Got me a Gimble

So the first few months post university have been interesting and a tad nerve wracking, trying to find oppourtunites with my new found skill sets. By the way I did manage a 1st which was beyond any of my expectations and I am very proud of myself for that one!

Still, I need to try to keep the newly acquired knowledge alive and well, earn money. So my new daily routine now includes searching amongst Art job websites and contacting directors, theatre companies to connect with and hopefully collaborate.

With all things projection in mind my long-time friend and client, the talented James Roberts superstar hairdresser contacted me to help them get there salon projector working properly and create some content featuring the range of work they do along with the rather fabulous Nataya Beauty who operates from the same premises. To get something to test I created a little movie with our 20 odd years of working together on hair shoots for the salon, including some award-winning images for competitions such as the prestigious L’Oreal Colour Trophy. This was a lovely look back over years of collaborations with exceptional makeup artists and stylists we have here in Manchester and some incredible models, some of whom have not been professionals. Also, a chance for me to have a little nostalgic look at past exploits in the realm of analog photography! (yes we go that far back) along with the film I did for him in my second year where I had begun to use the brilliant Sony A7II at Lipa to create content for my projection designs.

• beauty
• hair
• photography
• salon
• studio

So it was back to the salon to film some more content featuring a new inovative colour product from L’oreal .

I had up to this point only filmed hand held with my go to app Filmic Pro, which produces astounding 4k from my iphone , after revisiting their website and looking through some tutorials I knew I had to get a gimble ! just the ability to operate from the unit and experiment with angles etc was too enticing but on a very tight post university budget where to find one? I love e-bay !! previously to film Phaedra as part of the Love of the Nightingale production at LIPA I had sourced a great bit of kit a Moondog anamorphic lens for a great price, now to the gimble.

https://www.filmicpro.com/

https://moondoglabs.com/

And boom result! got me my very own ZHIYUN SMOOTH 4 for a fraction of the price and in mint condition. So having spent the weekend playing and getting to grips with the controls, I headed back to the salon for a morning of filming.

Had a blast with it and learned lots more about approaching shoots with the iPhone, I am on the lookout for a cheeky second hand Sony but until the right one at the right price comes along this is a good answer to getting the footage I need. Also now waiting on some little bids back on my friend e-bay for a portrait lens addition to my iPhone camera set up.

The results are as I type been projected onto a wall here :)

http://www.jamesrobertshairandbeauty.co.uk/

and on the Instagram account here

https://www.instagram.com/jrhairandbeauty/

discovering a new technique for photo montage for projection

In my second year studying at Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts we had a day working with amongst other things, artist Gavin Mitchell who’s work I found completely brilliant and so interesting. He blends the old and the new with a delicate humour and wryness which turns a multitude of found images into a new fabulous creation. OK you can see I liked it lol so much so I now am the lucky owner of one of his works a present for graduating from the Mr Gibbs.

Find his work here

https://gavinmitchell.net/

So back to the workshop and looking at projection and content creation, we had been asked to bring some imagery to play with , well with a career and study of photography going back a wee while ! I have in fact a huge plan chest filled with remnants of my early days from college through to the last commercial film shoot I did back in the 90’s! So I grabbed some that I thought looked interesting with a thought that some of my cohort may not have access to stuff as living in halls.

He also arrived with a wealth of stuff from old movie’s on film, trailers for films and a massive collection of old slides sourced from car-boots and many a bric a brac find both here in the UK and on his travels. Looking at overlaying them to create images with stories or indeed oddities .

At first I was tentative, as any photographer will tell you the thought of chopping up transparencies is well? just not done ! fact. The first three were combining some footage and stills from Gavin with some images I took for a property developer of the Manchester Tobacco Factory both before and after. Shot on a magic film called polarpan where you actually processed it yourself? I know ! the resulting images were a strong contrasting black and white . Exceptionally fragile and at times not a guaranteed outcome, we were edgy in the 90’s lol

still available to buy (must dig my processor out ) from one of my favourite places full of interesting photographic and video finds

https://www.profilmdirect.co.uk/polaroid-35mm-auto-process--slide-mounter-slide-mounts-polapan-and-polachrome-1521-p.asp

The shots gave me some great graphic windows with which to play with, placing behind them almost giants of humans going about their business.

Series Windows

I was loving this with the possibilities for projection work for bands or theatre work opening up my mind and making me braver, with a gentle nudge from Gavin I did it !

Using some outtakes from one of my earliest test shoots whilst working as a full time assistant at Avalon in Manchester and clips from processing of some really interesting branches in oil from a collaboration with a young artist who’s name along with the model has long been forgotten (research underway) I began to snip the larger medium format images and recreate as 35mm slides!

Girl in the Wood series

So new from old,I am now in the process of multiple layering of images to create new content for projection . Then scanning them in on my Flextight Precision II another part of my transition from analogue to digital as a photographer , yes you could do it in photoshop but how much more fun is it to be hands on and make something.

Q LAB 4 FOR PROJECTION

The learning curve on all things projection has and is huge! Words banded about such as media servers,pixel mapping and much more. In my time at LIPA I have tried a few different platforms such as Resalume which is primarily designed for DJ’s and Isadora more the the theatre world. Both ok but not quite there for me on speed and ease of use, me and Isadora fell out several times as it has a tendency to just stop working ! not ideal. Over the summer I attended a Women in AV gathering in London with guest speaker and personal projection heroine of mine Nina Dunn, her talk was fascinating as yes there is a lot of technical aspects to get your head around but she talked about her journey and those learning curves which gave this newbie hope. During the networking following I had the chance to talk further with Nina and talking about my new adventures at university and all things projection, her advice was to have a look at the new QLab 4 with a dedicated video element . I had in my first year had a tiny play with the software for my sound module and had found it really nice to use, perhaps because it is a Mac based software yey!!

QLab4 pixel mapping

So a little research and playing with it pre tech for Bright Lights Big City my biggest video work to date at LIPA , both me and my assistant Matthew Wane were convinced . There are more complex and stable ways of projection as we were running with two laptops and no media server, with some incredible companys out there producing some powerful pixel mapping tools . One standout for me is Disguise who have worked on some amazing projects, including a few for Nina.

https://www.disguise.one/en/showcases/theatre/ great powerful software

https://figure53.com/qlab/ home of q lab 4

https://somethinggraphic.net/ Nina Dunn