The End of the Academic Year, A Unique Fringe Evening, and Working with my Photo Buddy!

The end of the academic year is here once again, and with it comes the annual Degree Show.  Every year the students of Media Production have a strong presence at the Degree Show, with films being shown and posters on display.  This year, in addition to the normal exhibition, we had elements from the sets of three films recreated in our Shoot Studio for visitors to take a look around, and get an extra experience from the degree show.  Pride of place was the set of James Parsons' western drama, 'Violet', and I had the opportunity to shoot a photo of James on the set, along with Director of Photography Ciaron Craig (Ciaron's on the left, James is on the right):

The Degree Show posters were on display in the Film Theatre foyer, as is traditional, and also in the newly opened Review Room next to the Shoot Studio.  Last year I took some portraits of the film-makers with their posters, so this year I decided to carry on the tradition, and capture some of the Class of 2012 with their work:

 Luke Fawsitt with the poster for The Bone China Formula

 Ewan Dyer with the poster for Circulate

 Rob Burns with the poster for Dead Rabbits

Jon White with the poster for Pancakes

The set of Degree Show pictures can be seen on Flickr here: Degree Show 2012

Running alongside the Degree Show this year was a new event, the Staffordshire University Fringe Festival.  The Friday night, June 22nd, was a working night for me, having been recruited by Unique Media Productions to help out with their closing night event, "It's A Wrap!", a celebration of the films of the Class of 2012 coupled with an audio-visual performance by local VJ and DJ outfit bITjAM, otherwise known as Carl Plant and Ben McManus:

The event was organised by Unique Media Production's Rachel Brewster, who not only organised the whole thing but also got the first round in!

After being heavily involved in the physical setting up of the event, the evening gave me a chance to wander around with my camera and document the visitors to give an overall view of the proceedings:

The full set of photos from the event can be seen on Flickr: "It's A Wrap!" event, Staffordshire University Fringe Festival

Today I spent the day in the studio, working with my former Phoenix Photo Buddy and great friend Lauren Freeman.  For a little while now I've been batting around a few ideas for themed shoots, and in recent weeks Lauren and I have been planning a day in the studio, and today was that day!  

The first thing I have to say about today's shoot is that Lauren was an absolute star.  She turned up early, having travelled down to Stoke, she did her own hair, make-up and outfits, took direction accurately every single time and built on ideas to make them her own. Considering that this was Lauren's first time in front of the camera on a shoot of this scale, I have to say that I couldn't have wished for a better model in front of my lens!

We covered several themes that I've been developing, and shot around 2200 shots over seven hours.  I've got an awful lot of editing to do, but I'm looking forward to it immensely!  For now though, here's a sneak peek from behind the scenes, of Lauren on the studio set, retouching her make-up:

Watch this space!

A Trip to the Bank, Two Tatenhills and a Galione Visit

Forgive me readers, for I have sinned, it has been more than two weeks since my last blog entry....

A few weeks back I took a picture of the Jodrell Bank site at night, after a trip to Congleton, and I was very pleased with the resultant shot. Jodrell Bank has been on my list of places to visit for quite some time now, and frankly it's amazing that I've not been before since it's really not that far away! So on the Sunday before Valentine's Day, Yol and I got into the car and headed to Lower Withington in Cheshire, the site of Jodrell Bank. The weather forecast had said that it would be misty but that it would lift by noon. Apparently forecasters lie...

Let me say this about Jodrell Bank before I say anything else: if you've got even the faintest interest in astronomy, the place is an absolute must. I spent our time there looking in awe at everything, giddy like a child in a sweet shop! Educational, informative and extremely interesting, as well we fun and fascinating, we both hugely enjoyed it.



The 'main attraction' at Jodrell Bank is the Lovell Telescope, a 76 metre diameter dish array that probes the heavens. It's one of the most iconic man-made structures in the country, and even in the mist it's extremely photogenic!




We'd not been there long when a siren sounded, and the whole array began to rotate and realign. To see the dish move is an awe-inspiring experience, a feat of engineering that astounds to witness! As well as the Lovell, there are two buildings containing informational displays and features, as well as a lovely cafe and some scientific installations (check out the Whispering Dishes if you go!)





There's also an astronomy-themed garden area that will be coming into bloom in the next couple of months. All in all a cracking place to visit!



The full album of Jodrell Bank photos can be seen on Flickr here - Jodrell Bank set.

A couple of blog posts back, I wrote about a visit to Tatenhill Airfield with documentary-maker Vicki Smart. Since then we've been back for two more location recces, one last weekend and one this weekend. Last weekend was a little bit of a wash-out, in that it absolutely chucked it down as soon as we'd got there. Nobody was flying, the rain was beating against the windows of the cafe, but that didn't stop the crew from getting some materials in the can. Cameraman Danyl Rathband wrestled the camera into its raincover and shot some cutaways, with Vicki directing:





The rain-soaked visit can be seen on Flickr here - Tatenhill visit, 18-02-12

The second visit was, in terms of climate and shooting opportunity, a much more fruitful experience! This time, Vicki and I were accompanied by cameraman Alex Dean, and no sooner had we arrived on site than we were offered a chance to go up and get some aerial footage, courtesy of pilot Mike Tidmarsh. Mike, and fellow pilot Kevin Arblaster, also allowed us to film and shoot the pre-flight checks and inspections on N84VK, a four seater Piper PA-24-250 aircraft:





Before long it was time for take-off, with Mike as pilot, Alex filming from the front passenger seat, and me shooting stills from the back alongside Vicki:




The flight itself was short and very bumpy, the latter contributing to the former. Soon after take off, all three of us non-pilots were feeling pretty queasy, with Alex being the first to tap out and request that we land. Alex had been filming since before take-off, looking through the camera's eyepiece, and this can't have helped! Hopefully the footage will be good though! The view from up in the air was spectacular, the clearness of the day giving us a tremendous vantage point:




Before long we were back on the ground, and finding our feet again as we filmed and shot the post-flight checks:





The full set from the visit can be seen on Flickr here - Tatenhill visit 250212

At the Uni recently, I've been involved in teaching our Media Production students how to use a piece of kit called a Glidecam (very similar to Steadicam, which is a brand name). I'd posted some pics on Facebook from the teaching sessions, and was soon contacted by former student and current professional Steadicam operator Jon Galione. Jon and I go way back, we worked together on the Manchester Phoenix match night crew - Jon was one of the two original camera operators for the team, spending many hours perched up in a cherrypicker filming games at Deeside and Sheffield during the season that Phoenix played on the road! We've also worked together for Comtec as freelancers, taking a trip to work a conference at EuroDisney. Jon had some ideas on how to better operate the Glidecam using the camera that we were teaching it with, the Sony EX3, and he very graciously accepted our invitation to come in and take a look at it:




We were joined by fellow technical instructor Matt Lewis, and student Ciaron Craig, as Jon fine tuned our Glidecam and showed us all the most effective methods to get the best visual results from it.




Jon also posed for a spontaneous portrait before he left, indulging my passion for trying to capture the essence of people's characters. I think this shot sums up Jon quite well!:



The full set of shots from Jon's visit can be seen on Flickr here - Jon Galione visit.

Thanks for reading!