Everynone on Vimeo.

Next up, Leonardo Dalessandri shows us his video postcard from Morocco. If, as his description suggests, this was made by him simply having a camera on him whilst on holiday, this is quite special. Some unbelievable cinematography here enhanced by an equally impressive edit.

Watchtower of Morocco from Leonardo Dalessandri on Vimeo.

Nothing says ‘good times’ better than the launch video for French creative influence agency Kids Love Jetlag made by Fred and Farid Group who both have very interesting websites. Kids Love Jetlag is the digital agency within the Fred and Farid Media Group based on Paris and Shanghai.

KIDS LOVE JETLAG | OPENING from Fred & Farid Group on Vimeo.

Through the Lens is a new series of videos that follows professional surfer Rob Machado as he returns to visit the people he has met throughout his career that have inspired him and shared his passion for surfing and the arts. In this episode, he spends time with San-Francisco based artist Jay Nelson and they work together in customising Rob’s van. Tyler Manson of Acne is the man behind the lens and I look forward to seeing his next instalment.

THROUGH THE LENS with Rob Machado from Through The Lens on Vimeo.

As an art form, the music video has to be one of the most open mediums to work with. I am fascinated by the creative freedom that music can give you as its visual interpretation can be so different for everyone who hears it. Alex Southam‘s own interpretation of ‘Hearts’ by Swedish indie band I Break Horses is a masterful matching of music and and visual. Although the narrative is no more than a journey, the images compliment the music perfectly and does exactly what any music video should endeavour to do, breath a new visual life into a song and take it to a further audience. You can see more of Alex Southam’s work here.

I Break Horses – Hearts from Bella Union on Vimeo.

Videos of the Week

It’s all about in-camera techniques and masking tape this week starting with some beautiful footage of London in 1927 IN COLOUR!

London in 1927 from Tim Sparke on Vimeo.

Apparently it took a whole weekend to get this next shot right. Shot and Directed by Paul Greenhouse, the video for To The River by James Wallace & the Naked Light is a very simple one but very well executed.

To The River from JWATNL on Vimeo.

I’m mad about ‘Making of’ videos and this one is a real gem. First, you need to watch the video they’re talking about here which is Wasting My Young Years by London Grammar. Also quite a simple idea but much harder to execute. The technique used in order to pull this off shows incredible ambition and dedication. A bucket of gold stars to Owen Silverwood and Dave Bullivant (Bison) who are the brains behind it all.

LONDON GRAMMAR – Wasting My Young Years – Behind The Scenes from Academy Plus (A+) on Vimeo.

Sarah DiNardo loves masking tape. She loves it so much, she makes sculpture out of it!

Sarah DiNardo. Tape Artist. from gnarly bay productions, Inc. on Vimeo.

Making these looks like it could be quite therapeutic and that seems partly why Sarah enjoys it so much. I might give it a go myself, though I doubt I’ll make anything half as interesting as her pieces!

Videos of the Week

This week I have been shooting films a lot more than watching them and as I write this, I am sitting in the cafe of The Hepworth gallery in Wakefield preparing for another. We are here to document an afternoon of performance entitled The Ultimate Form by Linder Sterling. The event promises to be an exciting collaboration of creatives including award-winning choreographer Kenneth Tindall, dancers from Northern Ballet, original composition by Stuart McCallum of The Cinematic Orchestra and costumes by fashion designer Richard Nicoll. You can watch the Illuminations trailer for The Ultimate Form here.

Anyway, I hope to one day live by a lake. Melbourne based Betty Wants In just happened to have reminded me of this fact.

By The Lake, Tasmania. from Betty Wants In on Vimeo.

More and more now, short films online seem to represent exactly what the title of this next film suggests. Fragments of Time details Daniele Manoli‘s very own personal portrait of Hong Kong shot over a period of two years. What I love about this kind of filmmaking is its strength in evoking particular feelings and sense of place. There aren’t enough outlets for this kind of work to exist and thrive in so it’s always great to come across it online and be completely taken by it.

Fragments Of Time from Daniele Manoli on Vimeo.

Daniele’s recent work includes an impressive project of short films each dedicated to a letter of the alphabet. Forget Sesame Street though this series has much more nostalgia, music, chaos, randomness, hallucinations and vomit! You can work your way through them all here, and it really is an epic journey! One of my favourites is Q.

Q from Daniele Manoli on Vimeo.

Here’s one for the pyromaniac in me.

Fire drawing from Glithero on Vimeo.

If you still haven’t been up to the top of the tallest building in the European Union then this next video should give you an idea about what you’re missing!

A View from the Shard from The Film Artist on Vimeo.

Although it’s not quite the same, it might make you think there’s now no need to go up it at all!

Videos of the Week

The long awaited new album from Bonobo emerged very recently along with the first promo for single ‘First Fires’ and I love it. Great job by Young Replicant who are also responsible for the equally impressive video ‘Chained’ by The xx which is also hosted on their site via the link above.

Bonobo – First Fires from Young Replicant on Vimeo.

Another short instalment from Lonely Leap and then I should probably leave them alone for a while for fear of them feeling web stalked! What can I say, they’re very annoyingly clever over there. This short looks at Photographer Chris Burkard directed by Jeff Taylor.

Chris Burkard – Photographer from LONELYLEAP on Vimeo.

This is quite something; when the volcanic ash cloud fiasco happened back in 2010, your first thought probably wouldn’t be to try and get over to Iceland in an attempt to capture some cinematic footage of it unfolding. Well, Sean Stiegemeier did just that. Was it worth it? Hell yes.

Iceland, Eyjafjallajökull – May 1st and 2nd, 2010 from Sean Stiegemeier on Vimeo.

This next video is via one of my regularly visited blogs, Dezeen. ‘Tweets sent to this machine are transmitted from one form of media to another and cannibalised at every stage until they emerge as distorted, printed headlines.’ (With some quite amusing results I might add.) You’ll need to watch via this link because of embed permissions.

My admiration for the work of Diego Contreras has been no secret on my blog and his latest video shows his first experiment with the much discussed Black Magic Cinema Camera.

Conyne Eylandt [BMCC Test] from Diego Contreras on Vimeo.

Lastly, if you’re at a loss as to what to do this bank holiday, why not get Lost in Manhattan with Gunther Gheeraert?

Lost in Manhattan from Gunther Gheeraert on Vimeo.

Enjoy the bank holiday.

Videos of the Week

I’ve got some gooduns this week and I even had to leave a few out of the line up for fear of overload. The five here are the best group of ones that I’ve enjoyed this week including work by Lonely Leap, Callum Cooper and Mark Bader.

First though, we go to the birthplace of John Wyver, the man behind Illuminations, to Whitstable for a seaside story about whelkman.

The Whelkman of Whitstable Harbour from Vern Cummins on Vimeo.

Callum Cooper, a Royal College of Art graduate explores the segregation of class in Britain by finely stitching together 4,000 photos of different London houses from postcode E6 to SW7. A quite remarkable device was used in order to make this film possible and you can see it all become clear here: http://bit.ly/YZldaA

Victoria, George, Edward and Thatcher from Callum Cooper on Vimeo.

Next a double whammy from New York and London based production company Lonely Leap. The first is a rather brilliant promotional video for the Music course at Goldsmiths University. This is the kind of thing that makes me wish I was still a student! You’ll need to go here to watch it though because of embedding permissions. The second is an award winning film that forms part of a three part series made about Kew Gardens. Each of the episodes are fascinating to watch and can be found within the Lonely Leap Vimeo channel here. My choice of the trio is the investigation of the Fungarium.

KEW GARDENS – Beyond the Gardens: The Fungarium from LONELYLEAP on Vimeo.

I think I’m going to start making a habit of finishing these posts with a creative process film until I have made my own to show you. This last one comes from Mark Bader about Brickett Davda Ceramics. It is just SO beautiful, that is all.

Brickett Davda Ceramics – handmade in england from Mark Bader on Vimeo.

Videos of the Week

This is only my sixth week of posting my videos of the week and I’m delighted that it is being hosted on the Illuminations blog for the first time. This week is probably the most mixed bag yet so I hope that readers from both my own site, and the Illuminations site, find something that interests them.

Kicking off for us is the news that this week New Zealand became the 13th country to legalise same-sex marriage. MP Maurice Williams delivers a very entertaining speech that underlines the bill being passed.

I got very excited by this after watching the next video. Some very clever people over at hyperlapse.tllabs.io have built a site that links with imagery from Google street view and allows you to create your own 60 frame ‘hyperlapse’ between ANY two points on Earth. This is quite a lot of fun to play around with and once you have exhausted the 60 frame limit, if you’re clever enough, the source code is available (here) for you to manipulate yourself and remove all of the limitations! Here’s one I made that moves along a stretch of road commonly known as the ‘5 mile road’ in Jersey where I grew up: http://bit.ly/XKA23e

Google Street View Hyperlapse from Teehan+Lax Labs on Vimeo.

Despite most of us consuming a large percentage of our media online now, a lot of us still enjoy having something physically in our hands to look at. For me it makes something feel more precious than just seeing it on a webpage or computer screen. This is just a fantastic idea about how to bring the variety of the digital world together in one personally curated book or portfolio by utilising an online ability to build media. A good one for future presents to people as well!

“Print-on-demand has completely changed the way we think about books” from Dezeen on Vimeo.

Here’s another one for my process video archive that I went off on one about last week. Anton Alvarez is an RCA graduate who makes furniture without joints or screws.

Thread Wrapping Machine by Anton Alvarez from Dezeen on Vimeo.

Next is my weekly film-tech-geek-fix. Everyone’s talking about 4K resolution. 4K, in it’s most basic terms is supposedly double the resolution quality of standard high-definition. 4K (4,000) refers to the number of pixels running length ways across a captured image. Standard high-definition currently outputs an image that has 1,920 pixels across and 1,080 pixels high. Commonly known as 1080p or 1080i. For high end cinema 4K will probably become standard in the next 5 years or so? However, broadcast will take much longer to adopt this kind of specification (if it even does so that is). For the kind of content we make at Illuminations, 4K isn’t worth the debate. It’s excessive to say the least, not to mention hugely expensive to shoot (the camera responsible for the footage below is currently priced at just over £90,000) and process and edit and output. There is no denying however, that it looks SERIOUSLY COOL. The video below shows the first proper footage take from the new Phantom Flex camera that is capable of shooting 4K RAW at 1000 frames per second. For anyone unsure of what that means, it is basically capable of capturing the kind of slow motion that makes you see the world in a different way and at the kind of quality that makes you appreciate being alive! (I did warn you this was a film-tech-geek-fix right?)

– First footage from the new Phantom Flex4K – “Let me know when you see Fire” from Gregory Wilson on Vimeo.

And if all that wasn’t enough to make you go mental, then this will certainly have an affect on your eyes, or brain, or both. Amazing imagery here.

Illusions (part one) from Animal on Vimeo.

Have a good weekend.

Videos of the Week

This week I’ve re-visited a well established trend of online videos that continue to emerge. They usually come from artists’ studios, graphic designers, factories and even inventors. They show the process of creation and the beauty involved in that process to illustrate and document an object coming into the world. As you will see from some of the videos below, these objects are often beautiful to look at in their own right, but somehow, being shown the means in which they were made makes them more so, or presents a different kind of intrigue and understanding that allows us to remember something more clearly and appreciate it more. This trend in videos like this have been born out of the recognition that documenting a process, an event, a story or an experience via the use of video, is of more importance than it ever has been. It was over a year ago that my girlfriend and I filmed her screen printing and it served (for a time) as a vital piece of media that allowed her to communicate to a much wider audience what it is she does. We plan on doing more of these in the run up to her final MA show with plenty of inspiration to feed from! Most recently notable for me are the Glithero studio, where everything is documented in this fashion.

Making of a Blueware Vase from Glithero on Vimeo.

Paper Planes from Glithero on Vimeo.

Last week I linked to a film called ‘The Shoemaker’ which is taken from a series by Dustin Cohen called ‘Made in Brooklyn’. Although these are more documentary like in their presentation, they are initially derived from the elegance of several traditional techniques.

The Violin Maker from Dustin Cohen on Vimeo.

‘Made by Hand’ is also a series of short films that celebrate the people who make things by hand — sustainably, locally, and with a love for their craft.

Made by Hand / No 4 The Cigar Shop from Made by Hand on Vimeo.

And lastly, two videos illustrating the power of the pen.

The Making of “Hero” from Miguel Endara on Vimeo.