Tokyo/Glow

Check out this awesome short film, Tokyo/Glow written and directed by Jonathan Bensimon.

It follows the journey of an illuminated man from a crosswalk sign as he embarks on an adventure. Shot on location throughout Tokyo using thousands of individual digital stills, the light suit was constructed using hundreds of feet of high-voltage LED rope and a translucent nylon outer shell to achieve the striking effect of the illuminated man.

Post-production included weeks of extensive roto-scoping and compositing, a colour grade, and once the effects were complete the thousands of still images were pieced together. Quite simply it’s amazing!

Canada’s Shame

Born Of Hope

If you’re a fan of Lord Of The Rings or a low budget film maker then you have to check out ‘Born Of Hope’.

It’s a low-budget fan-made feature-length, based on appendices from LOTR, shot over a period of six years with a cast of 400, and it was produced for only £25,000.

The film runs at 1 hour and 11 minutes and due to copyright laws it’s only available to watch online.

Given how it was made, it’s damn impressive. Make sure and check out BornOfHope.com for all sorts of production diaries, concept art and more.

Mata Hari – Fast Way (Music Video)

Back in March I posted a behind the scenes video from my photo-shoot with Mata Hari; as the lads recorded their first music video.

The video for “Fast Way” has just gone online; awesomely shot and cut by student filmmaker Ivars Burtnieks.

As I mentioned before, the video was shot in a freight container in the Hebron industrial estate but it also features footage of the classic rockers in the studio recording. Much to my surprise I even make a little cameo in the video, if you look really closely at around 3 minutes and 30 seconds you’ll spot me setting up for my promo shoot with the band.

If you missed it before then you can check out my behind the scenes video and promo shots from the shoot with Mata Hari here.

Well done to Ivars for doing a great job with the video for “Fast Way”, you can check out more of his videos here on Youtube and you’ll find Mata Hari here on MySpace.

Vote for “Once I Counted Birds”

“Once I Counted Birds” a new short film by ArtLinks Director Cathy Fitzgerald is currently entered in the UK Guardian’s Climate Change film competition 1MinuteToSaveTheWorld.

This new film incorporates old footage taken by Cathy on a biodiversity research trip to Suwarrow; a remote, un-peopled atoll in the Cook Islands, South Pacific, in 2000. Suwarrow is an important breeding place for seabirds of all types including the rare and very large Masked Booby; her and fellow scientist Rhys Jones collected data was later published in the NZ Forest and Bird Journal 2001 and the project was a jointly sponsored UN and Cook Island project. While the trip may look idyllic, Cathy almost drowned when the yacht she and her colleague hitched a lift with was hit by a freak wave. Her new digital camcorder was destroyed but her old Hi8 survived to take this footage.

Many years later, Cathy is now actively involved in promoting ecological, permanent forestry in her small woodlands in Ireland; she blogs and creates works about converting her 20 year old spruce plantation to a permanent forest using Pro Silva, close to nature, forestry methods. She believes that small local ecologically based actions can have a positive effect globally and personally.

You can vote for “Once I Counted Birds” here; simply give the video a rating. From what I can tell, it is the only Irish entry in the competition and I think it would be great to see Cathy win given her huge interest in ecology/environmental politics & film and years of hard work promoting the Arts in Ireland.

The voting closes this Friday and don’t forget to follow Cathy’s EcoArtNotes on Twitter for updates and new work.

Vultures Episode 7: ‘The Long Goodbye’ & New Promo Shot!

The final episode in the Vultures series went online yesterday; here’s the official Mycrofilm’s word on Episode 7 ‘The Long Goodbye’;

With Isabelle Vultour captured and the Pinkertons establishing their firm grip on the town, the gentlemen detectives of V.P.I. must concoct a plan to get Isabelle back, stick it to the Pinkertons and for Vultour and McGrain… avoid a threesome with Natalie Blaise? But in order to do so they must rally the troops. And the actions of the bullying Pinkertons has ensure that there’s plenty of volunteers. This is it. The final battle. The detective apocalypse. Who will reign supreme? Who will prove to the best detective force in town? Or will it all descend into a terrible mess? This is the long goodbye, where the goodbyes are long and the farewells are hard.

With the last episode now online, I’ll be spending the next few days getting to work on hundreds of photos taken during the 10 week shoot for episodes 5, 6 & 7. To avoid spoilers I’ve held back on uploading any of the images.

I’ve also got hours of behind the scenes footage from the shoot that I might use for a bit of editing practice, I haven’t really decided what to do with it yet. Now that it’s all come to a close I’ll also be able to talk about the shoot in detail.

For now I’ve uploaded yet another promo shot of the hapless detectives of V.P.I, which you can check out here on the Oss237.com homepage. I’ve already got some great feedback about the final episode and as always I’d love to hear people’s comments and feedback.

The Terrific Three Trailer & Behind the Scenes Photos

The seventh and final episode in the Vultures series; ‘The Long Goodbye’ goes online on Sunday October 4th and as always there’s a brand new trailer to check out (above).

Unlike the previous trailers which were often scenes to bridge the gaps between episodes, the newest and final trailer for the series is a flashback to 1998 featuring teenage versions of Jim Vultour (James Doran), Dan McGrain (David Galster) and Natalie Blaise (Hazel Doyle).

We shot the Terrific Three trailer on the very first day, of the 10 week shoot for episodes 5, 6 and 7; January 4th to be precise, a cold and frosty Sunday morning. We once again took over the Slattery family home, drinking endless amounts of tea and despite the bitter cold we had a great laugh capturing the Enid Blyton-style adventures of the “Vultures babies”.

At the time of the shoot my arm was still in a sling (see my first attempt at video blogging) meaning it was difficult to balance my script, my tea and to try taking photos at the same time, but I have uploaded a couple of shots from behind the scenes on the first day of shooting; including a before & after version of the shot seen at the end of ‘Attack Of The Pinkertons‘.

The before shot features the Terrific Three complete with Marlowe the dog (played by Jack the dog) and thanks to the photoshop skills of Paddy Dunne; the after shot features a young version of Isabelle Vultour (played by Liadain Kaminska). You’ll find the photos here on my flickr.

Vultures Episode 7: ‘The Long Goodbye’ goes online this coming Sunday (Oct 4th) and following it’s release I’ll finally be able to talk about the shoot in detail and upload all my behind the scenes photos.

A Blast From The Past & Coming Soon!

Yesterday, the Devious Theatre Company released some long awaited video footage from Cannibal! The Musical!, which took place in the Watergate Theatre back in 2007.

The above scene shows Alferd Packer (played by David Thompson) returning back to camp to discover that Shannon Wilson Bell (played by John Morton) has gone mad, killed the rest of the group and is in the process of cooking various body parts for dinner.

It’s hard to believe that Cannibal! was only two years ago and it’s great to see Devious finally releasing some footage online; however it’s a pity that so many hilarious scenes have been skipped over and this was the first one up!?

It’s almost a year since I was involved in a theatre production; having taken a nice long break following the onslaught that was Trainspotting, followed by Smitten, followed by The War Of The Worlds (currently nominated for a PPI Award).

But this past week has seen me dusting off my acting shoes as I begin rehearsals for the Watergate Theatre Company’s production of Martin McDonagh’s ‘The Beauty Queen Of Leenane’ which will run in the Watergate Theatre from November 23rd – 28th.

“The Beauty Queen Of Leenane tells the darkly comic tale of Maureen Folan, a plain, lonely woman in her early forties, and Mag, her manipulative ageing mother, whose interference in Maureen’s first and possibly final chance of a loving relationship sets in motion a train of events that leads inexorably towards the play’s terrifying dénouement.”

The play will be my first outing with the Watergate Theatre Company,  joined by Clare Henrique who is also make her WTC debut; I’m really delighted to get to share the stage with the Kilkenny theatre legends that are Mary Craddock & Brendan Corcoran and to work with director Ger Cody.

I’ll be blogging more about the show over the coming weeks and will hopefully get a chance to take some photos behind the scenes too, but for now it’s time for me to learn my lines.

The Watergate Theatre Company presents Martin McDonagh’s ‘The Beauty Queen Of Leenane’ in the Watergate Theatre 23rd-28th November.

For ticket bookings call: 056-7761674

Vultures Episode 6: Attack Of The Pinkertons

Following last night’s premiere of the final two episodes in the series; Vultures Episode 6: ‘Attack Of The Pinkertons‘ is now online!

The official Mycrofilms’ word on the new episode is this;

“Unemployed and underground (well, in Tennyson’s house), Vultour and McGrain are intent on eluding the clutches of their old friend Natalie Blaise. Tennyson however is looking for a peaceable resolution, no doubt with a strong mug of scald and a chat involved. However, Natalie Blaise doesn’t seem to be open to dialogue. The Pinkertons are making their presence felt. And people are getting hurt. Can V.P.I. regroup and fight back? Will Natalie Blaise emerge from the shadows to explain herself in a long winded villainous fashion? Or is she merely just misunderstood? And what will Tennyson do to fill in the unemployed hours?”

The new episode is essentially a two-parter, with the final installment of the web-series going online in a few weeks time. I got a lot of really great feedback last night and I can easily say that this episode contains my favourite scenes from the series (to avoid spoilers I’ll talk about them at a later date) but I’m very proud that some of the more ambitious scenes worked out they way they did.

Given that this episode was shot over the course of 10 weeks along with episodes 5 & 7, I’ve so far held back on uploading most of my photos from behind the scenes. As the series comes to a close I’ll soon be getting to work on literally hundreds of photos, for now I’ve uploaded a brand new character portrait ‘Meet Brickman‘ to the Oss237.com homepage and rest assured there’s plenty more to come.

So sit back and enjoy Vultures Episode 6: ‘Attack Of The Pinkertons’ and as always any feedback or comments are greatly appreciated.

South – ‘The Making Of Insula’ Episode 1

South – ‘The Making Of Insula’ Episode 1 is now online… finally! After 13 weeks of stressing and working on the series, I can’t wait to hear what people think of the first installment.

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’).

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