Let's go see a movie

Today I got given a DVD of a film I engineered sound on a while back. It was a single day shoot involving over a dozen cast members all playing on character, one after the other.

The film "Delusions" was one of two films I did sound for that got sent off to the Cannes film festival, the other being a film called "Displacement", which was a final year film project for some film students.






















The shoot went really well, with a rigorous schedule kept to so that the younger cast members could go home at a reasonable hour, and with a good level of professionalism from the cast and crew.

Upon watching the DVD though, I despaired again at the ability of film-makers to discern quality from crap.

The sound wasn't uniform; they chose to use the sound from whichever shot was on screen, which meant on-board microphones for the other two cameras (the wide shot didn't have a microphone so that wasn't an issue.) So in one shot the sound was tinny, then another it was full and louder. There is one part where the shot changes halfway through a word and the second half is lost.
I'm not saying the sound recorded was amazing but all cameras were running at the same time so my boom audio could have been used for every shot.

Other issues included bad focus, panning, tracking, framing and some editing where it repeated a frame in the new shot.

I think i'll stick to non-video recording in the future.

The upside is that apparently BOTH films spelt my name wrong in the credits for cannes, so people won't know I worked on them if they say the sound is bad.

You learn something new everyday

During a quiet period at the forum the other day, Gilbert was playing with my camera and asked "what happens if you take take a photo with the lens off?"

This is the answer:

The forum's stage with no lens.

Now for the science bit:

The camera lens works just like the lens on our eyes, including inverting the image once it has been focused. The Photo sensor in the camera collects the parts of the image together and compiles it into a single image.

Here endeth the lesson, class dismissed!

Third Day @ The Forum, Kentish Town

Nearly every time i write something it seems to be about something i've done with Ignite, but my life isn't that interesting otherwise!

Ignite put on a gig in The Forum in Kentish Town in London, Third Day were headlining with The Sonflowerz supporting.



I had my whole morning routine planned down to what socks i was going to put on, but for some reason, which will remain a mystery to even the greatest scientiic minds, i didn't set an alarm on my phone!

Therefore, at half 7, when i was meant to be meeting Dianne at the grape and olive so she could take me to Taffs Well, I got a phone call from tim asking where i was. my reply was "not quite left yet" which actually meant "I've just opened my eyes and now frantically rummaging around for some clothes to put on!"




As I'm part of the infamous techie crew, Gary decided that I should be in charge of the bus's sat nav, so I was sat in the front of the City temple LDV minibus with Anita and Doive! Did you know Anita can drive artics?

The load in and soundcheck were uneventful for everyone apart from gilbert, who had to fight with third day crew for mixer channels and soundchecking time.

Doors opened on time and thousands of people poured into the venue, it was quite a sight from the balcony!


The Sonflowerz played six songs, with Abi Williams drumming, and the bassist alternating between bass and keyboards.

I noticed something strange with both the Sonflowerz and Third Day bass arrangement, which got the signal direct from the bass and bypassed the amps completly!

This seemed a bit strange since third day had a really nice Ampeg valve bass head with two 8x10 cabs, and the sonflowerz had my Trace stack, which had to be taken all the way across the country just to look nice!


















We arrived back in ponty at about 4 in the morning, apparently I was the only one who managed to sleep the whole night!


Here's a question, would you rather sneeze marbles or fart confetti?

Thanks to Meg for that one.

Logos hope and other boats

Yes indeed, the OM ship Logos Hope is in cardiff bay and I, along with a motley crew from ignite, went to visit and put on an event.
I didn't take on a technical role this time, i took photographs instead. Though will was pretty impressed by the versatility of the techies. "i'll just take a photo, then re-wire a microphone, then hop on guitar for a bit"
unfortunately because nearly everything was set up and it was a small venue, the techie run hardly made an appearance.

BEFORE

AFTER

oh, and the bit about the other boats was just loosely referring to gilbert's shiny van he gets to drive to london tomorrow, its a cosy ride in the passenger seat, but they've got everything they need for a pleasant journey.

Hopefully get some photos up soon of third day in concert as well soon!

And where have YOU been?!

I've been putting off updating this blog for the last few weeks because, even though i've finished uni (completely) now i've still had loads of things on. Apart from ignite Hope Local, there has been a string of get-togethers with people who are leaving dear old wales for the real world, and a few worship evenings.

Ignite Hope Local was different from last years in that the local churches took the initiative to help with local projects and needs instead of being directly co-ordinated by ignite. As part of one of the film crews (soundie!) i was able to see a lot of the work going on around the cardiff area, ranging from painting school railings to playing parachute games and football in roath park.

Car Washing in Thornhill


Litter Picking in Penarth


Gardening in Llanishen


And on the monday to round off the weekend, everyone crammed into Cardiff SU for an evening of worship, talks, and magic tricks!

Myself and another brave soul volunteered to edit together the footage from the weekend in the 3 hours leading up to the event, pure video madness is there ever was need for an example of it!
Originally we were supposed to create a DVD, with an advert from Third Day in front of the feature. The third day footage didn't work, but was going to be played from a separate source without anyone telling us! The video was completed with half an hour to spare, which gave me time to take some snaps of the night.

The storm has passed

It was amazing going into uni today and seeing the faces and moods of everyone who only yesterday were in a mix of panic and sleep deprivation. Everyone was chirpy, cheery and wanting to get the rest of the deadlines out of the way so they could get their lives back to normal!

1/3 of this years marks will be derived from a joing honours group project, whereby Music Tech, Sound Tech and Media Tech all band together in one big techy mass and work in groups to create a product or business.
my group has created a Web-based project that attempts to join together people from all walks of life in the Cardiff music scene. It is this project that we are to present to a panel of 4 lecturers and a few dozen of our classmates on tuesday.

I'm not very optimistic about our groups presentation as the meeting today wasn't as productive as we would have hoped and because of various commitments acorss the group, we aren't able to meet up again until the morning of the presentation (the presentatation is in the morning).
The next few days will be a test of communication and co-operation as each member prepares his or her part, practises it and compiles it inot one stramlined presentation that flows as if i were actaully written as a group effort! Wish me luck.

On a different note, the reason i'm busy all the next few days is because of an event called IgniteHope. I mentioned Ignite in a earlier post, Ignite like to take on projects and events to promote the good works of christians in their community. One way of showing this is to take the Hope '08 initiative and keep it going every year.
The Hope '08 initiative involved christians going out into their communitys and doing various activities including painting fences, running youth clubs, gardening, building, washing and cleaning and cooking; all for people in their community who need help or just want something done. The groups aren't paid to do this, on the contrary the delegates PAY for the privilege of painting a fence or a scout hut for three days.

As part of the IgniteHope event I'll be going round some of the sites in south wales where the projects are taking place and filming them as part of a camera crew. The projects run from Saturday to Monday, culminating in an evening celebration at Cardiff SU.

Hopefully I'll have some photos or footage of the weekend up soon, but for now here's something from a site I came across earlier which may become a favourite of mine!

Out with the old...

the date is 30th April 2009. today I hand in the last big pieces of coursework towards my university degree!
This moment has fast been approaching as i stepped into the third year what seemed like mere months earlier. The easter holidays were a blur, and virtually non-existant as the constant grind to get work done on time stole most of my social and free time.

Even thought this milestone isn't the end ( I still have one more coursework, an assignment and a presentation after this) it is a major step towards becoming an ex-student, and officially a member of mature adult society. This is a thought almost as daunting as starting a new primary school filled with people I didn't know, or going for my first job interview.

One of the things im hoping to do when i get into my "adult" life is to start earning more money through my photography company Corkboard photography. A small step has been taken and corkboard now has its own facebook page to show off some of my photos!

The world wil keep spinning and as sure as death and taxes im gonna try and keep up with it. Bring e!

Having a God time

Ignite is a charity based in South Wales thats part of a parent company called Big Ideas.
Every year Ignite put on an event called Offensive, this year it was held at Woodville Baptist Church (where tuesday's gig was held), with PG Sound providing Sound and Lighting for the event.

It was a great event, with teachings, seminars, and DOUGHNUTS!
you could really tell God was affecting people throughout the whole day, with some of the participants even giving out tracts to staff at the local chippy when they went to get lunch cos the staff asked about their name badges.

it was a long day for all the crew but it was also great fun and we all came home buzzing.






We also tried out gilberts new toy, an Orange Crush Micro, he borrowed a telecaster off a friend and the combination sounded immense!

Easter catch-up

Gad, i haven't posted in a good long while!

So much has happened in the last few months that i don't have time to go into it (the time being 1 hour and fifity minutes past St Georges day) so ill just comment on a few of the larger happenings.

There is a Haven site in north wales in the town of Pwllheli (pronounced porth-elli). This site hosts a Christian conference called New Word Alive held over the easter holodays, where all manner of christian and non-christian folk come to relax, attend seminars on important issues and generally bask in God's presence. Myself and a fellow band of travellers from all parts of the country made the epic 4 hour journey to Pwllheli in a mixture of micra, astra and rover, heaven knows how we got there at all!
The week was full of great things to do, two main meetings, seminars on modern culture, coping with teenagers, understanding islam, and much more besides. and if you weren't knackered after all that there were after hours gigs on every night, and the beach as well!
Needless to say we all had a great time (and some of us even managed to cram in some coursework time occasionally)

A more recent event was a fundraiser for my friend Gavin's year with a charity called Careforce in Bargoed. He organised a gig at which one of my bosses bands headlined. The night was a great success, and i managed to grab some shots of the night with a borrowed DSLR, thanks Dan!

Time stands still...

On my way back to Cardiff from home I stopped in at bath to visit some friends, while in town i spotted this couple having a nice spot of lunch in the street.