Time Lapse Camera Setup

Last week me and Andy went down to Northampton to Unreal where the Lift is being built. With help from the guys at Unreal, we constructed a waterproof container to enclose a webcam connected to a laptop inside a container. We got the box from Maplins and drilled a hole in the top to feed through the USB cable. This was further waterproofed using a gland. We then coated this area with liquid rubber and silicone spray.



Me drying the liquid rubber with a hot air gun.



The camera stuck in place with gaffer.



Mounting the camera on top of the container. This was the trickiest part as we had to shout through the container to someone positioning the camera. It was mounted on a metal base and a hole was drilled in the side of the container for the USB cable to feed through to the laptop.



The laptop in the container.



The finished product!



The camera is now in place until the end of May when we will go back to Northampton to take it down. Fingers crossed, we should have a beautiful time lapse of the Lift being built!!! We set the software to capture an image every two minutes which should get us about seven minutes of footage which we can speed up as appropriate.

True Stories: Billy The Kid

Whilst I am on a roll posting about other practitioners, I thought I would mention a documentary that I watched last week called "True Stories: Billy The Kid".

It is about a 15 year old boy from Maine in the US who has behavioral difficulties. The documentary was unlike anything I have seen before. Billy (the kid) basically went about his day to day life whilst a crew followed him using what seemed to be mini-dv cameras (or at least it had that feel). It almost felt that you were watching raw unedited footage, which made the documentary seem very true.

Whilst watching you are constantly looking at Billy frowning, and in a way you feel bad for doing it as you are doing what everyone else in the film is doing, thinking he is just some weird kid. A major story in the film was when Billy meets a blind girl who works in a local diner. They get on, well and she becomes his girlfriend. Later, she ends the relationship which sends Billy off the rails. Apparently, he was threatening to kill himself over it. Whilst watching the film, you are always waiting for something to happen that will just flip Billy out. Perhaps this is because of the intense look that he constantly has on his face (maybe the reason why the blind girl got on so well with him, as she didn't judge him on the way he looked).

All in all I would definitely recommend watching this film. The very rough style of it really compliments the intensity of Billy, and makes you feel like the film is really really true to life. However, strangely, to watch it you would think it was made by a couple of students on a tiny budget, but when you watch the extensive credits at the end you see that it obviously had a lot of funding and a lot of people working on the project, which makes me think that this "raw footage/unedited" look that they were going for was artificial, which undermines the very premise of choosing this style for the film in the first place.

You can watch it online here.

One Hour Photo

Last night, I watched the movie "One Hour Photo" on Channel Four. I have wanted to watch this film for quite a while, as I am a fan of Mark Romanek's work with music videos (most notably with Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Madonna, Coldplay, Red Hot Chili Peppers and also the infamous apple iTunes and iPod commercials) . Romanek wrote and directed One Hour Photo, so I was expecting to really enjoy the film, which I did.

I thought that Robin Williams gave a brilliant performance portraying the disturbed photo lab assistant. Combined with Romanek's direction, you could not help but feel for the main character, Sy, whilst at the same time cringing with disgust at the things he was doing.

I really liked the clinical feel of the supermarket achieved with blue lighting and a super-modern, super-minimal set (almost reminiscent of the Scream video that he directed years ago). This setting created a strange aura around Sy, adding to the suspense of his obsession with the family that brings their photo's to him.

There is always a risk of creating a character that is so strange that the audience don't connect or recognise with him. I feel that Romanek avoided this, for this reason, the character of Sy reminded me of Robert De Nero in Taxi Driver. He wasn't a monster, he was human. I felt that the conversations that Sy had with the kid in the film helped to achieve this. You are unsure of whether he is a threat, but somehow you know that he would never hurt the child.

The only thing that I wasn't happy with was the ambiguous ending with Sy in a photograph with the family. To me, this was in his imagination, however some may interpret this differently thinking that the family thanked him for saving them and pointing out their problems. Didn't like that. Also didn't like the fact that we never know what happens to Sy. Does he go to jail? Does he continue to stalk this family? Does he now realise that there is no such thing as the perfect family and has seen the error of his ways?

All in all this was the film that I expected it to be, but for me the ending let it down a little (not enough to put me off recommending it though!|)

Tired...

Well, it's 11.44pm, and I am finally in bed relaxing at the end of our final two day shoot. As you can probably see by the video, I am very tired, so please excuse any typos!

Me and Andy set off at 8am yesterday and went straight from Kings Cross to Shoreditch to meet Michael Pyner, a major funder of the Lift. As he was used to being interviewed, he was great. We got plenty of footage in a fraction of the time it normally takes as he was straight to the point. So a good start to the day. Next, we went over to Chiswick to meet Meena Ramen at the British Standards building where she works. She heard about the project through her friend Erica, who is participation manager at Lift and decided that it was a great project and that she was going to donate to it! She also gave a good interview, and it was interesting to get the point of view of an outsider that felt so strongly about the project that they decided to donate to it. In the evening, we went along to the building developers group meeting at the discover centre in Stratford. This is where members of the community are able to contribute and discuss the structure, ponder what it will be like and collaborate with Lift and the architects in order to form new ideas on how to improve the building. This was the final meeting, and Geoff the architect from the AOC presented the final design of the Lift to the community.

It was amazing. For the first time we saw a great representation of what the structure will look like, and this just confirmed what I thought... it is going to be one hell of a place!!!

This morning, we had a safety briefing from the London transport people about filming on the overground. This is so that we could film the journey to Stratford through the window of an overground train. As soon as we tried to film however, it began to rain! So, we decided to give it half an hour and hope that it would clear up. Luckily it did, and we managed to get the shot which should look great, possibly as an opening to the film.

In the afternoon we headed to the New Vic sixth form college to interview April Francis, who we are following throughout this process. Whilst we were there we interviewed Sid and Dawn, who were interviewing for young people to help run the Lift. They will train people up enabling young people to operate the Lift and run it effectively. The people who are trained up will gain technical theatre experience and get a certificate like a qualification saying that they have done it.

After this, we had time for a break so we headed up to the Theatre Royal for some Caribbean food, and it was very nice.

This evening, we went to the discover centre again to interview the kids from the youth forum. These are children that Lift have consulted throughout the project, so they have had a hand in creating the Lift in their own way. We got some brilliant answers from the kids and some great shots of the discover centre to put into the film too.

So, thats it for now. Next week we will start editing and possibly (if all goes well) go down to Northampton to set up a time lapse camera at the site where they are building the Lift.

Will keep you updated...

Exhibition Promo Stuff

Following our exhibition meeting last week I thought I would post an update. I ordered 400 badges, I would put a photo on here but it is difficult to get a decent picture of them as they are quite dark. I thought I had messed up and was about to come clean in the meeting when Andy said "they are brilliant". The fact that they are dark makes you get closer to it to see what it is all about. Never thought about it that way.

I also made, with thanks to Imogen Hopkins of photography (and IKEA), a lovely most wanted projector light. And may I say, it looks pretty... pretty... pretty good!



Need to see if they have any more now. Ideally would like another 2 or 3.

Fingers crossed.

The Beginning of the Edit

All of the footage so far from the Lift shoots are captured! I have tried to start throwing some ideas that I have had into action, but it's sort of sporadic random busts of sections rather than a structure for the whole piece. I am still unsure how to start it. I have a time lapse of Stratford Station that might be an impressive start. Maybe when Andy has put some sound onto it it will inspire me. Whilst we were in London, he recorded our journey on the tube from Stratford back to the Lift office.

I have also cut together little pieces of the interview and vox pops subjects, made them black and white, slowed them down and faded them in and out from black. This seems to work nicely although needs some tweaking. I think that this will work nicely towards the end of the piece to go towards showing the enormity of the project and how the people involved are reflecting on the finished structure. I got this idea from (of all things) a music video. "Snow" by Red Hot Chili Peppers

You see, I have the ending in my head but it just needs a little more thought!

The music that Andy has written has also inspired me. When the synth (I guess?) hits in repeatedly, I was thinking about again fading in and out from black in order to create almost a crescendo mirroring the final struggle to get the Lift built. Then at the end, there it is in situ.

Thought I would blog this so that I remember it all.

Bye for now.

Lift Video Blog: Hotel Editing

Here is a video blog made by me and Andy today in London reporting on our progress. We will be uploading video blogs on a regular basis from now on as reading loads of text on a blog is boring. We have also given our blog addresses to the Lift team so that they can check out our work and comment on it easily.

Anyway... opposite our hotel room are some offices with people still working (10.40pm). Unlucky! Looks like boring work too, paperwork stacked high... makes our capturing and editing look like great fun!