Angie

Six months ago James Mountford and I got together to shoot the lovely Angie for the visuals for TRNSSTR (I wrote about this some time ago). Angie’s slow and snakey movements go really well with the fast and roaring beats of TRNSSTR, however they go even better with the deep and slow sounds of Orbital’s soundtrack to Octane (♫), as both image and sound move in harmony at the same pace.

So tonight I finished off this quick edit which I started a couple of days ago…

…and tomorrow I get back to proper work: a second holding page for Skunk Anansie will be going up and I’ll also be logging the rushes for the next episode of REBELRAVE!

I’m also looking forward to visiting Japan with Damian Lazarus this Thursday, where he/we will be performing in Nagoya, Tokyo (Womb) and Osaka.

Angie is represented by Bookings, you can find her details here. She also has a blog.

11 May 2009 01:24
Experimental Fashion Video

Damian Lazarus talks about his album

Marko Perendija, who is becoming more and more involved in the hardcore work force that is the Laz Machine, put together this little promo for Damian. The dodgy camera work is my own, and while Marko did a great job of putting the issue to me as politely as possible, he just got on with a nice piece of editing.

We just dug up a few episodes of REBELRAVE and used some footage from the visuals we made for Damian, which is the first time we’ve shown any of it online. Quite happy to see LazWabit in there too!

The track is called “Lullabies” and is taken from Damian’s album “Smoke The Monster Out”

7 May 2009 17:05
Documentary Promo Video

Damian Lazarus: Neverending

Damian appears to be gloriously taking over my portfolio in a way that would put my other clients to shame – yes, shame on you! In December last year he asked me to produce the official music video for his single “Neverending”. As exciting as this may sound to some people, I found that once again I had taken on more than I could handle, with close to no experience in the field.

So once again Marko Perendija came to the rescue and got the project rolling by calling up his friend Vanessa Whyte, a young and talented DoP. She popped round the next day and by the end of the evening we had an idea that we sent off to Damian. From that point on things moved very quickly, and a crew of very clever people suddenly took shape.

Vanessa took on the role of directing the video, and did an impressive job at carrying the project from start to finish. I enjoyed playing around with some effects towards the last stages of the project, whilst Marko churned away at grading over 300 different cuts.

6 May 2009 20:15
Music Video Video

Damian Lazarus live @ SXSW 09

The past 10 days have been a much welcomed change of scenery for me. As I write now I’m sitting on Damian’s sofa, looking out from Echo Park onto the valley and hills of Hollywood. I arrived here primarily to film the next REBELRAVE episode, dedicated to the Droog boys and their new label, Culprit, but also to “vj” for Damian’s first show of his world tour. Read my previous post to know more about how I’m involved in this.

My time here has been full of stories to write about, and I’ve kept my close friends and family posted with essay-length extracts (according to Anna) of my daily happenings: the days spent in Damian’s studio rehearsing, flying to Texas for SXSW, staying at the “Bunker” (Droog’s villa in Hollywood), gawping at the views from the rooftop of the Standard Hotel in Downtown LA (check the mind-blowing photos from the party here), laying on the beach in Santa Monica, thrift shopping in Melrose Avenue, and tomorrow flying to Miami for the third and final leg of this trip. But I’ll delve no further than this list, and in fact I’ll keep this blog post short and sweet, and hope you enjoy the video: Damian Lazarus live at La Zona Rosa, SXSW, 18th March 2009.

The visuals were made by myself with an enormous helping hand from my friend Marko Perendja, who spent many sleepless nights and days at my side as we filmed and edited all of the content. Without him this project wouldn’t have turned out the way it has.

As Pete Tong says on Beatportal:
“By the end of the set everyone in the room was mesmerised, not only by the mad K-hole visuals but also by this unique and engaging character who looked uncannily like Fagin in Oliver Twist, mumbling, sometimes screaming into the mic (on an awkward 6” stand) over dubby dark and minimal techno beats. It rocked. Full marks for having the balls to do something original.”

25 March 2009 06:27
Live Visuals Promo Video

The Laz Wabit

Damian Lazarus’ debut album “Smoke the Monster Out” is coming out in a couple of months. To promote this release, Damian will be performing at some of the biggest clubs around the world over the next few months, starting in a couple of weeks where he will be playing at SXSW in Austin, Texas.

I’ve been producing the visuals for his show, which will also see me VJing alongside him. I’ll have to go into more detail about this at some other time, as right now I’m racing against time to get the content ready before I go to L.A. next Saturday.

So while you anxiously wait for me to write my next post about this, you can rest your eyes on Laz Wabit, who will be one of the creatures entertaining thousands of clubbers around the globe.

7 March 2009 22:36
Live Visuals Video

RebelRave #6

Six months ago I started this blog as an excuse to kill 10 hours’ waiting time at Stansted airport: I had just missed my flight to Barcelona where I was meant to spend the day with Dinky shooting a story about her for a future RebelRave episode. My next flight left us no time to film any interviews during the day, in fact as I landed in Barcelona I was driven to the hotel, then to the restaurant, then to the club, all within the space of an hour.

I felt relieved that Dinky didn’t throw anything at me when she saw me, as she had been up from the crack of dawn to fly in from Berlin. As a matter of fact she was rather forgiving and managed to make me feel better about the whole situation – she’s very nice, you must know.

Liquid is a fantastic club, I would love to go there again and would recommend it to anyone. It’s on the bottom edge of a hill on the west side of Barcelona, with a large outdoor swimming pool. Swimming pools and clubs usually don’t go well together from what I can gather, having witnessed the nauseating happenings at the Aquarium (Old Street, London), but the setting at Liquid was a small tropical paradise in comparison, and I often fought off the urge to jump in. Dancing awkwardly with camera in hand to the sounds of my favourite DJs on the side of a pool surrounded by palm trees and a starry sky is something I often look back on, especially when, like now, I happen to be staring out from my studio window onto a dark, gloomy and wet East London street.

Gosh, as usual there’s a lot to tell and I’d probably end up writing pages of all the endevours to produce this episode, so I’ll stop right here and move right onto mentioning the people who helped:
-Anna did a fine job at presenting the show for a second time.
-Her parts were filmed by my brother Adam on his big camera. Apart from its size I know nothing about it: it’s got big lenses, big tapes, a big bag. It’s also very heavy. It was really good to get his expert help on this, you’ll most probably notice the difference in filming quality!
-The photos taken at Stink are by Rob Low, who also does the press photos for Damian and other DJs on the label.

The next episode will be an exciting one, for which I shall be spending a couple of weeks in LA with Damian following part of the tour promoting his debut album. I’m also very excited to announce that I shall be producing the visuals for this tour, which will see him playing live at the best clubs around the world.

8 February 2009 20:24
Documentary REBELRAVE Video

TRNSSTR go live

A couple of months ago I wrote something about scary visuals, and posted a bizarre video of myself wrapped in clingfilm. The long and short of it was this: Smokin Jo had asked me to produce some visuals for her latest (and very exciting) live performance project, TRNSSTR.

And so the story goes on…

With the invaluable help and experience of James Mountford, we organized a shoot with Angie (thank you Angie and Bookings Models!) which was filmed in slow motion on a Sony EX1. Just after a couple of weeks of preparation we were all ready for the first gig, to be performed at Redlight!

It was the first time I had mixed visuals in public like this (and it was only a month before that I had started practicing), so to say that I was nervous whilst sipping green tea backstage doesn’t really paint the picture very well – but the green tea bit is accurate. Even though this was not a massive venue, and small visual mistakes would probably go unnoticed, I just couldn’t control my heart trying to jump down into my stomach. Luckily for me it didn’t, and before I knew it I was on the stage, in my booth, with my laptop and his friends all ready to go.

I really would have loved to be in the crowd to enjoy the whole event. It went perfectly.

In this video James and I make a rare public appearance. James’ one is probably less fabulous than mine, but important nonetheless. So keep your eyes peeled for his skinny legs and my really nice t-shirt.

I need to make an edit of the visuals by themselves, so I hope to be posting that up here some day soon.

For more info on TRNSSTR visit smokinjo.com/trnsstr.

12 January 2009 03:44
Documentary Promo Video

The Lost Rave (REBELRAVE #2)

Shortly after editing REBELRAVE #2 back in February 2008 I was struck yet again by my usual and almost predictable luck: the external hard-drive I saved it on suddenly stopped responding (not to be confused with the time when my laptop died some time after), and I was left with nothing but a low-quality version I had uploaded for the Crosstown Rebels to preview. So we had no choice but to use that for the Rebel newsletter (rebelrave.tv didn’t exist at the time). And when rebelrave.tv went live I simply skipped this episode, to the confusion of many visitors.

However today, after 11 months, I came across a folder on another drive which I had simpy forgotten about. It contained a good quality export of the video. Not perfect, but good enough to go up on .tv!

My friend and housemate Robbie is featured in the intro. Illustrations are by Martin Wollerstam.
This episode sees Damian Lazarus playing at Goa in Madrid. There I met Anja Schneider, Shinedoe, Pan-Pot, and Exercise One.

11 January 2009 23:56
Documentary REBELRAVE Video

Weren’t visuals meant to be scary?

Smokin Jo and her new project, TRNSSTR, are going to be performing live over the next few months, starting towards the end of December. So she asked me if I fancied doing some visuals for the event, and I immediately said yes.

I’ve been doing the odd bits of visuals for small parties here and there, using a mixture of “static” animations and physics-based graphics (all in Flash). But for this event I really wanted to use some real footage, especially as I have access to an EX1 camera through my brothers’ production company, which is a lot nicer than the camera I usually use (FX1). It has a variable framerate that can capture between 1 and 60 fps, which means that you can do some nice slow-motion stuff, and it also gives you the option of changing the lens, which gives the footage a real filmic look, losing a lot of digital traces..

So the other day, on my 1-hour break from a Flash project for Orange, I wrapped myself in clingfilm and set-up the camera (maybe it wasn’t in that order), with the help of brother #1.

We agreed that the clingfilm wasn’t right, and that if shown to a crowd of [temporarily] mentally and emotionally fragile people, would have been the perfect way to empty the venue – as well as crushing the poor souls of those who happened to be there.

However the lighting and the feel is just perfect for what I imagined, so based on this idea we’re going to shoot it again next week, with the help of my friend James who knows a bit more about lighting and styling than I do. I’ll be behind the camera this time. And Jo’s hidden the clingfilm.

22 November 2008 00:25
Experimental Live Visuals Video

Rebelrave 5

REBELRAVE is always wrapped in drama, and this episode has been no exception. This was meant to be released a couple of months ago (or maybe more), but my computer’s hard-drive suddenly died just a few days away from the video being released. The files for this episode had disappeared, but miraculously made it back without a scratch, thanks to the help of a bunch of crazy technicians with white frizzly hair who live in a tiny basement of Spitalfields. You can read more about this story here

This episode of REBELRAVE has a slightly more developed format than the other episodes. We have been wanting to upgrade the format into something more cultural and a bit more appealing to people who aren’t necessarily techno-heads.

One of the additions to the format is that we now have a presenter, who also happens to be my girlfriend (what are the chances?), Anna Bosworth. Having a presenter gives the video a new dimension, and gives me a lot more to play with both when filming and when editing. There is now a story.

Another new element is that we don’t just focus on the club experience. From this episode you will see an interview with Seth, and a quick chat with the illustrator behind the Crosstown Rebel record sleeve designs.

To celebrate the new format I have launched REBELRAVE.TV, which will be the portal for all our films.

Hope you enjoy.

6 November 2008 15:28
Documentary REBELRAVE Video

Here’s something you can do with a projector, a web cam and Quartz Composer.

As well as featuring Seth Troxler and the party in Paris, the 5th episode of REBELRAVE will also show an interview with a Japanese illustrator called Saeko, who didn’t want to be shown in the video.

I had to think of a way of showing her answering Anna’s questions, without letting the viewer recognize her face.
My initial idea was to get Saeko to film herself with a webcam, whose feed got projected onto a wall where Anna was standing. The outcome was pretty impressive (a huge image of Saeko’s face projected next to Anna), but I still needed to conceal the projected face.
It was at that point, when looking for live webcam effects, that I came across Quartz Composer, which is an amazing tool that lets you manipulate the video feed from your webcam.

I added some halftone effects to the video feed, after which I found out that I could also grab the information sent by the microphone. So triggered by the volume of the input audio I made the halftone effect increase and decrease.. The result got me jumping up and down in my bed: as usual it was something like 4am, and this is the sort of thing I do when I can’t sleep..

So now I had managed to achieve a fairly cool way of showing Saeko’s face, with the projection effect throbbing up and down depending on when she spoke.

Here’s some screenshots:
screenshots

After being satisfied with all of this, I looked down the list of options in Quartz Composer to see what other goodies it may contain: mouse, keyboard and MIDI control! Perfect! I could now insert videos and images over Saeko’s face while she gave her interview, LIVE! No post production needed.
For example when she spoke about Damian Lazarus, I triggered a short video loop of him to flicker on. I also used this so she could talk about specific pieces of her work.

Here’s a screenshot of how the file looked like in Quartz Composer’s… hot!!!!

15 August 2008 05:28
Experimental REBELRAVE Video

I need to start saving out-takes

Well, now that REBELRAVE is taking its first steps into adolescence with its very own hot presenter (Anna Bosworth) and new format, I’ve decided it’s a good time to start saving clips that I can’t use in the final product.

It’s my second day on the edit of episode 5, which is the one that features Seth Troxler in Paris, and I’ve just come across a really funny scene that I can’t just throw away. We went to meet Seth at Sety’s top-floor apartment in the heart of Paris to film his interview. He was really intrigued by my name and kept saying it in full because he liked the sound of it, so here’s one of those times:

15 August 2008 01:07
Documentary REBELRAVE Video

Could a not-so-good start to a trip be a good start for a blog?

It’s been a few months that I’ve been trying to start up this blog, but I was never really happy with my [numerous] attempts of opening it up in a spectacular and fabulous way.

I’ve now given up on that, as I find myself in a not so spectacular nor fabulous situation. Which may bloody well be my golden opportunity to get this blog rolling. Let’s see!

Today is Sunday 10th of August, my mother’s birthday, and I should have landed in Barcelona about an hour ago to meet Crosstown Rebels’ female talent, Dinky. She’s going to be playing at Liquid tonight, along with Damian Lazarus and Pier Bucci, and I was meant to film the event, for the 6th episode of REBEL RAVE.

Instead I missed the flight by exactly two minutes, thanks to the brilliantly thought out Easyjet check-in queuing system. This was at 6 AM. My next flight is at 6 PM. So I’ve been sitting around on uncomfortable chairs for a few hours now, and it’s only just occurred to me that I can only laugh about the situation, especially after what I went through to prepare for the trip.

I don’t know how this happened really, but last night my friends and I decided to catch James Holden and Richie Hawtin at FieldDay festival, a great idea at the time! But I spent the whole evening with the niggling thought that I needed to get to bed early, as I would be waking up at 4:30 the following morning. The niggling eventually became stress and finally panic, when I nervously fell asleep at 3AM, after fighting the double-vision whilst preparing the equipment. Nonetheless I was up on time and got to the airport well in advance. Which brings us back to the beginning of this post and to the present.

I’ve just spoken to Damian about it, I think it’s a bit disappointing for everyone because Dinky and I were flying in early specifically to do a feature of her in some of the cool parts of Barcelona. I feel really bad for her especially, she’s had to get on to a flight at the crack of dawn for no reason at all…

Anyway, I’ve now managed to check in and sit on less uncomfortable seats, and I have been thinking of how we could do a piece with Dinky after dinner and before her set, or more importantly, where. I wanted to film in La Rambla, but it’s a bit out of the way from both the hotel and the club.

I’ve also arranged with a girl who works for Liquid to try to lead a conversation with Dinky for the camera, which should turn out to be quite interesting!

10 August 2008 13:17
REBELRAVE