Shoeboxes and Stripes

The videos from a week ago are starting to make their way up to t'interwebs, and can be found over on their own Vimeo channel, loosely entitled "Shoeboxes and Stripes". If you've no idea what I'm referring to (and you may not, and that's fine!) then head that way to check out some great wee tunes; don't let the one-camera capture put you off some fantastic (and award winning) musicians. If you are familiar with it all, or even were there, then I hope the stuff put up over the next few weeks will go some way to faithfully record the stories and songs shared - all feedback appreciated.

Anyway, in the meantime, here's my favourite so far.

Shoeboxes and Stripes - Part 11 - Pete MacDonald - Yellow Raincoat from Peter Huey on Vimeo.

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and so i tell you from afar

I'm not a fan of blogs being used for personal/confessional writing: at best, it can come across as forced and unsettling; at worst, it's an inappropriate medium for telling people what they should know already if they actually care about you as a person.

Of course, like all human axioms this is made to be broken - anyone who has ever spent five minutes on the excellent PostSecret will know that such things can not only be therapeutic for a reader, but also must be immensely enlightening for those who anonymously 'confess'. I never intended, in terms of blogging, to pitch my writing anywhere other than somewhere between commentator, informer, and secondary source. Whilst I do write regularly about personal activity - focusing, obviously, on endeavours underneath the loose mediatree banner - I'm generally quite careful, in the style of the best new media practitioners which I observe and aspire to emulate, to keep 'real life' something which remains offline.

However, as one begins to effect the other, I have found in the past few months that such lines have become blurred. In an attempt to therefore comment on 'real life' without going as far as to 'spill completely' (a term concocted once at a funeral, as it seemed a very appropriate one for many things at the time), as I maintain that open writing is not really an appropriate forum.

Allow me, therefore, to make the following comments and observations. Having read the above by way of disclaimer, you've been warned.

[1] Shortly before Christmas, a friend passed away suddenly. It was weird, and I still struggle to put the experience into words - I recommend to you instead the reactions David Crowder relates in his excellent cowritten book, Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven (But Nobody Wants To Die).

It was weird for many reasons, but one I can actually articulate is this: she wasn't a friend I spoke to every day, hell every week; instead, there were two or three intense periods each year when I would hope to be brainstorming and writing, and then actually enacting youth work with her. Aside from that, I would have contacted her randomly, usually either in relation to a shared love of folk music (upon which I was consistently being told off and educated) or every time anything (and I mean anything relating to The West Wing came up. (For example, Richard Schiff was once playing in a celebrity golf tournament. My immediate reaction was to fire off a message akin to, "Toby's playing golf on ITV!' I recall the reply being something like, 'I literally just screamed at dad that I had to tell you about that...'

There was, and still is, a huge outpouring of grief because she was someone who affected so many in such a variety of ways. When she was alive, I would probably not have said we were tightly close; but since her death, I have been repeatedly reminded and told otherwise. Certainly, there is a huge area of life which is still very stained (in the good way, for the few who were in Kilbroney yesterday) by her joyful memory.


[2] It has slowly dawned on me that I was more financially free as a student than I am now. This mightn't sound like much; in fact, more often than not I take a little kick from realising that I don't care for finance much beyond getting by. However, after nearly twelve months of doing just that - barely scraping by - I'm finding it's getting very old. Although there is no immediate solution to this, the frustration continues to grow. Because of the nature of the media work I do, so much of it is goodwill - and either way, what financial payment does turn up is always reasonable but far from sustaining. As for 'real life' - I got very sick of job interviews for things that always seemed just out of reach (knowingly coming second, it turns out, does hurt more than it is cool), began temping, and am still at least a few months away from escaping that.

I know where I want to go in life and to where I feel called, and it's my responsibility to make sure I do everything I can to get there. But it's hard, isn't it?


[3] I was 'home' today doing a bit of gardening - original home, not current home, as it were. It is a very sad thing when you realise that home is no longer where you have lived the longest.


[4] God doesn't cause suffering; and in fact, we are never tested by pain and sin beyond what we can bear, as the text says. But, as Job found, pain does go right up to the line. There have been a few occasions in the past when I have found this; sadly, another one is currently in progress. I don't ask for sympathy, but learning. I've also found the current sermon series by the calmer-and-less-divisive-than-he-apparently-used-to-be Mark Driscoll (of the other Mars Hill Church), entitled Trial to be amazing and appropriate. I would heavily recommend the whole lot to anyone with a soul, but men in particular, as it is to men that Driscoll would seem at his best when addressing.


[5] I feel like I've written my best music over the last 12-18 months; I don't mean that to sound big-headed. But people responded well in the past, and there's been excellent feedback since. In no way, shape or form can I afford to record or gig them, in terms of money or time. And I hate it as much, in most cases more, than anything else mentioned in this article.


That's all - back to YouTube videos next time, I promise!
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mediatree version 1.5 and the mystery of the fighting monkeys

Welcome to mediatree.ie!. Sort of. Not really yet, but the domain's bagged at least. My wee side project for the next while will be trying to batter out an adult, sensible, grown-up website and online portfolio. So watch this space.

Anyway, in the meantime let's ROCK OUT to the glorious Fight Like Apes!


FIGHT LIKE APES - Tie Me Up With Jackets.

[Heavy brownie points for anyone who can untangle the slightly obscure title this time - I know they're usually puntastic, but still...]

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reconfiguring

Dave was on at me today for not having updated in over a week; apparently, this makes his work days longer. Since joining the 9-5 cycle, I have to admit my time management has been nothing short of mad. I've been trying to relish free moments, but they've been few and far between. Embracing this new era, I guess it's probably a good idea to try and work out where to go from here.

1] Mediatree needs an update as a concept, and a facelift as a website. If said update includes sticking with the nomenclature opted for a few years ago, it's about time to get a proper domain and switch this whole bad boy to something that's probably not blogger! Truthfully, I've always been a bit bereft of ideas for any other names, and moreover am still piddled off that mediatree turned out to be so popular with so many other random organisations - as did its predecessor, Room One. (Although room one records remained for gig organising purposes, including the night of joy that was T in the Barn - more on that in a minute.)

2] All the creative stuff. In theory, a no-strings 9-5 should free me up for a lot of time to work on the creative business ideas. This hasn't happened - haven't even managed to catch up on the couple of editing projects I'd promised to fit in for people. Very hard to do.

3] T in the Barn followup. There is an idea. It's very experimental. It would be completely untried and untested, and to my mind, unlike anything that's ever been attempted by anyone I know before. This is very exciting. Even better, it will probably happen in the next six to eight weeks, so if you like good music (and conveniently probably in Belfast this time), watch this space.

I'd write more, but I've a whole lot to do before... going out tonight! Gah. Was in Bristol over the weekend, so here's a nice picture of the Clifton Suspension Bridge to finish...



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everything must go

WARNING: SHAMELESS SALESMANSHIP TO FOLLOW:

Tomorrow (Saturday 15th) there's a craft fair on at the Church of the Resurrection (to the rear of the COISC) 22 Elmwood Av., Belfast. There's at least 15 different exhibitors, flogging their handmade goods. One of those will be myself - sneakily wishing to swap your pennies for either some photographic prints (with a choice of tasteful framing options!) or some painstakingly put-together handmade greetings cards (kudos goes elsewhere for that one.)

Actually, the whole sale should be rather good, particularly for getting something affordable and unique for Christmas presents. The whole thing is in aid of the Tearfund project at CAF in Sao Paulo, where I was with the COISC team at the start of the summer. Tearfund themselves will also be selling TearCraft items, which are always top quality.

Of course, if you do come, swing by and say hello. If I'm not at my own exhibit, I'm probably doing my shift behind the grand piano...

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no quibbles from me

Down in Rostrevor this week (where the walls between the worlds are that little bit thinner) in my usual annual role as tutor/photographer/guru at Camp Alliance. Extra exciting this year is that El Craigery has come up with The Camp Quibbler, an online newspaper that kids will be designing and uploading daily parallel to the Camp Radio broadcasts and podcasts that are now 'part of the very fabric of Camp'.

You can follow Camp during the week through the AYW website, or go straight to the Quibbler page of said website by clicking here.

Monday's podcast (on the Pictures and Sounds page) was knocked up by the producer and his best mate whilst exceptionally hyper one weekend. Get high on sugar and listen with a friend.

a shaggy dog's tale

Make a film for your Media Studies presentation, they said...




EDIT: In response to a request from someone in class, here's the 'justification' for the above insanity. For anyone who's not on the PGCE course, every other project in the class was about personal reflection, taking photographs of yourself growing up and doing a voice-over over a montage of them etc... weepy weepy reflections. Obviously, this piece of work is different...


A Shaggy Dog’s Tale:
The Challenges & Possibilities of Mixed Media and User-Generated Content for Educators (and Everyone Else)

In his somewhat verbose tome How To Read A Film, the film theorist James Monaco foresees the ethos behind much of the user-generated content that draws attention across the burgeoning goldfields of Web 2.0:

“What is to be done?” We cannot stop the juggernaut that is the contemporary media. It will continue to saturate our lives. New modes of discourse, because they insist the at the reader become an active participant in the process, may give us opportunities to find our roots again. But ethics is the new aesthetics of the future. We must focus on the uses to which our talents and technologies are put. It is no longer sufficient to know how to read a film. Now we must also understand in a profound way, how to use a film.
(Monaco 2000, p.561)

Monaco’s point is one to be seriously considered, no more so at the level of amateur film and video production, whether for personal, public, promotional or educational purposes. From the Golden Age of Hollywood, through the New Wave and the age of the blockbuster, it can be argued that the medium became one of passive engagement; as creativity faded into generic produce, audience demographics shifted and the cinema’s forward motion became static.

However, the advent (and now the second coming) of the internet and user-generated content, combined with the accessibility and affordability of the basic requirements for film making, have meant that film has become an active viewing experience like never before. And with the access and simplicity comes the prevolence of the next step: the rise of mixed media production.

A Shaggy Dog’s Tale was produced utilising other media beyond the filmed segments and video editing software. Also present were a basic audio recording setup, content streamed and processed from internet video websites (i.e. content created by other users), a scanner and photo manipulation software, and a variety of online freeware and search facilities.

The list of hardware and software already exaggerates somewhat the typical techniques employed: none of the skills required were any more difficult than it seems many school children are already familiar with – particularly as they continue to seemingly outpace adult observers. One has only to log onto the social networking websites like Bebo or MySpace to observe how adept teenagers are at documenting even the most irrelevant moments in startlingly profession ways. Furthermore, kids do not just produce these pieces – they forward, e-mail, comment, and respond in kind in a show of interaction to make James Monaco very excited indeed. (No clearer example of this is needed than on the video sharing network YouTube, where users can frequently record and upload their immediate responses to all and every video posted – creating a wealth of interactivity.)

But what does all this jargon and newspeak actually boil down to for educationalists? That, with no budget but a little imagination, any individual can be inspired by, interacting with, and producing film in the comfort of their own home, with equipment which it could be argued is, for the most part, available in the majority of schools, and arguably most homes in Western society. Mixing the media of film, photography, audio recording, internet content and text is, like media studies itself, still regarded with great suspicion by the academic establishment at large. However, if educationalists fail to keep up, the may soon find themselves left out in the cold by a generation who are already looking for the next level of hands-on creativity.

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References


Books:

Monaco, J., 2000. How To Read A Film. 3rd edition. New York: Oxford University Press.


Film:

Huey, P., 2008. A Shaggy Dog’s Tale: The Reflections Of Puddles T. Dawg. Northern Ireland: mediatree productions.


Websites:

Bebo - http://www.bebo.com
MySpace – http://www.myspace.com
YouTube – http://www.youtube.com

loggerheads

Sitting at the back of class, vaguely dazed and recovering from three nights of hardcore logging action. Not the lumberjack variety - more picking and choosing from 14 hours of footage to set up the edit on a project. The irony was, as I realised, that due to other commitments I'm not actually going to get started on the actual edit for four or five days - but because I had to borrow this to do the logging, (DVCAM footage [Edit: In response to Dave's comment, it was all filmed in HDV but is being output as DVCAM and then converted to straight DV PAL for edit, because...]) time was against me.

Which is a pity, because I've spent all week actually really wanting to work on the my PGCE media assignment - something I've actually had quite a lot of trouble finding inspiration for. Still, as the photo above testifies, I've finally got a bit of an idea...

DoubleCross

In order to somewhat polish off the narrative arc begun in the last post below, I thought, what the hell... so I digitised up the epic that is DoubleCross as well. I've got to admit, for me watching back all the outtakes (that no-one will ever see... well, not for a while anyway) has actually been the fun bit - not so much a trip down memory lane as a cruise along recollection road in a battle tank constructed of things I'd blanked from my consciousness.

DoubleCross began life... actually, it's probably more relevant to pick up the story where we left off with Discarded. [Still with me? You really should try getting out more. Anyway.] If you haven't read the bit from last time, scroll down and do so now. We'll wait until you're done.

SO... despite the lack of a narrative or any real skill whatsoever, Discarded did actually start something. The following summer, after several nights in a row spent immersed in film (regularly racking up five a night, stats fans... it was reckoned at the time that we watched at least 30 more during the course of making DC, which probably explained the number of script changes to incorporate swiped lines) I sat down and hacked out a script called Blown Away. The expletive-laden draft read somewhere between Snatch and Mallrats. Either way, it was pretty much unfilmable. I blame the rage on the fact that I did most of the writing whilst waiting for Russ to wake up in the morning, regardless of how many objects were hurled at him.

So we took it, and I started rewriting. I'd write a few pages, and we'd work out how to film it. The other two 'actors' Matthew and Martin, were roped in pretty early on - Russ subsequently used them both in legitimate short films over the next few years: Matthew's now something of a cult figure, I suppose.

Anyway, long story short, it turned out pretty great.

a) The police car at the start is, as previously hinted, a real police car. The Gardai resided across the road, and the local sergeant was usually warned before Russ started blowing things up to avoid any confusion. However, someone further up the street rang in to complain that some young hooligan was sprinting down the road with what appeared to be a handgun, and they came around just to make sure. Russ decided to leave the camera running to see what would happen, and got the perfect shot. It's pretty hilarious with the original audio. ("Howya lads... what's going on today then?" "Ah, howya Pat...")

b) The sound dips a lot in the YouTube cut for the obvious reason. Didn't want anyone to be offended.

c) The narrative is actually pretty understandable. There's a bit of a dip in quality in the middle, as some of the dialogue seems to have been swept behind Bob Marley at one point. A great pity if you're a fan of wordplay.

d) As in all productions, Puddles appears. Spot for a prize.

e) Early on, it was decided that for the look of the thing, we would film at the "Magic Hour" every day to try and get that really soft lighting as the sun goes down. It meant we could only really film for an hour and a half each day, and made rehearsals a mad panic. And we did rehearse!

f) The shoot out at the end was meant to have flash-and-smoke added, but we ran out of time in the edit - so it looks a bit wick.

g) Check out the irony in the "No Dumping" sign just at the end. Genius.

h) The graveyard featured is the same graveyard mentioned in another famed tale of decadence from this stable; it will however, not be discussed here.


So without further ado, ladies and gents... the two-parter that is DoubleCross




If you aren't sure about any of the storyline, check out this (old) synopsis.

Discarded

Every now and again, it comes up in conversation: at what point did I decide to get into film? I remember a great conversation had at my enrollment as a fresher for QUB Film: something around the area of, "Your A Levels are in... I'm sorry, what?" [For the record, Maths, Chemistry and Physics (ABB, don't be pedantic.)]

Anyway, I could cite lots of vantage points along the way. But really, my cousin Russell is to blame more than most. I spent two summers in a row sleeping on his floor and pestering him to let me do stuff. The second production, DoubleCross has moments in it that I can honestly say remain among the most special I ever had anything to do with - come on, it's REAL cop car and a graveyard shootout in a REAL graveyard! With fleeing spectators! - but the first, Discarded was, well... different. In all honesty, it was buried pretty quickly at the bottom of a deep pile of shame. But tonight I finally managed to get the VHS copy digitised. But perhaps I should explain a bit more about the production.

a) It was made on one of those big ass '80s cameras. You put a VHS-C straight into it, taped what you want, and never even imagined editing existed. The picture quality is something to behold - believe it or not, a lot of the 'damage' - e.g. light distortion and glare - was there on the original.

b) We circumvented the editing issue using two VHS machines. About as accurate as trying to hit a paperclip with a custard pie. From 100 yards.

c) Sound? No sound. Weeeelll.... we opted to have no dialogue (bad move - narrative is completely incomprehensible) and instead used pillaged film music throughout. How did we get it on tape? Used a HiFi turned up really, really loud...

d) Colour filters? What colour filters... went to the hardware shop, bought some coloured bulbs.

e) There's actually a truckload of our homemade fake blood - it's a bit lost in the graininess of it all though. Look out for it on the tree near the end.

f) The exploding grave shot makes me squeal with joy. I might upload the blooper reel, which gives away how it's done.

g) I had never acted before. I had never written anything before. I was, in fact, 13.

h) I mentioned the lack of a coherant narrative. To find out what the film is actually about, check out this page I built about it on my old, old website (geocities-tastic).


And so, ladies and gentlemen... surfacing for its first viewing in at least five or six years... I give you, the genesis of it all: Discarded.

dave is stupid - big whoop

For whatever reason, former roommate/scourge Dave has decided to transfer his rantings, (formerly available through his bebo page) to blogspot. I dunno, and people tout the internet like it's a good thing?

Anyway, people (and by people I mean John) appear to be using this as an excuse to pick on him via the medium of vaguely embarassing photos. I have lots, but decided to restrict them to child friendly ones. (Don't look at the one of him with Puddles the Wonder Dog too closely.)

Speaking of that same Wonder Dog, someone asked me the other day about getting the long forgotten Discarded on YouTube. Discarded was the first 'film' I ever participated in, and where I got the bug from at the tender age of 13 or so. The website's from when I was at school at plugging such things like mad - deprived of attention or something. I'm going to try and digitise it tonight, but I fear the VHS (it was edited using two tape players - glorious! The credits were on sheets of paper stuck to the wall!) might be too far gone for restoration. Watch this space.

This all feels a bit too much like a shrine to Dave now, so I'm going to stop. He is getting married though, so I doubt he's gay. Most of the time...

save the trees - write a song

Had a random happening as I flicked through lots of free handouts at a Citizenship conference last week. Turned a page in The EEF's Teacher Resource Guide to be confronted by my own photographs.
Turns out, of course, that Alyn at the Kilbroney Centre decided to use some of the Camp Alliance publicity shots along with some of Rob's work to front all the publicity for the educational programs - which is nice.

In other news, been playing around with some fun new recording gear this week... so far, setting up and recording a drum kit is the hardest bit! (Doesn't help when it's a heap of crap anyway...) Hoping to be able to build enough motivation to eventually get enough stuff together for some online releasing... trying to get a collaborations thing off the ground that's been circulating among a select few for a while. We shall see!

Don't ask about bloomin' teaching.

playrights revisited

Back at Hallowe'en I wrote about being involved with TwentyFiveBelfast's Playrights project. I stumbled over our finished product on YouTube earlier on... it aired on stage before the show began, so in a twisted way it's one of the most publicly viewed projects I've ever worked on (behind Noir, the Camp promos and of course, the hooooockey... but that one wasn't really work anyway.

a christmassy 'tree

Christmas is coming, and the geese are getting fat. Actually, ours has just been plucked... having goose this year as a turkey alternative, which should be fun.

Teaching Practice 1 is officially over. Which is sad but nice. In some respects hitting the halfway mark in the year is encouraging, but in others... I can't believe there's another six months of this (hey, I can't believe I'm considering a LIFE of this... it can't be true.)

We're at home for Christmas this year, which has novelty value in itself. For the last three years the family have decamped to my aunt's in Kent, which, though thoroughly lovely, is not home. (It has proper heating and little mould.) Now that we are home for one though, I don't think people really know what to do with themselves. (We're a family of sheep!)

It'll all be over before we know it anyway. To celebrate the inevitability of this, enjoy our man Gary (veteran star of the long-remembered Dumbass films (click here for a little info - the main website is gone (for photo hosting!) but the synopsis lives on... must get some on youtube sometime) bringing back the good times by pranking his Dad - on national TV.

Merry Christmas to all...

here's lookin' at you, kid...

Was back up for a review day at UUC yesterday, and took full advantage of the non-restricted broadband to access lots of things I've been meaning to look at for a while. Top of the list were Blitzen Trapper, whose combination of country music and electronica is currently fascinating me greatly. (Cheers to Jonny B for that one... oh no, public exposure! What if your pupils find you...)

Speaking of pupils, a lot of people may now be living in fear after the realisation that more than a few of the people on our course all already popping up on the wonderfully uncomfortable Rate My Teacher website. Oh dear.

Was shopping for a new DVI to VGA adaptor earlier this week, and decided to also avail myself of some new clothing for my MacBook Pro. I remain quite fond of my eco-friendly cardboard protective casing, but society deemed it time to move on. So I bought a memory-foam-tastic LArobe case instead. [Making me, obviously, the envy of all my friends.]

Also, on Dave's recommendation, I've been Flocking around... it's not quite as exciting as anticipated, but again, the dial-up warlock may be responsible for that too.


Of course, the most exciting news there is is that tomorrow, the short epic that is Noir goes up against four other films in the final shortlist of Cinemagic's Young Filmmaker of the Year Award. We're probably more confident than we should be, but initial feelings are good. If you're free tomorrow (Sunday) at 4.30, all five films will be screened and then the award awarded in the QFT. There's very few tickets left but if you give me a shout there are some spaces left on our guestlist! (There's a lot of unsupportive girlfriends out there...)

half-term hangover

The last fortnight or so has been nothing short of mental. But, rather than try and simplify things and give a brief overview, I think I'm going to give a full blown commentary. [That, and I'm tired of marking discursive essays...]

Playrights went really well (the weekend before last - see below for more.) Spent all of the Sunday holed up in a trashed dressing room in the freezing cold QFT, staring at my MacBook and willing the footage to make sense. Eventually it did, and the finally four minutes went down a storm as it opened the show. Sadly, I don't think it'll get on YouTube (soundtrack copyright) but cheers to everyone who came up to the 'Film Crew' after and said it was awesome I guess. More work with Drama types is lined up as a result - the Film Studies experience lives on! (But with funding... gasp.)

Recovered nicely to go and witness the glory of The Frames at the Grand Opera House on Monday night. Though they played a mixed bag of really old and new (no Fake, hardly anything from For The Birds or Dance the Devil, for Frames fans...) it was an awesome gig. They've really come into their own when it comes to just getting up and playing whatever the hell they feel like, and the organic feel really shone through whenever they just started dragging on random collaborators and jamming away (including an inspired rendition of support act Mark Geary's It Beats Me which is a brilliant song. Apparently they do cover it quite a bit but Marketa Irglova was joining in which made the harmonies all a bit crazy...) But that's enough ranting about that.

Caught another great act on Tuesday, when we popped down to Common Grounds to see old favourite Mr Andrew Good introduce us to his new brand of muzak.
Andy's songs have always been quite good, but needed something to take them out from the realms of being 'just another singery-songwritery type.' And it has very much happened with the music now channelled through an absolutely brilliant five-piece, as yet unnamed band. (I'm going to keep calling them the Andy Good Experience until I hear anything better!) The songs have filled out magnificently, and as most of South Belfast is probably aware of by now, I think they're the best thing in a long line of good things.

Got to hear them again Monday night just past, as they were on the same bill as us down at Stranmillis' Student's Union, in what turned out to be a very homely, and pretty busy night of live music. Me and old PJ attempted to bring the sexy back somewhat with the first outing of a load of newish material we've been putting together. Though we felt it was a bit ropey, to be honest, a lot of it went down a bit of a storm which is really encouraging. Of course The Andy Good Experience then stole the show a bit (I thought) but then that was only to be expected.

In between all the pretending to be an undergrad again and whatnot, we did of course start back to school on Monday. Up to my eyeballs in marking, but starting to get the hang (or just getting less concerned!) of lesson planning and time management. Even managed to fit in some time for a bit of quality Need For Speed: Carbon action. [Ok, not really quality, more numbing escapism. Hey, there's not enough light for kicking a football off the wall anymore.] Between one thing and another, I'm actually physically wrecked. What's hilarious is that I lived the kind of life last week that I never bothered to do when I was actually living in Belfast, on account of being so lazy. I reckon Joni and her Big Yellow Taxi might have been onto something.

And one other thought... was gearing up to finally buy a proper domain and start getting a legitimate website for mediatree, but there are no decent domains left. Time for a rebranding? Possibly. Probably. Annoying so.

Back to work!

playrights

Reasonably excited to be involved with TwentyFiveBelfast's PlayRights event this weekend coming, as part of the Belfast Festival and in conjunction with Amnesty International. The basic gist is that 25 dramatic types will write and rehearse seven plays in 24 hours, and then put them on for the paying public in the Lyric Theatre. Hopefully, I'm part of a crew who will be filming the whole thing... I foresee a sleepless 24 hours in a makeshift editing suite.

Anyway, the show is at 10pm on Sunday night (the 28th) and is only £4 - a bargain for how much entertainment it is guaranteed to be. Having only just written and acted in a 20-minute play last week (as anyone in vague shouting distance will be aware, as the wrath exploded on the horizon) I can guarantee the guys are putting themselves through mental hell (and we had a fortnight to do it!)

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Also worth putting up on the map is a gig in Stranmillis Student's Union on November 5th - which is FREE!!! First 'solo' gig in a while, so should be manic. [Not really that solo, insisted on being allowed to bring some back-up players - who no doubt will be enraged at being referred to as such!] It's going to be an awesome night of awesome people... you'd be mad to miss it.

procrastination via production

If you're anything like me (and begin praying that you're not,) you often find yourself having to make a choice: you can procrastinate and avoid doing what really needs to be done, by finding something monotonous which has all of a sudden become terribly interesting.

Being a charitable soul, I had volunteered to take a teaching resource and make life slightly easier: take one copy each of six different DVDs, and turn it into 17-odd copies in as few discs as possible. It became pretty evident pretty quick that there was no point in trying to create (via several different Mac-cy adventures) some slimlined but still altogether similar DVDs, as I was still going to end up with four discs per volume. So I strawpolled the recipients and we were just about able to settle on a load of .mp4's and .mov's on a single DVD-ROM each... but it still required c.25 mins per DVD, plus two minutes of printing and another three cutting the glorious slip-covers (another couple of hours in designing due to my impeccably high standards, shut UP, Dave...)

Anyway, it appears it's now time to get back to those damn lesson plans... or lack thereof.

showtime

Have spend the last couple of days gathering up stuff to attempt to hack together my first proper showreel, to highlight what i'm (theoretically!) capable of with film-making. It's a daunting task:

(a) because I've (theoretically) made a huge amount, and
(b) because so much of it is unusable.

Completely unusable. Years ago, when I got the bug and was shown how to hack stuff together by my crazy-ass cousin, we didn't have anything digital - it was done with an uncle's '80s cassette video camera and two VCR's - and lots of mistakes. So that stuff's all out. Later stuff shot on digital but that I only have on VHS - out. Pretty much anything produced using the world's WORST edit software (not including anything that ever came bundled with Windows) Pinnacle Studio (more glitches than... something with a hell of a lot of glitches) - rendered usually in a horrendous low-res. Plus the titles etc. are so bad i can hardly bear to look at most of it myself.

Which has left me with a few things to throw in: all the uni stuff (thankfully backed up as very high-res mpgs and movs over the years - now that's foresight), a couple of shorts from the last year or so (humour level: high. film quality: hmmm...) and I guess I'll bite the bullet and try and use some of the other stuff sparingly. I guess the result will never look like anything beyond a laptop screen or a VHS, but considering my target market, that's probably not the worst evil.

To work!

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I finally got my dirty paws on the glorious Parallels Desktop 3.0 for the MacBook; but I can't yet use it because those expletives at Dell don't see fit to include the Windows XP installation disc (which I believe you've probably paid for, yes?) with the PC when you buy it. So I'm currently trying this procedure... the evil's of dial-up mean it's going to take a couple of days to download XP Service Pack 2 off the Microsoft website though; but I'll write up how this adventure turns out in the end.

[This note's really just for you, Dave, to keep your currently tech-deprived brain ticking over...]

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Finally got a year's worth of analogue film photographs developed this week. Loads of horrendous shots, but got very nostalgic with a few from the COISC's Weekend Retreat from last October.

first things first

I can't explain it, but I've had a lot of trouble thinking of what to post first on this, the new blog page. Which is very silly, as no-one will read it anyway [other than those who see it in their facebook notifications and click on it out of boredom.] As a new project, it doesn't feel like you can just continue on with previous strings and waves of thought, but like you have to start again.

So I thought I'd go for an explanation. Someone working beside me just leant over and asked, "Why are you giving the impression that you're speaking on behalf of an organisation or something, when it's your own personal blog?" That sounds like as good a place to start as any.

I've been a volunteer youth worker for nearly six years. It sounds very long, but I spent the first four of those usually getting it drastically wrong. No court cases though, so it's all good. [Dangerous jokes, last of those I'll make...] I've spent the last three 'reading' Film Studies at Queen's University, Belfast - for many, an enormous waste of time, but there was something useful imparted every now and again. Through a long-time interest in film - completely extra-curricular - I've been making films for, interestingly, about as long as I've been with the youth work, and luckily, in the last couple of years the two have intersected every now and again; even expanding to photography and radio on occasion.

Mediatree is really an umbrella to combine all these things. Right now, I'm about to begin a year of teacher training. It'll be a tough old year, but if I still like working with teenagers by the end of it, it's a very good sign. By working together all the different elements of media stuff and the youth work, I hope to someday fulfill the Mediatree ideal, working resourcing, corporate media work, and youth work as facets of a single setup. It's a big ask, but it does have a bit of a calling/obsession element to it.

Make sense? Probably not.

I'd really like to be able to earn some kudos back at this point, and stick a couple of film clips up to win your undying approval; I'm kinda worried though that if I put up any of our final uni project, it'll get me in trouble with Film Festival people who are funny about that kind of thing the world over. And I can't put up any of the youth work stuff because of Child Protection legislation.

So instead, here's one from a couple of years ago with some chop socky.



[If you can't see the video, click here instead.]