Two Weeks Gone!

Hello once again my faithful followers!

Again I must apologize for this blogs lateness. My original plan was weekly although over the last month it seems to have become a fortnightly occurrence. This fortnight's time has been taken up with various things but this blog has also been put on hold due to a sinus infection I had recently and a Graphics folio due before we broke up – which was yesterday. I feel the Journal style of the last blog worked well so this will be the style I'll follow for this one.

Monday 23^rd March

The main event of this day was filming the final part of the Eco Schools Anti Litter video. It was quite a stress free afternoon as all that needed filming was the video for the rap so we didn't have to worry about audio meaning that we could give directions off camera and communicate with each other on how to move the jib and frame the shot etc – more on the jib later! Felt like we were some form of silent movie directors, but without the loud hailers!

I took along all my different DIY camera supports in order to get as wide a range shoot as possible. This included:
- A tripod (actually not DIY but used the old rubber band trick for a "fluid head" style shot).
- A DIY steadicam made out of wood, pvc couplings and based on a gimbal system.
- A DIY jib, my favorite support. Made mostly out of 8ft lengths of pine and attached to a tripod via a countersunk tripod plate.

The plan now is to first install a dedicated RAID drive (from my brother's old broken PC!), capture all the camera footage (1hr30mins worth) to it. Edit it into a rough cut. Show this to the group for them to make any changes then work on sound and colour timing. Then export in as many formats as necessary, hi quality, web optimized, ipod etc.

My plan is to work on it over the Easter holiday and try and at least "cut the crap" for what of a better word hopefully giving me an idea of the rough timing for it.

Pictures all together of jib etc at end and more info to follow both here and on Twitter! (http://www.twitter.com/dopkrm).

Once we'd finished filming we had to run home with jib in arms, drop off equipment and I had to go and set up technical stuff for my drama exam which was happening the following day!

Tuesday 24^th March

The day of the drama exam… Also a year since – ahh, I digress!

Got into school relatively early to put finishing touches to setup. As I was operating lighting AND sound the setup was as follow.

Lighting
- Strand 200 Series 12/24 two preset LX board. Fully programmable subs and fx chases but annoyingly no theatre stack for the running of cues. Instead just had sub page and number written down on script.
- 14 lanters, 4 profiles (Front of House) and 10 Fresnels (2 FOH, 6 on side bars and two back lights). The two FOH ones were gelled @ LEE Filters 117 giving a sky blue and the back light ones @ LEE Filters 026 being a flame red.

Sound
- An old spirit 4 channel sound board (although not many inputs for the board it has full frequency and AUX sends which I could use with…)
- Behringer "Virtualizer Pro" 2 channel FX processor. As with many FX processors a large amount of the FX are overkill and unusable but most have around 8 different editable functions so you really can optimize the sound. Also allows the storage of 100 user presets so all in all a good processor. I set it up in mono using one cable from a AUX send then outputting in stereo from processor.
- Using a standard CD player with separate speakers as the desk amp using a 2 ¼" to 3.5mm cable from the stereo outputs (post FX return.)
- 3 microphones each in different positions for live SFX. Two cheap, one for ting sound and one for clang. I also had a Shure SM58 (obviously! They re-issued the box for it quite recently, looks impressive – I'll put a pic in!) attached to a mic stand so I myself could make the live gunshot sounds. Put it through a pitch shifter and reverb and it sounds okay!

I also had to run LX for three other plays, one of which I hadn't even received a script from so that wasn't the best fun! All in all though it was a good day, everything got put away in time and according to our drama teacher everyone passed so now it's just the written exam I have to pass in May!

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Apart from these days the week was quite uneventful. On Thursday 26^th Daniel and I were asked if we could produce and present a monthly podcast for the Eco Schools group – the group for which we are making the video. We accepted to do this for the following selfish reasons! :
- Any money from the sponsoring of the podcast me and daniel get to keep ourselves therefore there is the possibility of us making some type of profit from doing this podcast.
- If we did complete this then we wouldn't have to do anything else for the group!

These reasons were enough for us so we will be gathering information from the various sub-groups once we go back to school and then putting together a show.
I am currently in the process of trying to get apple to sponsor us, what with them currently trying to portray a green image etc. No luck yet, if anyone reading this is interested in sponsoring then let me know in the comments!

The structure of the show will be as follows:
- Headlines
- Topics
- Future plans
- Viewer feedback
- Closing

We plan to release it in many different formats, an enhanced AAC one for itunes and ipods with links and pictures etc, a standard mp3 version for other devices and a cut down version to be broadcast on our school tanoy system over lunch. Friday night saw me experimenting with different podcast setups, most simple is two mics, one two left channel one two right through a mixer into a computer then mixed separately. Pictures at end!

I then came down with a sinus infection which is why this post is late. Easter will be a time of revision but I am also hoping to begin editing eco film.

Once again apologizes for the lateness, with myself being on holiday there won't be a blog next week unless something major happens but I will be twittering @ http://www.twitter.com/dopkrm

Now pictures!

How the lighting ground plan looks for blood brothers play

FX processor, not a necessity for podcasting but good fun for skype!

Podcast setup, yes those are socks and elastic bands as pop filters!

Behringer Mixer

Screenshot of all the LX cue sheets, a total of 99 cues (number not intentional!)

Zero 88 Jester LX board, for other performances!

Strand 200 LX board with subs!

The lengths some people go to to get a good high shot! Scary.

Nice to have a production assistant who thinks it's better to take pictures than help you carry an 8ft jib around!

Close up of steadicam gimbal system

Me with jib on hill for extra height!