There is one thing I will say about this weather though; it is damn near impossible to photograph chocolate!
Anyway, on with the show! It'
s officially the Easter break (woo!) and uni was open between Monday and Thursday last week, I had two sessions booked in the studio, the first was with Lewys. As those of you who read this drivel know, I photographed him a couple of weeks ago in the studio wearing the masks he made for one of his art projects. Last Wednesday I went in to film him in a short film where he uses expressive movement to interpret their meaning.
Sadly, there was a mistake in the bookings for the big studio, so we ended up in what is called the 'dark room' (for obvious reasons) it is much smaller and very hard to light considering it is entirely black. But with a little help from Colin and a few lights we were good to go. The filimg didn't take long, and once we had solved a few Mac-related issues (rar!) editing took even less time.
Here's the final product, I'm not overly happy with the way it turned out. When we got the video into Final Cut (RAR!) I wasn't aware that you had to change some settings, so it was set on widescreen, so we edited it that way. When we found out this couldn't be ripped properly to DVD we had to hunt the project down, when we found it and changed the setting to the relevant sizes it shrunk the video down. Lewys goes off screen a lot, whereas when we filmed it, this didn't happen. But there we go, lesson learnt! And it was a video I filmed and (mostly) edited alone and so it was good practice!
The next day, I met up with Dave who was home from Australia with no where near the tan I thought he would! We watched out short film it was the first time he'd seen it and had a few helpful suggestions and picked up on things neither Sue nor I had noticed before. Once again the Mac's (RARRARRRR!) sound was annoyingly and drastically different through headphones and speakers and so there's still a little work that needs to be done. Including a scream of pain I omit! There's a scene where I get hurt and we tried several times to get a decent and realistic sounding 'argh/ouch' out of me. I won't tell you what Sue thinks it sounds like, but it was
n't pain that's for sure! So when we go back to uni, I'll hit the small sound studio and try to get a scream that doesn't sound like a dying animal!
Dave and I then went into the big photo studio so I could work some more on my still life and finish off shooting for stock. As I mentioned at the start, warm weather doesn't make for great chocolate shots. I don't know about
anyone else but when it's hot, chocolate is usually the last thing I want as it melts all over the place and that's just icky! A lot of chocolate went into the bin that day! Still I'm sure I'm all but done, and just for bunny lovers everywhere (and of course because I'm never going to shake my new moniker this is for the Paris crew too!)
As we were finishing up the last shots of the bunny (the above shot isn't the final shot going into the stock series) I introduced Dave to my pet Bob (I realise that that might sound *VERY* wrong to some people - innocent!! Honest!!) it's a tiny bug that lives in my camera! Seriously, he's been there for a number of years now, despite cleaning my camera several times since. I think he is somewhere in the eye piece. If anyone has ever own sea monkeys then he looks a little like that. Dave was surprised to see him, but I think after so long its endearing to see him crawling across my viewfinder while I snap photos. He does jump occasionally though, when I catch him off guard, sorry Bob!
Following last week's lecture with Dave Robinson, he asked if any of us wanted to take part in a short film to help young peo
ple with learning differences recycle. Some of us showed a clear interest then and there, we met him on the Thursday morning and organised everything. Meeting on Friday the 22nd at Talacre where we would be using my sister's newly renovated kitchen for the film. Sue, Dave and I were there and we met two students from the second year, Dave and Helen and of course Dave Robinson. With three Daves it soon got confusing, but at least I could remember names that way!
I don't know about anyone else, but I was expecting to be helping out, but when we arrived Dave R told us we were going to be in charge of the whole project! Being thrown in at th
e deep end was a little daunting, especially the first time I got on the camera! But with a little help from Dave 3, I was away. We thought about each part of the film separately, all the different types of shots we needed keeping in mind that continuity was vital. Although I've used my SLR on manual for years, I've never used a camera on manual, and there were lots of things to remember, but most were identical to my SLR (and with the XH-A1 being a Canon, lots of things looked familiar).
We had to show how to safely recycle tins, plastic, glass, food and paper. We filmed Helen putting on gloves, washing the glass, plastic and tins and then came the food. We needed to show food being scraped from a plate into a small recycle bin that would later be emptied into a bigger bin. We looked around the kitchen and eventually decided to look in the actual waste bin where we found salad from the previous day (it smelled so bad!) but once it was on the plate with a couple of pieces of bread and some ketchup it looked quite attractive (not edible!) so I couldn't help but take a picture of our handy work.
We all took turns working the camera, looking for the best shots and getting plenty of variety. Ensuring the focusing, f-stop and that the tripod was level, it was all very helpful practice!
It was a beautifully sunny day in Talacre, a million miles away from what it was when we went for the first day of filming for our short film; really dense fog!!
I had told Dave F about our lectures with Dave R and he expressed an interest in coming. Even though our numbers were one down on Friday
anyway it was good to have him on board and no doubt every bit as helpful to him as it was to the rest of us! We all went in our days off, but I don't think anyone really minded. It was also great to be able to work wi
th different years and for a cause that was completely detached from our usual art groups. Just like we did with the sound department at Plas Coch when recording the song for our music video. Editing for that starts when we go back on May 3rd.
By the time we had finished 3pm had rolled around and we were all famished. Walking back to the main road it was like a completely different world to the one we had parked in five hours previously. People were everywhere! I've never seen it so busy, even in the middle of summer. This unexpected burst of sunshine, and the extortionate cost of fuel has meant that people are staying close to home this Easter. We stopped at the local chippy for some late lunch and then were stuck in traffic for almost half an hour just trying to get out of Talacre. But anyway, a massive thanks to Dave R for giving us the opportunity to learn so much, and to Dave F, Sue, Helen and Dave 3 for making it a great day!
