This new video, ‘Seven Day Mile‘, is the first of four videos from the night (one of each of the acts), we’ll be uploading a new video every week in the run up to the April Sessions and hopefully by the time the Sessions close at the end of this year we’ll have built up a great collection of videos over on KilkennyMusicTV.

Shot on a Canon HG10 and Sony Hybrid HandyCam; with the Canon set up on a tripod at the back of the room and me with the Sony at the front right of the stage (standing on a chair) with Ken recording the tracks through the desk and mixing in Pro Tools.

Cut together using Final Cut Express 4 (the other three are currently rough cut), Ken designed the titles and overlays and I added them in After Effects. In post I also added some zooms to the shots from the Canon.

I’m really looking forward to the constant flow of video footage for editing practice, I’m currently working on an animated intro sequence for the videos and we’ve got a few more content ideas that we’ll be adding as we go along.

Don’t forget to subscribe to KilkennyMusicTV for upcoming videos and keep an eye on KilkennyMusic for news on the next One Take Sessions.

Ken had asked me weeks ago if I was interested in throwing something together for it but with the run of ‘Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay!’ we had forgotten about it. With the play finished and the awards looming we met up on Tuesday afternoon to brainstorm ideas. Most of the afternoon was spent drinking tea and coming up with dead-end scenarios, all we knew for certain was that we wanted it to focus on the highly debated topic of late “Blogging is Dead!”.

The videos had to be sent on Friday so given our time constraints we needed to keep it simple, opting to go for a single set-up news bulletin with everything shot on green screen (giving me more practice in After Effects). We met up again on Wednesday for the shoot in my sitting room. The main problem was a lack of lights, Ken brought a double-headed construction work light but only one of the lights worked; I used this to light the green screen and used my small desk lamp to light Ken. It wasn’t ideal but we were working against the clock. We shot the whole thing in about 20 minutes with Ken as the Net News Nightly reporter and me as the terrorist leader responsible for the death of blogging.

The opening sequence was put together using a royalty free graphics sequence and music from the iLife collection then I added the animated titles designed by Ken. The background behind Ken is another royalty free graphic sequence, the green screen removal is a bit rough but that’s simply because of the lack of lights. The riot footage was pulled offline and Ken designed Sky News style overlays which I added to the entire sketch.

With the rough cut assembled, all the backgrounds replaced and the overlays in place, we added the finishing touches with the scrolling bar at the bottom displaying retweets from Twitter about the death of blogging and finally a completely random image of a cat and a laptop to finish Net News Nightly; your daily internet news… nightly!

I’m told there was a great response to the video at the awards on Saturday night, having missed the session this year I’m already making a plan to go to next years awards and hopefully we’ll put together another video for that too.

You can check out all the videos from the night here and you can see the list of Irish Blog Awards 2010 winners here, well done to all the winners.

While that content will hopefully start appearing online over the next few weeks I’ve just uploaded a first attempt at an animated logo for KilkennyMusic.com. I’ve spent the past week or so playing around with animated title sequences, getting to grips with 3D elements and creating camera movements in After Effects.

It’s a lot of fun but my main problem was that I didn’t really have any real content to work on, so with the Sessions approaching I asked Ken to send me on some KKM logos to play around with. The above animated logo was the preferred one in the end.

I kept it very basic to start with; bringing the K logo and the splatter in from opposite sides then moving the 3D camera so they move upwards as KilkennyMusic.com appears underneath. To finish it off I added a royalty free sound effect from the iLife collection.

I’m quite happy with it giving that it took about 10 minutes to create, they’ll get more complicated as I progress with After Effects and we start pushing out video content from the Sessions. As always feedback is welcome.

The first One Take Sessions of 2010 kicks off tonight in Cleere’s Theatre with performances from Kieran Byrne, Eoin MacNamara, Little Black Wren and Mugger Dave.

Doors open 9:30pm and it’s FREE! Check out KilkennyMusic.com for more details.

The Bulls are currently writing songs for a new album so expect the gig to be an awesome sneak preview of hardcore things to come. You can check out tracks from previous releases ‘Lost Causes’ and ‘The Incompetence To Follow’ here on the 20BullsEach MySpace.

They’ll be joined on the night by English punk rock quartet Koala Attack, they’ve only got one track up on their MySpace but it’s pretty awesome. Local support comes from Chemical Addiction.

It should be an awesome gig and what else are you going to do for a fiver on a Wednesday night!?

DON’T MISS IT!!!

If you haven’t cast your vote for your favourite busker yet then click here to go to Busker2009.com and check out video performances by the six finalists; Sean Watmore, Quintet Tarantino, Fionn O’Hargain, Vicky Day (above), Annie Chambers and Beef Supreme. One of these finalists will walk away with a €1,000 cash prize!

Voting closes this coming Friday at 11:59pm. And don’t forget that you must click the link in the confirmation email to make sure your vote counts. If you don’t click the link in the email to confirm your vote, your vote won’t count!

Tune into KCLR96FM tomorrow around 3:15pm to hear more about the competition.

After seven months and countless hours of street music, the final round of busking for the competition took place on the streets of Kilkenny on Saturday with finalists Quintet Tarantino, Sean Watmore, Vicky Day, Beef Supreme (above), Annie Chambers and Fionn O’Hargain all competing for the €1,000 cash prize.

As always voting is open to the public so please go to Busker2009.com to watch the six video performances by our finalists and cast your vote for the best busker of 2009.

You will get an email asking you to confirm your vote and please note that only confirmed votes will be accepted.

Voting closes at 23:59 GMT on Friday November 13th.

First up is the shot from the test shoot in my sitting room; having spent a lot of time in the Mill studio with the lads during recording, we had worked out some ideas for the cover; the main ideas involving the band, a couch and a big old television.

With the recording finished and the tracks in the mixing stages, we met up for two photo-shoots on the last weekend in May. The first on the Saturday night, I re-arranged the furniture in my sitting room and used every lamp and light I could find around the house to try different lighting techniques, while the lads chilled out on the couch finding gross things on the internet.

Most of the lighting set-ups were a disaster but the set-up for the finished shot is as follows: there’s a household lamp positioned behind the couch to back-light the lads, another lamp positioned to the right of Ken as a side-light and another lamp lighting the back of the television. The glow from the television wasn’t bright enough to light all three faces so I used the screen from my Powerbook G4 and my Sb800 positioned on the floor (I can’t remember the setting).

The resulting shot was the best thing I got on the night but wasn’t exactly what I was going for or suitable for the album cover, but that’s the great thing about test shoots. The following afternoon we drove to the new HotShotz Studio in Callan (thanks Benny) and having a better idea of what we were now going for, I set up the studio for my first ever shoot on a Canon (EOS 5D with a EF24-105mm Zoom).

My first proper studio shoot was a lot of fun, I spent some time spotting the lights and we spent the afternoon tweaking positions and poses as you can see in the behind the scenes video from the photoshoot (above).

If you haven’t got your hands on a copy of Insula yet then the video features the awesome track  ‘Acid’ and a look at the finished front cover design by Ken McGuire.

The album will be available online in the next few weeks through SouthOfficial.com but until then if you want to purchase a copy of Insula then just get in touch with South on MySpace.

This episode was easily the toughest to cut together; I had to shave about 14 minutes off it. It meant having to sacrifice a lot of good footage which unfortunately wouldn’t stand alone. In some cases it meant cutting some scenes short, in others it meant losing entire songs from the web-series.

The final installment begins like Episode 2; with another out-take’s slash ‘Previously’ sequence; a brief look at some of the laughs and “Christian Bale moments” during the recording sessions, before moving on to look at the recording of ‘Acid’ (previously unheard).

Anybody who saw the teaser trailer will recognise the first shot; which tracks through the studio just before Daw begins on the drums. For those interested; this is the only opportunity to see the benefits of colour grading, as the teaser trailer shows the raw footage compared to the overall finished look.

This sequence with the drums had to be cut very short, the full length version covers the entire drum take; with Daw messing up at the end only to have to start again. Several times. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t put it all in.

Instead, the episode moves on to recording the bass for ‘Acid’, some technical difficulties, a bit of worrying, Ken’s hilarious struggle with “the retarded tuner”. There’s a sneak preview of “the magic sex chords” for previously unheard ‘Over My Eyes’ and more.

As the days in the studio passed by in a blur, the lads slowly but surely ticked off their progress on the chart, songs were finished, a lot of munch got munched, we drank way too much Monster Ripper and Thomas slowly got used to me sticking a camera in his face and finally did some talking.

Episode 3 finishes with a final sneak preview, another previously unheard song ‘Life Goes On’, which features on the soon to be launched debut album. This was actually the second music video sequence I cut together during the editing process. This was when I first figured out how to layer the footage so I could show more than one thing at the same time. I was wary of getting too carried away with using the effect but given the limits of operating the two cameras at the same time and sound of the song in particular, I wanted to blend the footage so the transitions flowed with the song (my favourite transition happens at about 8mins 26 secs).

The final episode going online brings me close to the end of my first solo project. I still have a whole bunch of photos that I’ll get them online in the coming weeks. You can check out my brand new Episode 3 promo shot here on the Oss237.com homepage. The response and feedback to the project has been very encouraging so far and as always comments, criticism or feedback are greatly appreciated.

Don’t forget that South & The Lions Mane will take to the stage in Cleere’s Theatre this Saturday. It’s going to be awesome! Doors open 9:30pm and admission is €6.

The second installment in the series begins with a little “Previously” sequence, although it’s more of an out-take sequence; seeing as none of the footage seen actually appears in the first episode. Over the course of the recording process the running joke in the studio (every time something went wrong or we were having a laugh) was for somebody to say “previously on South”. When it came to cutting the footage, instead of losing all of the funny bits I simply cut them into a little previously section.

Episode 2 begins by filling in the missing pieces from Episode 1; covering the guitar and bass recording for ‘Downpour’. The first episode could have given the impression that recording the song was quick and easy, I wanted to show that the process took a couple of days; as each instrument was recorded on a different day and the song was slowly pieced together.

It’s also important to note that bassist (and ladie’s man) Ken Farrell says that ‘Downpour’ is “the last song on the album”; at the time of recording it was but having reviewed the finished tracks the lads from South decided to change the track listing and ‘Downpour’ is now track 9 but rest assured it’s still “got rain in it”!

This episode also shows a bit more of the difficulties faced by Producer/Engineer Alan Dawson as he tried to record himself playing the drums. There’s also some bass and guitar takes for different songs that appear on the album. Because of time-constraints I had to cut about 4 minutes off this episode; meaning quite a few takes and songs had to be cut.

Shooting without any script meant that when cutting it was difficult to keep whole conversations that ran too long. I had to chop bits and pieces of dialogue and sometimes cut it so people are actually having conversations with themselves over different days. So when trying to put some narrative structure to the whole thing and keep it at a good pace; I decided to cut back and forth between the scenes. Only showing what was necessary to piece it all together.

As with the previous episode (and the final one), this episode features a song that will appear on the upcoming album, in this case ‘Symmetry‘. This music video sequence was actually the third one I cut together, back when the plan was for four episodes, but once I chopped it down to three I decided to swap the music-video sequences around so that the final episode would finish with another brand new song.

By the time it came to cutting ‘Symmetry’, I had gotten a bit more adventurous with my cutting patterns; I had discovered that by layering the shots, I could show more going on at the same time. This is also used in Episode 3, but in an effort to keep similiar shots/set-ups fresh and make the videos separate to each other; with ‘Symmetry’ I tried alternating cutting patterns between the layers, cutting to the music so that most of the time what you see at that point is what you really hear when you listen to the song. I’m not sure if that will make sense when you read it but hopefully it will when you watch the video.

As always comments and feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks to everyone who watched the first episode; myself and the lads from South have been very happy with all the feedback. Hopefully you’ll enjoy this new episode just as much.

South – ‘The Making Of Insula’ Episode 3 goes online next Friday.

Episode 1 begins as the recording sessions began; back in April on the first day in the Mill Studio, as the lads from South set up their gear. The mood was giddy and as they got everything ready; Daw tried to get his head around the idea of recording himself playing the drums. The first few days of recording focused on the drums so when editing the footage it seemed natural for the first episode to go that way.

As with the two upcoming episodes; this episode pays particular attention to an individual song, in this case, the previously unheard track ‘Downpour’, which will appear on South’s upcoming debut (out July 31st). I don’t know how many times I’ve had to listen to this song, it doesn’t really matter because I don’t think I can get tired of it, but when cutting the music-video sequence together I kept it to a fairly basic cutting style in comparison to the episodes that follow. At this stage I must also point out that the music used is not the final mix of the song, you’ll have to wait until the album comes out on July 31st, but it’s an awesome sneak preview.

As my first completely solo-project, it was difficult to come to terms with trying to do a two camera shoot on my own. I had to constantly be thinking the cuts in my head; with the Canon XAH1 (recording on tape) set up on a tripod to capture my master shot of each instrument during each take (and using the manual focus to get some nice pick-up shots in between), whilst always moving around getting cut-to’s on the Canon HG10 (recording on hard drive) mounted on my steadycam. The result was a hell of a lot of coverage that needed to be synced and then chipped away at.

Now that it’s finally finished I’d like to say thanks to the people who helped along the way; firstly thanks to Thomas, Ken and Daw for the opportunity to join them and work on something together, our time together in the studio was so much fun. I know it can’t have been easy to constantly have a camera in your face but thanks for not pulling a Christian Bale every time I moved a light or a flash went off in your face!? Having watched all the episodes with the lads during the week; I’m delighted to say that they loved them and I’m looking forward to working on music videos and the tour in the coming weeks.

I also have to say a huge thank you to Alan Slattery; for providing me with equipment and constant technical advice throughout the entire process. From frantic phone calls because I thought I broke his camera on the first day; because there’s a stupid button on the side that appears to have the only function of: making a camera act broken!? To solving the problem of each camera recording in a different codec through tape & hard drive. Right through the endless questions: how do I do that? What’s that yoke? I pushed this and now what’s happened? How do I make it do that and then turn everything inside out!? Thank you Sla and thanks for the colour grading that made everything look awesome in the end!

If your reading this then, please take 10 minutes to sit back and watch South – ‘The Making Of Insula’ Episode 1. As always comments would be greatly appreciated and don’t forget Episode 2 goes online next week and if you’re on Twitter then don’t forget to follow South for updates and news (and let them know what you think of ‘Downpour’).