Experimental Promo

On Monday I was filming live-action footage for a short promo about an upcoming collaboration between myself and Edinburgh-based sound engineer Chris Bathgate.

We previously worked together on my 2009 graduation film, Pigment of Imagination, and this second project is the result of several ideas that we have since developed.

Embedded below is the 80-second Experimental Promo made from Monday's footage:



The above video should serve as a bold taster for the kind of work that we are currently developing: It is very abstract (which I'm intrigued with), however the upcoming collaboration will be a bit tamer with some kind of narrative background.

The plan now is to devise a bizarre script and shoot/edit the film before Chris creates a new song specifically for the film.

Music video: "Counting Sheep"

On Sunday afternoon I was filming a quirky music video with Glasgow-based band Randolph's Leap, who have just released their new double A-side single "Counting Sheep / Deep Blue Sea" on Olive Grove Records.

I spent 2 hours filming the band (using both live-action and stopmotion-style photography) while Glasgow University Trampoline Club performed in the background: The result was a vast compilation of amusing footage, ready for editing.

After roughly 10 hours sifting through the footage and editing it all together, the video was complete. Today my finished video for "Counting Sheep" was released on both YouTube and Vimeo; and the news posted around the internet, leading to over 150 views within the first 12 hours of getting promoted.

So without further ado, here it is folks, enjoy!

Around The World In 6 Clicks

A couple of weeks ago I started a new painting project, basically to help get me back into the practice of regular painting.

I'm calling the project "Around The World In 6 Clicks", and through the use of Google Maps I'm going on a virtual painting tour of the world.

Working process:

- From the Google Maps homepage I zoom-out until the whole world is visible;

- I close my eyes before click-and-holding my mouse cursor anywhere over the map and vividly moving the mouse around in order to spin the map to a random location;

- I release the mouse button before again vividly moving the cursor around the screen (so that it finishes over a new random map location);

- Once I've stopped moving the mouse I use the scroll-wheel of my mouse to zoom-in as far as possible and pin-point a painting location;

- Finally I select the orange Google Streetview man and move him over the exact location that I ended-up at in order to get a photo of that location, which I proceed to paint in my sketchbook.

It's been an interesting journey so far, and I've even learnt a few things about some of the locations after doing research on them (out of curiosity)!

You can check out the first 5 paintings on my facebook art page by clicking here. (The series won't be limited to 6 paintings as the title may suggest - 6 is actually the number of clicks it usually takes to arrive at the source photos).

Photography from 2011 WJCC (Perth)

From Saturday 5 - Sunday 13 March, I was volunteering as a steward at the World Junior Curling Championships (WJCC) in Perth's Dewars Centre: And on two of those days I was pretending to be a photographer.

Briar Hürlimann (Switzerland) delivering a stone

20 of the top teams from around the world (10 boys teams and 10 girls teams) were representing their countries and competing for the World Junior trophies. Amongst them was Scotland's Eve Muirhead, who in her final year at Junior level was aiming to win a record-breaking fourth title (having previously won in 2007, 2008, and 2009 - she missed the 2010 tournament while representing Great Britain at the Winter Olympics).

I thoroughly enjoyed the week: Welcoming many friendly faces from around the world to the Dewars Centre; getting to meet the competitors, coaches, and support staff (including notable curlers like Rhona Martin and Ralph Stöckli); and getting to watch top-level international curling from prime viewing locations every day.

Here is a small sample of the photos I took while not working - during Day 5 afternoon (girls) and Day 9 afternoon (girls final, bronze medal game, and the closing ceremony)...

Sara McManus watches as Sofia Mabergs & Anna Huhta (Sweden) sweep

Ekaterina Antonova & Galina Arsen'kina ready for Victoria Moiseeva's stone (Russia)

Norwegian sweepers (in centre) and Swiss sweepers (on right)

Most of the teams lined up during the closing ceremony

I'm surprised how well a lot of my photos came out, and I've become really fascinated with the panned action shots that [usually] make the moving players appear static in near-perfect focus while everything else is a rushing blur.

I first noticed this style of photography in a couple of the photos on the official WJCC website, where my initial assumption was, ironically, that someone had made the curlers stand out from the image by doing a bit of tacky photoshop work! I wasn't impressed with those original images because the overall style looked forced - as if the photo was originally in full focus before someone used photoshop to mask the curler (keeping them in focus) while distorting the remaining background with a motion blur filter.

I only began to appreciate the style once I saw that some of my photos appeared the same, and I realised that it was all done in-camera rather than as a quick photoshop edit.

My photo of Briar Hürlimann (top) is possibly my favourite with this style, although the Swedish photo just below it is also pretty cool (particularly how the sweepers are framed in perfect focus between two blurry photographers).

If you'd like to see more of my photos from the WJCC, please visit the relevant albums on my facebook profile by clicking the links below:

Day 5 - Girls group games

Day 9 - Girls final and bronze medal game

Day 9 - Closing ceremony

Kinross Curling Rink website

During January and February I set up a blog/website for Kinross Curling Rink (where I work part-time as an Ice Technician) to compliment its new(ish) facebook page.

The aim was to give the rink an easily-accessible web presence so that both regulars and newcomers alike can find all of our news and information easily in one place.

After feedback from the rink/hotel management and from the Royal Caledonian Curling Club's Development Manager, we launched the site a couple of weeks ago.

You can pay us a virtual visit at:

www.KinrossCurlingRink.blogspot.com

and

www.facebook.com/KinrossCurlingRink

Fife Flare VS Eve Muirhead curling photos

In February I did my first bit of 'serious' sports photography, during a curling game at The Peak sports centre in Stirling.

David Jones, who is the "Area Curling Development Officer" for my local rink at Kinross, had entered his amateur team, Fife Flare, into the British Open and was drawn to play his final group game against the Great Britain 2010 Winter Olympic Women's Team, skipped by Eve Muirhead.

Here is a very small sample from the hundred's of photos that I took for Fife Flare that day:

You can see more of these photos on the Fife Flare facebook page by clicking here.

And as a little experiment, here is a conceptual video of the 300-odd photos that I took in a fast slideshow-style montage... I think it worked surprisingly well!

Project Onomatopee: "New Year's Resolution" (Jan 2011)

This was my January submission to Project Onomatopee for the theme of "New Year's Resolution".

Click here to see all the New Year's Resolution submissions.

Eve Muirhead portrait

Last week I was asked to do a painting of top Scottish curler, Eve Muirhead, for a fundraising campaign.
The painting, as seen below, is watercolour-on-card and measures roughly 205mm x 190mm (unframed).


Exciting news about the fundraising campaign and the painting itself will be coming soon, but I won't reveal these until full details have been confirmed: So stay tuned!

Thanks go to the commissioner (to be revealed at a later date), and to Bob Cowan at the excellent Skip Cottage Curling blog [http://skipcottagecurling.blogspot.com] for providing the reference imagery.

'Alternative' outdoor curling photos

Visitors to Loch Leven this past week may well have witnessed a rare sight - Scottish curlers playing on the frozen waters of the Loch: But there have been some more peculiarities on the ice recently, as you'll see from some of my images below.

Curling-inspired artworks

I started working as an ice-technician at Kinross Curling Rink at the end of September, and have since created a few unusual curling-inspired artworks, as I'll showcase below...

It all started with this year's early snowfall and my first snow sculpture - a rather crude little curling stone that I built with my bare hands at the end of my evening shift on Saturday 27 November.


But a couple of weeks and much more snowfall later, I had a second, and much more successful, attempt at sculpting out of snow. This time I had much more snow at my disposal; as well as a snow shovel, teaspoon, and gloves - all of which made the sculpting much easier than before. After spending about two hours spread throughout my evening shift of Thursday 9 December, my second attempt at snow sculpting was completed to a much better standard. As you'll see below, I had now created a much larger snow-sculpted curling stone, which raised a few eyebrows over the following days!

Onto my more conventional artworks, and earlier this week I created an amusing photoshopped-image of the curling rink manager involved in an unusual ice accident...

...Since I published this image on the Kinross Curling Rink facebook page, it has received a terrific response and attracted several new 'facebook fans': It has even been spread across other social networks by the management at the Green Hotel (which owns the rink).

Some landscape practice

Here are some quick landscape sketch/painting tests that I made late last month, but forgot to upload.

Majorca

Hamilton Mausoleum

Edinburgh North Bridge

New terrorist threat in UK

Al-qaida have claimed responsibility for the latest terror attacks to hit Britain: SNOW!

Days after the first strike, it is clear that this could become the most devastating terrorist attack in British history, with another 2 weeks of trouble expected to come...

But of course it's just a joke.

I got the idea last Winter, when London came to a standstill after a pathetic little layer of snow fell on the city. After watching the news about that story I sketched a wee cartoon strip, however it didn't convey my comic message too effectively, so I abandoned the idea like a car on the snow-closed M90.

This year, having had less than a week of intermittent snow (but now almost a foot of snow in the past 4 days), the country is again shutting down; so I have revived that old comic idea and turned it into the image you see above.

This week... In caricature

Here are some new caricatures that I've completed in the past week or so. I've not done much drawing or painting in recent months, so these are pretty crude warm-up sketches, but they should be good practice for a more regular series of artworks that I aim to be doing over the coming months.

Craig Levein, Scotland football manager.

Scotland played a friendly match in Aberdeen against the Faroe Islands mid-week. Levein's starting line-up was rather experimental with many fringe players making their debuts in the wake of a vast number of call-offs. Despite that issue, Scotland won 3-0, meaning that they've still lost only 2 international matches at Pittodrie stadium in the last 100-odd years!

Harry Potter stars.

The penultimate film in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part One premiered in London just over a week ago.

In an attempt to gross more money from the box-office, producers planned on releasing the film in 3D: However they couldn't complete the post-production 3D process without delaying the films' release date, and therefore had to shelve those plans at the last minute.

Prince William gets engaged.

News that the second in-line to the throne, Prince William, is engaged to Kate Middleton has finally reached us lowly members of public: Apparently the Royal Family have known about it for months, yet last weekend we had to endure an entire evening of altered TV scheduling to accommodate their old news.

And finally...

Here's a caricature of Scottish golfer Colin Montgomerie, which I made in October after Europe beat USA to win the Ryder Cup:
...It's an old artwork that doesn't really belong here, but I'm posting it anyway because I hadn't put it online at the time of completion.

"Easier-to-see" versions of Project Onomatopee "Future" image now online

I've just uploaded a sequence of "easier-to-see" images that gradually reveal the hidden picture from my submission for Project Onomatopee's "Future" theme [my original submission is below].



These new "easier-to-see" images can be found at the bottom of my previous blog post [there's a link included below]. But if you are going to check out these new images then please scroll down slowly so as to not spoil the surprise of the hidden picture. (The new uploads are relatively small and as you scroll down the hidden picture will become more and more obvious).

If you want to check them out then please click here to go directly to the blog post with new images.

Project Onomatopee: "Future" (October 2010)

For October's Project Onomatopee theme of "Future" I decided to try something really conceptual; but before explaining what it is, here is the image that I submitted:


[Addendum - 18/11/10: If you can see NOTHING other than text in the image above then please read the rest of this article before investigating the "easier-to-see" images that I've added to the bottom of this blog post... I've added these new "easier-to-see" versions of the image in order to compensate for the contrasting colour/brightness settings of different computer screens. Please scroll slowly between each image so as to not spoil the surprise - because the hidden picture becomes more and more obvious the further down you scroll!].


What you should see at first glance:
You should be seeing a black page with some white text at the top and bottom, as well as a very dark grey rectangular box surrounded by a thin white outline.
If you cannot see the very dark grey box you may need to adjust your computer monitor slightly until the black/grey colour difference becomes vaguely visible.

So the image suggests that the future is a big black hole?:
Nope, it's a bit more complex than a simple image like that... To discover the message you will need to click on the image for the full-size version, and then, depending on whether or not the dark grey box is completely visible on-screen (or half hidden off-screen) you may need to scroll down a bit. Once you have the dark grey box completely visible on-screen simply stare into it for a few seconds and all should slowly be revealed!

What should happen?:
As you stare into the dark grey box you should gradually begin to notice various grey dots appearing out from the darkness. As your eyes get more accustomed to the darkness, you should begin to see some patterns forming from the grey dots, until eventually you see a little drawing appear on the right-hand-side of the box alongside a short message on the left-hand-side of the box.

How is this relevant to the "future" theme?:
This is where the image gets conceptual. Rather than being a simple image where the picture displays a clear message, this image is more experimental and requires both interaction and a bit of time to become understandable... So in this regard, the "future" theme of the image is not simply that the future is a mysterious black hole, but rather that you have to look into the image and wait until the near future [in real-time] before you can see the full image!

How was this image inspired?:
It was basically just a quick experiment (which wasn't quite as quick as I originally anticipated) that I was curious to discover whether or not would work.
It's based on eye sight, the night sky, and optical illusions. For example when you look at the sky on a clear dark night you originally see only a few bright stars, but as you stare into the dark sky for a longer time your eyes slowly adapt to the darkness allowing you to see more and more stars.
With the creation of this image I wanted to test whether or not a similar effect could be achieved digitally on a computer screen. I had thought about creating something similar to the Ishihara Test for colour blindness (the circles made of coloured dots that contain a hidden number or shape), however the success of such an image would depend greatly upon a number of variables including: the colours used, the colour calibration of different computer monitors, and the potential colour blindness of my audience. Therefore it was very likely that such an image would be visible to most - if not all - people, and require no time at all to become fully visible, which misses the point of the future-themed image.
For the simplest, and hopefully best result, I stuck to simply using black and grey tones (similar to the night sky and stars) to test my theory about whether or not the experimental image would work.
The image was easy enough to create, and certainly on my own computer it seems to work, however I still have my doubts about whether or not it works properly: Is it too dark/hidden? Is it too bright/obvious? Can other people see it all or only part of it? How long does it take to see it? Is the end result worth the time?
Perhaps this style of image would work better when printed - where it looks relatively consistent for everybody; rather than on a computer screen where the brightness/contrast, surrounding lights, and viewing angle can all affect how the image appears.

I don't know if I'll try doing more advanced work with this technique, but it'd be useful to hear whether or not the image worked properly for you and what you thought of it.

Sorry if it hasn't worked and it only wasted your time!


[Addendum - 18/11/10]
Here is the "easier-to-see" sequence of images that gradually reveal the hidden picture within the original image. Please scroll down slowly so as to not spoil the surprise:

Stopmotion test

Yesterday I tried creating some 3D stopmotion for the first time in years, and below is a video of what resulted:

The video above features a plasticine fish, filmed from several angles, moving tail and fins. It was made as research for an animated music video, however I've since discovered that this won't be a suitable technique for the final video...

While working on that animation test I also filmed a live-action video sequence of myself animating the fish, which has since been edited as a short time-lapse style documentary of the animating process:

The time-lapse style video starts with a playback speed of 4x the original footage, and quickly "ramps-up" to a playback speed of 200x the original footage, before coming to a sudden conclusion at real-time speed.

Commission: Machrihanish Beach

Here is a painting commission of Machrihanish Beach (near Campbeltown) that I completed earlier this week:

Not only is this my first painting since July, but surprisingly it is my first acrylic painting in 12 months (according to the blog history)!

I can understand why I've not done any major paintings in the past 3 months, and I'm aware that I've not painted on a regular basis since my Film-inspired Painting Series exhibition last December, but I still find it hard to believe that I've not touched my acrylic paints in 12 months.

Mr Spin at the Edinburgh Festival (part 1)

On Thursday I finally got time at work to finish editing some of the footage that I shot of Mr Spin performing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival way back in August:

The video above is the first part of Mr Spin's wonderful street performance: Consisting of amazing hat tricks, devil-sticking, and one-ball manipulation.

I got to film the full 30/45 minute performance, which includes more devil-sticking and hat tricks, along with some crazy juggling and extreme unicycling! I intend on making a second video to showcase those tricks too, however the footage appears to be missing from the work computers, so until someone locates & re-loads the original tapes we will just have to wait...

Related links: 

- Mr Spin at Bamboozled Productions

- Mr Spin at Onya Soapbox

- Edinburgh Fringe Festival

First filming of a live gig

On Friday night I was at Mucky Mulligan's in Perth to film metal band Kill The Commodore as they played their first home gig since appearing at Bestival a few weeks ago.

I used my [very] recently purchased Sony DCR-SR58E Handycam; which is a big step down from the kind of camcorder I have
access to at my day-job, but it'll do for now until I discover whether a bigger camera would be worth it...



The little Handycam is very much just a point-and-shoot type of camera, which is simple enough to operate, but its manual controls (via touchscreen) are dreadful compared to the high-end camcorders that I have been used to at work. As a result of that issue (along with the short time I had to get familiar with the camera) my footage was rather hit-and-miss with numerous automatic controls conflicting with my manually-operated intentions. I also found, as per the warning in the operating guide, that loud noise (ie: live music) can interfere with the camera - to such an extent as to automatically cut the recording process after only so long on several occasions!

My above video, We Will Not Be Moved (live), should hopefully become the first of several to get edited from Friday night's gig footage; with the rest of the videos getting posted as they are finished.


To hear more from Kill The Commodore check out these links:
Kill The Commodore on Facebook
Kill The Commodore on Myspace
Kill The Commodore on Reverbnation

Bridge of Allan tunnels

At work this afternoon we went for a location-scouting walk along the old railway line (and tunnels) near Bridge of Allen in Perthshire.
The old line runs almost parallel to parts of the M90 motorway, which I regularly travel on, yet until I conducted some research last week I had no idea that the line was ever there... One of the random facts I picked up last week is that part of it was bombed by the Nazi's during World War 2!


After parking our cars on a farm road in the middle of nowhere we went across an over-grown railway bridge and then walked the trail for about 1.5 miles; during which time we had gone through two very long, pitch black tunnels and encountered numerous decaying objects (of the mechanical variety).


I had never encountered a tunnel that can compare to these (while on foot), so thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and I think it would be a great location to film all sorts of things... Indeed I was actually asked last month about filming a music video there for a metal band! So now that I know what it's like I can't wait to push ahead with that idea.

On another note, I used my digital stills camera to experiment with some time-lapse photography & experimental stopmotion (similar to Pixelation) on the way back to the cars. I haven't really done much time-lapse or pixelation before, but I am planning another music video (for a different band) that uses this kind of filming technique, and so thought this would be a good opportunity to experiment with the process.

For this experiment I basically just took a photo every 2 seconds (roughly) while walking along a short part of the trail leading up to the second tunnel. 

I had a good idea of what the footage should look like when played back as an animation sequence; but because I was photographing while walking (and without a flash) I had no idea whether or not it would turn out any good... To be honest I expected that the footage would be all blurry and randomly jump all over the place, but I think it has turned out surprisingly readable. You can judge for yourself by watching it in the video below:



And to conclude, here are some other photos from the day...

(This final photo is more or less what you see without a torch - and that's relatively near the entrance!)