Bullet Time Rig

...shh. We're still hush hush about the secret project.

However I can reveal that I built a bullet time rig for it. I don't think I'm going to use it for this particular project after all but I'm sure it will come in useful in the future.


If anyone is interested in how I made this I might put up a how to guide.

Secret Project

Well, I've got a new project on the way, TBA just after the turn of 2014. I'm not going to say too much just give two mini teasers for you to enjoy.

Teaser 1:



Teaser 2:

Blissfields 2013

Congratulations to the whole blissfield’s team who pulled of yet another fantastic year of fun and frivolities.

This year's lineup had some stonkers in it but none moreso than public service broadcasting. This fantastic outfit perform live soundtracking (which I already love) to CC licensed visuals provided by footage from the internet archive (which is very clever). You should give them a listen and watch here.

This was particularly interesting to me as I’d accidentally ended up installing and running live visuals at the Elysium Lounge at Blissfields. Though the team has run the fire area and chillout system in the past this was the first year we had attempted projections. As such there was a massive amount of material that we needed for the VJs but not a lot of time to produce it. So the idea of creative commons licensed material became very important.

Much like public service announcement I started with historical footage found on the internet archive. This is a wonderful resource for visuals featuring old broadcast films that have fallen out of copyright and some slightly bigger names such as night of the living dead that simply messed up their licence ages ago. Check out the archive here.

This was all very well and good, but it does take an age to cut into something meaningful and useable. Also vintage B&W film stock has certain connotations in itself setting aside the content of films like duck and cover. We really wanted something a bit more geometric and colourful. Thank god for Beeple.

Beeple or Mike Winkleman is a video artist whose previous work includes videos for the like of flying lotus produced for Warp. Very generously he’s put a lot of his visuals available for free online along with the cinema 4d files used to create them. I thoroughly recommend that you check them out as they are amazing.

Inspired by Beeple I’m doing the same in return. I produced 2 original ten minute ambient loops for the overnight chillout show state. These are now available and CC licenced for people to do what they like with.

Mandelbrot variation:


Visualisation - Mandelbrot from Corin Evans-Pritchard on Vimeo.

Shattered glass:

Visualisation - Shattered Glass from Corin Evans-Pritchard on Vimeo.

Share and share alike people,

Enjoy.

The Collector (Trailer)

I've just completed my first ever full 3D animation called the collector.

"The collector is a dark and lonely figure who hates light and music. So great is his hatred that he has stolen the stars from the night sky so that the world is without the light of music of the heavens.

As yet another helpless star is captured and imprisoned in the collector’s larder we join the stars as they are suspended in jars from the ceiling. Even through the dull glass each glows with a soft incandenscene and hums a sad lonely note.

The newest addition to this gallery or lights discovers through longing motion that he can strike his glass prison against his neighbour to free him. In doing so this becomes the story of the stars and their escape."

I did this project in Maya which was a mighty step learning curve. As such the project is a trailer more than a completed piece. If there is enough interest in the long run I hope to get around to telling the full story one day.

An Ordinary Life

I’ve designed the sound for a short film called An Ordinary Life directed by Lorne Guy of GoodGuys Productions. This isn’t the first piece we’ve done together, in the past I designed the sound for a short entered into the parallel lines competition called Arklight:

This film however is very different in nature and deals with real human issues. Serco approached Lorne to commission a film that explored themes of care and the realities of the life of carers. The film tells three interwoven stories of those affected.

An Ordinary Life from Lorne Guy on Vimeo.

It’s very interesting the difference in working on these two shorts. Obviously with arklight as a fantasy we could go a little more outlandish, creating the sound of the spaceship from jet planes and seismographs. In an ordinary life we were a lot more subtle reinforcing the location recordings with subtle Foley or little sonic character points to steer attention and stress vulnerability.

Lorne was good enough to contribute his voice for some slightly heavier breathing for Bill’s character while I provided the wheezing. Being unhealthy does have it’s uses.

I really enjoyed working with Lorne on this project and hope to carry on this dynamic on other projects.

PD150 Training Series

I’ve produced a short training series on the Sony PD150 camera for Winchester university over summer. Don’t know your shutter speed from your frame rate? Wondering why camera operators are obsessed with zebras? Perhaps this could be just the thing.

Regardless of whether you own a PD150, something better or something worse the videos are designed to painlessly introduce you to the concepts inside all cameras and are broken into bitesize chunks.

Video 1:
Unless you’re a student at Winchester University an introduction to how to book kit is probably worth skipping this one.

Video 2:
Any cameraman worth his salt should know how to efficiently set up a tripod. This is demonstrated here with a libec TH650DV.

Video 3:
An introduction to the basic functions of the DV cameras such as powering the camera, different camera modes and where camera video outputs are.

Video 4:
The simplest functions camera framing are discussed… Zooming and Focusing

Video 5:An operator must know how to adjust the light levels of their camera and the reference changes to set them correctly. Key controls for doing so (iris, gain, shutter speed, ND filters and zebra) are all explained.

Video 6:
Good images mean nothing without good sound. Here I explain how to go about basic mic recording on the Sony range

Video 7:
A little bit of information about timecode, tape and recording formats

Masz

Masz is a forthcoming project that I have been working as on as 1^st AD, cameraman and editor for Yvon Bonenfant. We’d previously worked together on packaging his wonderful show Beacons into a trailer for producers.

Masz is a tribute to Diamanda Galás’ incredible work, Plague Mass, premiered at the MIX 2011 Queer Experimental Film Festival in New York City on Nov. 19th, 2011. Yvon is now circulating the final version of the work to festivals. I’ll list a link as soon as it has done it’s rounds.

For now here are some lovely stills to excite you: