Work

Today I went to film some friends playing a gig by the lakeside in Nyon and it was a great occasion. The sun was shining, the air temperature was good and many people that I had not seen in many years were present. The shoot involved two cameras. One was at the back as a safety shot whilst I got the fun camera at the front. There was one electric guitar, one acoustic, and one bass. There was also a drum kit and a synthesizer.  The music was good but I forgot my hearing protection so I had a slight ringing by the end of the event… all in a day’s work. I managed to get the whole concert filmed without getting tired which is great. I’ve been using the camera I used for the past 7 years so it’s normal I’m so comfortable with it. I watched the footage and I’m happy with it. It’s good, a nice variety of shots, switches at the right moment from the key instrument to the next. Bart Simpson was sitting on the drum kit and then got to dance with a girl who was meant to sing, the only problem is the sound engineer didn’t make her mic loud enough. It’s normal since they didn’t take enough time to prepare everything before having the gig go live. I’ve captured all the video footage and it’s ready to be compressed and uploaded to Facebook. I’ve actually annoyed them and got a “You recently uploaded a video to Facebook, and it could not be processed because it was too long.” message. hehe, that’s normal for me. I’m uploading those videos to the video section of my website and they’ll be available on the RSS feed within the next few days. I need to count about two hours of processing per video clip unfortunately. With the Macbookpro I’m waiting for it should be faster. Today was in some respects a perfect day and I’d like more of them to be like this.

Today I passed an order through the online apple store and within a number of weeks I should get one of the top of the range machines and I’m really looking forward to it. The Ram isn’t maxed out but that’s because I’m going to upgrade that from an other distributor from whom I can get it cheaper. I’m also getting final cut studio 2 and that should be a great convenience for learning how to use all the software I need for professional purposes. I’m impatient for it now but it’s going to take time to come so I have to be patient… need to find something to distract me for a period. I’ve had an editing system at home which started with Adobe premiere 4.5 and the miro dc30+ and a hi8 camera, upgraded to a PC7 camera for a trip to Tanzania in 2000. That’s when I was editing on the DHR 1000 editing deck where I learned a great deal about tape to tape editing. From there I upgraded to Premiere 5.0, 5.1 and on before giving up on Windows editing. In 2003-4 I upgraded to the Ibook with FCP which worked far better than anticipated. Now I’m waiting for my most recent editing system. Over the years I’ve seen a great change in equipment and the price. As I was at school working on Hi8 it took several years before I was able to edit the footage I had shot. Editing systems could cost thirty thousand swiss francs per BetaSP decks. Now it’s gone down in price and people get a nice home setup. I’m looking forward to it.

For the past hour or more, I’ve been listening to music and working on my dissertation and I’ve just hit 9500 words on my dissertation (disso as it’s affectionately referred to) and it feels great. I’m so happy that I have two weeks in which to proofread, re-write, and improve what I’ve written. It’s the first time in my life that I finish the writing part of my assignment two weeks earlier than the deadline. I’m not crying victory yet (french expression: mieux vaut ne pas crier victoire), after all, I’d expect myself to do at least another ten to fifteen hours of re-writing. I still have to format the references properly and look for video captures that can help illustrate my points so that the layout earns extra points. Reading this post you’d be led to believe that I take this work seriously, and the truth is I do. I started it last summer when I came back to London looking for work. I applied to at least twenty jobs without luck and as I was growing demoralised I dropped by the library when no one else was there and borrowed as many books as I thought I could carry without a surtax on the plane. Over the summer I worked through over twenty chapters about film theory and created a documentary over 50 pages long and 25,000 words in depth. I also watched hundreds of hours of documentaries. Aside from the website, it’s the biggest project I’ve ever taken on. I hope I do well.

One of the best things about being a student is that you can work on projects without having to feel bad about not making any money. In particular, I’m thinking of the dissertation. It’s a point where you’ve got ten thousand words to write about subjects you love. As you’ve got to do so much research you’ve got a reason to buy tens of books and DVDs and watch them, enjoying every minute and taking the occasional note. As you progress and you start writing you’re there, being your own boss. You develop your structure and you see what you’ve achieved. You think about what is already said and what else must be written. You write it down, re-write it. You find there’s some information missing so you’ve got an excuse to get sidetrack to look for some in-depth material about that. You come back to the original text and you’ve just added 200 words. paf. Done, great. My project has progressed ;). Of course, the more time you give yourself the more fun the project will be. If you give yourself ten weeks then you’ve got lots of time so it’ll be lots of fun because you can sidetrack all the time. if you’ve got 6 weeks you’re under pressure but not quite in the same way. If you’ve got four weeks you may have to be very disciplined. If you’ve got two weeks then forget about sleep, about friends, about sunshine and everything else. You’ve got to plod along and distractions will destroy your chances. Anyway, I want to get the writing part done by the beginning of April so that I have four weeks to edit. Editing can be quite amusing when you’ve got time. Enough procrastinating, time to go back for five minutes before the next distraction comes along

Yesterday afternoon I received a phone call from some post grad students asking whether I could go and film the football game they were covering. It was between westminster uni city FC and another club whose name I don’t think I heard. It’s the first football game I cover so it was an experience. It was in a smallish club an the crowd was quite small. I set up in the home and away section of the stands and filmed people running from one end to the other many times over. It’s a shame I didn’t have one of the better cameras to use because the video footage would have been better. Still it was an experience. This summer had meant that I saw a lot of football matches. It meant I knew what shots to frame up. What actions to look for. The award ceremony was the more interesting bit to film because it saw me on the field with the teams making sure to get the shot of people receiving their awards. Too bad our team was not the victorious one.

When you fly a lot you get used to the antics of airport security. Sometimes you see people get angry and flustered by their stuff being searched. Sometimes I’ve felt that way as well. Today was amusing. My bag went through the x ray machine and since it was so full of books dvd and more they wanted to look inside. No one else was passing through at the time so I joked about how they had to keep busy. One of them joked about having to find something to confiscate to keep himself entertained. Shame I had nothing of interest. I chatted about the DVD in my bag and about a series related to the first one and it was generaly quite friendly. Hey, when you’ve flown five times in two months you’re bound to be more relaxed about certain aspects, especially when you’re in no rush because you gave yourself enough time.

I love working on my own projects, where I rely on no one but myself but occasionally I’m lucky enough to have no choice but to work with other people. It’s at these moments that I learn more. I learn about team scheduling and teamwork. I also learn about delegation. I’m not that good at it yet but I’m learning. Anyone working as a producer or director needs to learn that job and some are better than others. The recent myspace and Magician audition projects I worked on saw some good producers in charge. As a result, the project was good. Recently I’ve had to be a co-producer with someone else and I was asked what jobs still had to be done and I had to think about it before I could delegate the responsibility. I finally found some methods of delegating responsibility, therefore, I’ll have more material to choose from when it comes to editing. The project has to be finished by Monday because Tuesday I’ll be back in London with a three thousand word essay on technological determinism to hand in. On the Monday following that I have a presentation on digital content. I’ve been thinking about that concept and I think I’ll be able to produce a good product.

I’ve spent around twelve hours editing today and it’s finally getting to resemble something, as I’d like it to be. It’s involved two days of video capture of a variety of material from a number of events around Europe in particular. It’s starting to be a good edit. Any creative person will tell you that the hardest part of the work is not the work itself but finding the inspiration and finding how to tell the story the most efficiently. If I understood the brief correctly then the edit I’ve done should be well accepted. I should find out by tomorrow morning normally. I love the editing phase because it’s one of the more creative phases. You’ve got all the material and it’s a matter of sifting through it, finding the best and then applying it to the finished product. If I get good feedback then I’m looking forward to tomorrow.

How many people have the ability to walk out in front of a crowd of hundreds and a televisual audience of several thousand? I don’t think that many, especially not with the confidence of this young girl. If I understood her correctly her name is Johanna and she is from Romania. I was watching the footage of the Youth Eurovision song contest and when she came on stage I was surprised by the strength of character she displayed at such a young age. Of course, other people were on stage afterward to help with the show. I’ve only watched small fragments of the show but it’s amusing to see young people perform. They have such ease and freedom.

I was at the Roxy bar a few days ago in central London and people were cheering. They had just seen the proper version of the Rag week trailer and they loved it. I had been asked to shoot some material and edit other material for Thursday evening when the rag review took place. I went to two or three of the events. I went to the school disco night and it was great fun, between people dancing, others being hit by the death squad and others just being really friendly it was a really good night. I met a lot of friendly people and there’s such a contrast to my own university. When media students see a camera they’re going to be so angry at you for filming, being to used to being behind they don’t appreciate it as much. I must admit that I feel the same way. One individual that marked me is a girl that was on crutches who wanted to dance for the camera. there wasn’t quite enough light so we don’t see as much as would make the video great fun but it’s still entertaining. I was on a platform and three girls came to join. Sandstorm was playing so I had to dance, in memoriam of when I was a fresher back in the South West of England. A girl took the camera from me and I danced for her so I’m going to have to include that footage in the edit as a good laugh. Moonragger had a different feel to it, partly because I was tired from the previous night. Some people needed to look futuristic and whilst some took aluminum foil and wrapped it around others took cling film. One person was in a spacesuit but I didn’t manage to get that on tape. Lot’s of people danced, lot’s of people enjoyed the night. One attractive girl told me to “f*** off with the camera” so I moved away and filmed more people. She came back and told me to f*** of again. It’s to be expected but what people haven’t understood is that I film movement, I film when something interesting is in front of the camera. Turn your back to the camera or stop dancing and I’ll understand you’re self-conscious therefore the camera will stop rolling. There’s no point in filming people standing around. I went to sit down and had some nice moments with people I had only briefly seen in the past. As a guest to the university, I really liked the way people were friendly and open. They want to chat, they want to be filmed, they enjoy the camera and appreciate my company. It’s so refreshing. I’m going to add the video within the next few days for people to enjoy.