Today I saw some seagulls and I attempted to film them on my cheap digital camera that I usually take snaps with. The footage contains some really interesting digital distortion whenever the sun would come into shot so I immediately snapped it up, stretched it out, crushed it , graded it, cut it up, messed with it, duped it, fiddled with it, shook it about, zapped it, cracked it, flickered it, exported it, and uploaded it.

…and blogged it.

Here’s some photos I took at the time.

On a separate note, I’m trying to slowly merge all my work that I post on this blog into a more practical page, so for now I’ve set up a Vimeo Channel where you can subscribe.

This is quite an interesting period, partially because of my relocation to New York, but mostly because of the fact that three days after arriving I got mugged in broad daylight in the middle of peaceful Williamsburg. I got hit in the face by something which felt like a bat, this broke my zygomatic arch (cheekbone: from eye socket to jaw, from ear to nose) which needed to be fixed up with some surgery.

This was a week ago. A day after being discharged I was already on Skype with Mr Lazarus discussing (under the effects of some hardcore morphine) RebelRave’s next big step: The REBELRAVE U.S. Tour.

Here’s a small promo I made for it, for more info go to rebelrave.tv/us-tour-2010

This tour is going to be special: 26 dates across the country with Damian Lazarus, Jamie Jones, Seth Troxler and Deniz Kurtel. I’ll be filming parts of the tour which will be featured in REBELRAVE #9, and also I’ll be producing the visuals, which actually I need to get onto right now as there are only 2 weeks left until the first date at Pacha New York.

The U.S. tour will then carry on in Europe in April for a second phase, which again I’ll be filming for episode #10!

I am so excited about this because I have finally had the chance to collaborate properly with James Mountford on a commissioned film.

James and I go quite a while back, right back to my teenage years in Rome. While I delved into the nerdy world of web and programming, I felt little connection to his own work even though it always fascinated and inspired me. But this year has been the year where I have taken a new direction with things by leaving Flash behind and entering a new world of video, and James’ photography has really inspired me to work with him on fashion-based concepts, bringing his stark style into video form.

So after trying things out together on simple videos like Angie and Lydia K, we often spoke about making something a bit more substantial. And coincidentally Wonderland Magazine asked him if he wanted to make a fashion film for them, which he involved me into to collaborate with.

We developed the idea of a live projection feed, featuring two characters on two different film sets, one set being projected onto the other in real time. The concept was to use light and shadow from one set to hide and reveal parts of the other set, which opened up a mind-boggling combination of different options, the variables being the background and character colours of each set, in different combinations with each other.

Soon enough we had found our two stars: Nick Cave’s son Jethro Cave and his girlfriend Sophie Willing. Finding a couple was perfect: our two film sets were to be opposite each other so that the characters could interact with each other across the studio, so the fact that they actually had a special connection was the icing on the cake.

So here is a story about afterlife.

(if the image link doesn’t work you can find the video directly here)

The makeup is by the fabulous Adam de Cruz and the hair by Ben Mohapi, both from Punishment.
A big thank you goes to Way Perry from Wonderland Magazine for making all of this possible.

Oh and here’s a video I shot on my phone that might give you a better idea of how this was set up.

With the end of the year approaching I’ve had to push a little extra to wrap up any outstanding work before my life gets turned upside down in four weeks. First on the list is Lydia K.

Marko Perendija and I were asked by Mark Knight to produce some visuals to back him over the course of his world tour. So with the help of James Mountford we put together a shoot with dancer/model Lydia.

For the purposes of the visuals we actually processed the footage in such a way to make Lydia barely recognizable: the photographic elements were stripped down to become rather graphical, as opposed to photo-realistic, which is in fact more suited for club-visuals.

We delivered these visuals quite some time ago now, and it felt like a bit of a waste to have all this footage crushed down to an unrecognizable pulp of shapes and colours, so I thought of making something else out of it. So here is a short promo dedicated to Lydia as she worked so hard for us and had so much patience under those hot lights.

The amazing sounds are by a talented duo from Rome who make disturbingly good experimental/electronic music. Their unreleased album “Platforms” is played on repeat during my every night shift in the studio. They are called Plaster (plastersounds.com | facebook).

Thanks also go to Holly Silius for the hair and makeup, and to Bayo @ The Eye Casting for finding Lydia!
And of course to my buddies Marko Perendija and James Mountford (blog | portfolio), who nowadays I find extremely hard to work without.

Here’s a short extract from the visuals I’ve been making with Marko Perendija for Mark Knight.
Not much to write about this right now as I’m running low on time, however more details on this project will be posted up here, together with a dedicated promo for Lydia K who did an amazing job at performing for our camera.

DOP: James Mountford
Model: Lydia K (link on its way!)
Hair and Makeup: Holly Silius
The rest: Marko Perendija and myself

An enormous thank you goes to Bayo @ The Eye Casting for putting us in touch with Lydia.

Getting the chance to fly to New York for another REBELRAVE episode earlier this year turned out to be a life changing experience in a weird way. I came back to London with a hunger for drastic changes, and New York was the gateway that could make that happen. Six months have gone since then, and lots has happened on the personal side of things, but most importantly I am in possession of a one-way ticket to the USA which I’ll be making use of on the 7th of January 2010. Exciting? Yes.

So I went to New York for the 8th installment of REBELRAVE to document the happenings in and around the “Wolf+Lamb” crew: their magical parties have become something of a myth, set in their extremely cosy home/studio/party-venue/pseudo-hotel. Zev and Gadi from W+L were really excited about me filming and made sure we got everything covered, with the help of Lee Curtiss who surprised everyone with his Blind-Date host skills.

A whole day’s filming interviews with the various W+L members was followed by a 18 hour party, which speedily moved through the deep hours of the night into a hot summer’s day, sun rays streaking through the sky light, filling the dance floor (the living room) with an incredible energy. I’ve attended quite a few after-parties and this was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. I came away inspired, the kind of inspiration you feel when waking up after an amazing dream.

So editing the footage just brought all those feelings back. Seeing what these guys do is a real inspiration to me: their Burning Man projects, Deniz Kurtel’s art and music, their Black Label, the Marcy Hotel, their unforgettable parties, all the artists on their label. Finding a way to tell this whole story has been an impossible task to fit in a 10 minute video, so unfortunately you’ll only get a taster of some of what Wolf+Lamb is about, but hopefully you can get the general picture!

Go see this on rebelrave.tv (contains tracks info and links to buy)

A few weeks ago Matthew Dear gave me the opportunity to make a promo video for his latest world tour, Hecatomb. The show sees him performing live as Audion, playing an intense and mesmerizing selection of his releases, old and new.

The music is backed by a set of generative visuals that he controls using a touch screen interface. The concept behind the visuals ties in with the rest of Audion’s artwork (check the record sleeves at the bottom of audion.me), a modern twist on psychedelic shapes and patterns generating within perfectly contained circles.

This particular video was shot at Fabric in London during the last show of Audion’s European tour.

The other week I went to Fabric to film a short promo for Matthew Dear for his Audion show. My friend Robbie came with me to help me out, and while we hung out backstage we decided to film some extra bits.

In other news:
-RebelRave #8 is nearly finished and I’m feeling more excited about it than most other episodes. It features the magical place that is the Marcy Hotel, home of Wolf+Lamb in New York.
-I shall be starting the Audion promo this week.
-Today I have found my new desk space and will be relocating in two weeks’ time, into the studio of Bunch, which actually happens to be next door to my current studio, so I won’t be missing out from Pret A Manger’s occasional free coffees.

A few weeks ago my friend James was taking pictures for Anastasia Kollakis, an up and coming jewelry designer from Greece. During a break he decided to film the model for a few minutes using a small digital camera, thinking that the footage would be good to create a test promo for Anastasia.

So with a few tweaks and some extreme time-stretching this is what we came up with.

The bubble has popped and I’m back in the real world: REBELRAVE #7 is out. Probably the most significant episode so far for me, as it has really affected me on different levels in combination with Damian’s world tour (read about that here), and an overload of other work. Well, I say I’m now back in the real world, but that’s not really accurate as it’s now 8AM and I’ve just been working solid for the past 20 hours!

Once again, there’s just so much to write about this as it’s a very convoluted story, so because I don’t have much time on my hands I’m going to keep this one short. The only thing I’d say about this episode is that it’s the first of a two-part series; the second part features a very special crew in New York who I went to film a few weeks ago, but this edit will only come into my schedule in the next few weeks. Again, this is going to be a very special episode, which will also feature a short personal take on dinosaur documentary-making.

Many thanks to the lovely Anna once again for doing a great job at being in front of the camera, and to Marko and for his help and advice on the postproduction, and to all the guys in LA! A special thanks goes to Red Earth Studio (my brothers’ production company where I rent my desk) for the huge support.

Moving on in the latest news headlines, things to expect in the next few weeks are the launch of the Skunk Anansie website (finally!), some visuals for Mark Knight, a video promo for a really cool hair stylist, and finally a music video for a hot new band!