Music: Jim Noir

I'm liking the groovy sounds of Jim Noir.

Narrow Gauge Capture

I had those Super 8 movies transferred a few years back and the best format I could get them back on from my chosen supplier was miniDV tape. Still ... it's been lots of fun cutting them together. I believe these were captured using the MovieStuff Workprinter.

I've been trawling the web for other possible (DIY) ways to digitise these tiny frames. Home-made telecine devices usually seem to consist of a modified projector then video camera frame grabbing to hard disk. Maybe a stepper motor frame advance and DSLR camera (with a macro lens) combo could do the trick, and at much higher resolutions.

Some folks out there have been using flatbed scanners or 35mm film scanners (There's a Nikon film scanner that takes strips of 16mm film too). Surely some manufacturer could make a high res. yet affordable scanner for digitising roll films.

The Rights Stuff

My projects are always in need of inspirational yet usable music tracks. Copyrighted CDs are a no-go area and the licensing T&Cs of library music don't seem very flexible either. I spent some time checking out the Creative Commons options. This seems to be a new-ish system of more flexible licensing agreements enabling use under the 'some rights reserved' principle. I spent some time checking-out a couple of resources where much CC music can be found...
Jamendo is a bit of a mess; users upload their material (of wildly varying musical quality) and the one keyword at a time searching makes finding anything worthwhile really quite tedious. However, anything found here can be used for non-profit projects at no cost at all.
Magnatune is a much classier operation. The music is hand-selected and sorted sensibly into meaningful genres. For non-profit use, tracks can be used under CC terms for merely the cost of downloading the tracks (min $5.00 per album). The best thing here is that the tracks are also available for profit-making production work too under numerous types of licensing agreements. This is a very open and scalable solution; a project could start out on a non-profit basis but further licenses are obtainable should the need arise.

Super 8 Film: "8mm : early 90s"

Some old Super 8 films from my long-gone student days...

Low Blog Activity

There's not been much blog action here for a good while. Work, life and tending an ailing PC seem to be keeping my hands full, so not much time for creative stuff. Hope to get back on track as soon as...

Hep Cat

Nice to see Tandem colleague Simon Tofield win his British Animation Award at last night's ceremony at the NFT. The Simon's Cat films are getting rave responses over on the YouTube channel ... www.youtube.com/simonscat.

Random Abandon?

Well I still like the idea of utilising some randomised film-making techniques, despite one of my Tandem colleagues bringing this to my attention.

Project

Run your own TV channel? Public access TV never really happened hereabouts, but along comes YouTube. One can select and curate a neat bundle of 'found content', schedule together a playlist then publish the finished programme via blogs and such.

The 'Project' YouTube channel is now set up www.youtube.com/projectmedia. For now this is a place to view playlists of selected YouTube favourites. The first three (mainly thematic) episodes are ...

Project_001 "Intros & Outros"
Project_002 "Trainspotted"
Project_003 "Space Rocks"

Gimbal Rally

Project Progress

The 'DIY Steadicam-like device' project continues into another year... (well it's been ongoing for a good four months now) and has taken-up far more time than it ever should have. I've amassed a fine collection of ironmongery now; all manner of nuts, bolts, bearings, aluminium strip, plastic piping, threaded stud etc. Although I've been trying to combine these elements in various configurations (from the conventional to the outlandish), all efforts so far would doubtless promote some very wobbly camera work.

My last purchase was a metre long piece of M8 threaded stud, which finally seems to give something like the counterweight or leverage required for a conventional post and gimbal type design. What seems to be needed now, is to get the centre of gravity of the camera directly above the post that goes down through the gimbal. I've also discovered that the tripod mounting hole on my Sony PC110E DV camera is way over to one side; nothing like the camera's centre of gravity and that's even before adding any lense adaptors or weightier batteries.
Ideally the rig should have some fine adjustment threads to allow the camera to be positioned accurately on the top-plate.

There are a few more refinements to make before this is worth trialling in any way, the next couple of things to tackle are...
1) The rather awkward length of the post could be reduced so long as I can find a decent way of adding some counterweighting instead.
2) The tube that forms the handle needs to be extended to make it easier to hold the whole device up.

I'll post some more of this if/when it gets any better.

2008

Joy to the world!

Ahoy

A misty December evening in St. Katherine's Dock; some of my Tandem ship-mates after the studio party. The venue was the good ship Ardwina 21/12/2007.

Merry Christmas 2007

This year, Freya's card design adds a figurative and appropriately festive touch to some Miro-esque abstract meanderings...

Status Gimbal

Sturdier now, but Gimbal #2 has only 2 axes to grind.

The Gimbals of My Mind #1

Some plumbing pieces and skate bearings become a three axes gimbal. That bent piece of aluminium isn't very successful though ...

Scrapheap Challenged

And this is work in progress...

Steadibrek

In the quest to add further bits to my miniDV camera I've been looking online at various hand-held camera stabilisers. That Steadicam Merlin looks great but I'm not going to be spending circa. £600 on one of those anytime soon. At the bottom end of the scale is the $14 Steadicam; essentially a weighted stick. The search for cheap camera stabilisation captures the imagination of geeky camera buffs everywhere so the web is awash with their various schemes and adventures.
There could be an intriguing wee project here involving some bits of plastic and skate bearings perhaps...

UFO?

Something ominous over Arles.

Evo's Spanish Date

The programme for the Animación Internacional Curtocircuíto screening at the Curtocircuíto na Rúa Festival in Santiago de Compostela (Spain) has now been published. My shortfilm Evo will screen on the evening of 02/08/2007 at the Praza da Universidade. See the evening's programme at the Festival's website.
Evo's listing looks like this...

Smallfilms Bigideas

Who wouldn't have enjoyed hearing animator and storyteller Oliver Postgate on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs on Sunday 15/07/2007? He spoke of working in bygone times when his unique originality and craftsmanship somehow found its way into the TV schedules. Would anything as inventive as The Clangers make it past the television gate-keepers of today?
Image credit © Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate.