May 10th Photo Catchup!

Posted on May 11, 2012 by andy

With all the best intentions in the world I’ve been generally shite at keeping the posts and updates of this blog regular. So in an attempt the blog everything I’ve neglected to in the pat couple of weeks I thought I’d would write an uber long blogpost with all the details of whats been going on. Instead, beacuse its easier, and im a lazy bastard im going to pad this out with lots of photos!

So the last post finished of with me trying to stay up as late as possible before flying home from China in a vain attempt to rejig my body clock back to UK time!

The following day (same day, 2 hours after falling asleep) Dickie, Graeme and myself were in the car taking us back to Beijing airport, we slept most of the way but woke to see  a HUGE complex of tower-blocks being built along the motorway. Still currently under construction but it went on forever! Take a look at the picture photographed from the car, and have a guess at the numbers, i took a video and it took 3 minutes to get from one end of the set of tower-blocks to the other, you do the math!!!

We eventually got to Beijing airport, got a coffee, chatted for a while and then Graeme and myself headed to the checkin whilst Dicky was staying at the airport to meet his wife who was coming over for a week.
The flight home was awful, i can safely say it was the worst flying weather conditions I have experienced yet. The wind socks where horizontal on takeoff, it felt like the plane was fish tailing for about 20 minutes getting bounced side to side in our seats, I was genuinely fucking scared.When the plane stopped shaking i watched the new muppets movie on the inflight entertainment which was brilliant and the perfect distraction!

——-[Imagine there is a picture here with some relevant connection to the new Muppets movie,I think it's 2012 but i have been known to be wrong with these things]——-

We eventually landed at Heathrow, only 1.30hours late which wasn’t bad at all, got to passport control, queue’d,  got through pasport control and went to bagage collection, waited, picked up our bags and went to leave and got stuck in the lifth for 15mins, baaaah, it was impossible to leave. Eventually we were free of Heathrow airport and headed into London. Me and Grame said bye at KingsCross and I headed up to Camden for drinkies and catchup with Meg’s. A great arrival home, and fun dragging a suitcase around Camden pubs on a Friday, yessss!

The following day i had to find a present for Jon;s birthday which loads of people were meeting at Jons for on sunday, Luckily, Lance the Sanity Panda was around and a suspect PVC Purple cat were on hand to help :-) !

Sunday was Jons, Birthday get together day, it was an ace day with lots of people coming and going and a great bunch around for the treasure hunt in the park! On the evening we all descended on the local pub for beer and food. Jo & Kat had baked the most awesome birthday cake in the shape and form of a projector, down tot he most intricate detail that it even had an HDMI input in the icing sugar backplate, IT WAS BRILLIANT!!!!!!

The following day, [Monday300512] I took a trip to see the chaps at 59Producitons new office in Hoxton, 1: to see people, 2: to talk about up coming work, and 3: because i wanted to see the new offices! Nice office space and good location, this notice in the loo in the corridoor amused me!

I arrived home that afternoon and packed my bags again for a week at Stage One starting the following day! I spent the next few days working on stuff for this big gig in the summer. In the meantime, a series of conversations had happened between me and Rich from the Philharmonia which resulted in me managing to book an IPAF 3a & 3b couse at stupidly short notice so i had my scissor-lift license for the beginning of the install of Universe Of Sound the following week. So this is what happened…….

Thursday, get conformation of the IPAF course for the Friday.
Drive home thursday night.

Friday: Do, IPAF course at NIS training, it was a good IPAF centre and a well taught course, get 30/30 on the theory and pass the practical! Yesss!! Below is a pic of Darren who I was doing the course with and Peter the instructor.

After the IPAF training I attempted to go to the GYM, but was raught on the way by a MASSIVE water leak in the road! I managed ot park the safe side and get to the gym to d a 7.5k row, I’ve neglected rowing for the past few weeks!

That night I went to James & Leslie’s and was treated to tea and a good catchup! :-) , the following day i was back down StageOne to do ome stuff for this big gig in the summer!, Sat/Sun, back home sunday night and them time to have a bit of a life on Monday!!!!!!!

Monday was ace, loads got done, Mitch came around with his petrol strimmer and we tackled the Jungle/Garden, took a cabinet to the tipp which I’d been meaning to do for ages, put up a blind in the kitchen, tidied the spare room and set up my MA Command wing with the new touch-screens, measured up my drive for a rework, washed and laundered my clothes from the previous week, and managed to get to the pictures to see the Avengers Assembled with Mitch and James(Cheers for the suggestion Yvonne :-) )

Tuesday I was back at StageOne, again, more work, lots of soldering, cutting and planning. Si Bye, sent me this which is Ace!

I made more stuff the rest of the week, below is a picture of my new Apple which is a little different to the previous models…….

Finally, today [Thursday100512], it was a good day so Karl had the genius idea to have a cheese and wine night in the hotel lobby. Jo did his best to seduce Smithy to come and join us but in the end it was Jo, Karl, Musah and myself drinking wine and talking rubbish, what a brilliant night!

 

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Staying up late in Tianjin

Posted on April 26, 2012 by andy

This is how it starts, Steve (Barco Ninja) calls me up and says “are you available for a job in Tianjin leaving on the 18th”, I say, “yeah maybe, which month”, Steve says “next week”, “hmmm, OK”. I spend 48 hours at home in Newcastle, get my visa sent away which was amazingly sorted and processed thanks to the help of Ana from th ephilharmonia, it was then delivered via taxi/courier in my passport to the airport (Heathrow, where we all meet outside terminal 3), I feel like a bit of flash tosser but i have a silly grin (more than usual at the same time!)haha!

Allot has gone on in the past week (and a bit) which is cooking loads to document! So due the volume of stories I’m only gonna blog some of it. Im out here in Tianjin working for the Philharmonia as part of the team installing re-rite. The last time I did it was its first ever appearance, in the barge house, london, over 2 years ago, exciting!!

Ana, Steve, Dicky, Ash, Graeme and myself check in, go through airport security and get on the plane. Steve is sitting in front of me, so now is ideal to stick things to his face, Borg, Barco Ninja.

We pass the 9 hour journey the usual way by falling asleep with mouth open, grunting, waking again, reading, watching half a film. Eating the standard airline food, and contemplating turbulence. We land, get picked up by our card and are transported from Beijing to Taijuan. Being in the worn timezone and jet lagged everything is both weird and amusing! Like this far east Tesco for example, of course everyone wants a Tesco whether they like it or not!

We finally got to our place of residence for the next week and a bit the Tianyu Hotel, in the habit of taking a picture of every room number of every room i have stayed in for the past 18 month, this one was room 402! I had recently been presented with the challenge of drawing a hidden comedy cock in every hotel room i have stayed in and this one was the first i had been in after been presented with the challenge. I can neither confirm nor deny that I took the challenge

The hotel was ok, the rooms and building were just like any other, but going down for breakfast for the first time we had all sorts of chinese food, had only had chopsticks to eat it with, New, Different and brilliant!!! Ontop of that, the words on the carpet in the lift had changed! It was now Saturday and didn’t we know it!!

We got a taxi to the venue, which when Ana Steve & Graham did the site visit was still being built, this time when there was + Dicky, Ash & Myself, it was still being built! Still, its a pretty impressive building and is called the Grand Theatre Tianjuin, below is obviously a night time photo, it diet look like this during the day…….

From Saturday onwards we began installing, projectors, screens and what we could* and continued like that for the next could of days, one memorable mealtime was when we left the venue and ventured across the road to a Chinese caffe, for dinner. It was great! there were picots on the wall! so via the great medium of universal sign language, we pointed at beef noodles and indicated a quantity with our fingers. We are so local, and we ate like kings!!

The days continued on as normal, rigging projectors, installing cables, asking for stuff, asking fro stuff again and general rigging. Most memorable things happened out of work via the journey to and from and when we went for an evening meal!

Katie Melua may have been semi right about Beijing when talking about bicycles, but she failed to take into account Tianjin, there are lots. And lots and lots and lots, and the same for cars, big cars small cars, tankers. In-fact theres lots of everything, its a big city, but back to bicycles, this guy is cool#, he had LED rope light on his wheels.

It may have been this day when we came across the rewrite poster for our instslation, its always good to see, and looks ace with the chinese text!

One evening we went to a German restaurant, after overdosing on chinese food during the day, it was great, they also made us drink allot of german beer, and then we went fishing by the riverside. Steve managed to catch a Graeme on then bulbous end of his rod which was quite impressive!

Im not sure which part of the past week it was but we were lucky enough to be walking past a hole outside the venue and managed to catch a glimpse of the April Tianjuan Pohkanouki race, it was short lived but we were so lucky to see the bit we did, I managed to get a shot of how excited we were whilst standing on one of the many Pohkanouki viewing platforms in and around Tianjuin.

So there you have it, an entire blogpost about he job I’m working on in china without any useful information! For some actual details click the link:> re-Rite. If your around, go and see it, even if you have no interest in music it looks pretty!

*Signifies a longer story…….
#”Cool” (check out the inverted commas)ª, signifies I like it, not necessarily popular.
ª = Signifies sarcasm, its very rare that I use sarcasmª

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Zendeh – FOUND

Posted on April 18, 2012 by andy

I’ve been meaning to blog this for a while, and as usual, time appears to have escaped once again in the madness of work! So, ZENDEH!! Zendeh are a Northeast based theatre company lead by the brilliant Nazli Tabatabai-Khatambakhsh and her fine team, have a look around the Zendeh website for more info. I recently worked with Zendeh on their recent production Found which played Northern Stage & Berwick Maltings.  To give a brief explanation on what the piece is about here is an excerpt from the maltings website:

Take a walk in Anna’s turbulent imagination, where the modern world collides with memories of her Jewish grandmother in Paris during World War Two. FOUND explores the places and times when we find ourselves at our most vulnerable, and feel truly lost. It marks the journey of beginning to hear your own voice, finding the strength to listen to it, and move forwards.

Informed in part by the story of Abdol Hossien Sadari, an Iranian statesman and diplomat, who gave assistance to Jews in occupied France and saved many lives.

I was responsible for realising the digital projection aspect of the piece. In early January I had a meting with Nadia & Nazli to begin to get down some of the projection ideas and begin with a framework for the piece which turned into rather a nice hour long chat over coffee and fruit teas! After that I would be working remotely, as I was away in Berlin for 7 weeks working for59Productions. As I was away the Zendeh team were developing the piece and we were in communication via email & Skype (although not a particularly good internet connection at my end:-/).

Philippa Nazli & Nadia developing the piece in rehearsals at DanceCity

After finishing the daytime work on AlGran in Berlin on the evenings I had been getting basic framework from the ideas and began slowly bringing together different footage/media which could be edited down and used.

It was decided that we would map video onto various elements in the piece from several hanging orbs to the voile at the beginning of the piece. James managed to get me some measurements, photos and put together a great Sketchup so i could create a mask and begin to place the elects of video so they would line up with the real word orbs.

The above was one of the earlier setups before it was decided to cut some of the orbs used, but you get the general idea. We later, once orb numbers and positions were finalised did a LiveTrace* of the orbs in their position to get the most accurate mask. Well, when I said we, I really mean James kindly did the trace for me.

It might have been around this time I met Al Orange, over a very intermittent Skype meeting who was stage managing Found and now I can say is great fun to work with!
Also, Al did a FANTASTIC job of the soundtrack for the piece, good work on squeezing in that deep dark and dirty house track in there, t’was perfect!

It wasn’t until Late in february where things began to move pretty quickly, I was uploading content to Dropbox and we were exchanging emails and I was making changes, re-rendering and uploading. I can safely say it was a very productive week, doing technical rehearsals for AlGran during the day and then working on video content on the evening. Eventually I managed to turn all of the folders for the master project video files in the DropBox green which meant that was complete!

I finally got to meet up with the lovely Zendeh team at Northern Stage for the install of Found and put my input in with the projection setup. Louise Gregory had done a very complimentary design for the piece and didn’t seem to tire of my requests to “dim that lighting state, just a little” to help the projection punch through, (Cheers ;-) ).

I finally saw the show on opening night at Northern Stage, it was strange because I had been involved in the process but had never seen the whole thing through, only fragments. The piece came in at under an hour but really didn’t feel that long, the story was sometimes hard to follow in some places but at the end left you with something like you didn’t fully need to understand everything but were left with the exact feeling it portrayed, definitely a WIN in my oppinion!

I haven’t had a proper chat with anyone on how the berwick shows ant but I expect everyone done a sterling job again!
It was great working with, Nazli, Steven, Nadia, Philippa, James, Al, Molly, Nichole, Phil & Louise top team, lots of work & great fun.

*LiveTrace
LiveTrace is what I call it anyway, other people pay call it other things but this makes sense to me! Basically, to create an accurate mask  so we only projected onto the things we draw directly onto the object via the projectors output.
Step 1: Is to set up the scene and the projector position, in this case it was the orbs and, a measured projector position from the orbs (height & Depth).
Step 2: Is to use some illustration package such as photoshop, hook your computer up to the projector as a second output.
Step 3: Make sure your resolutions mask, if you are going to be creating content at 1024×768 then the canvas must be fullscreen with no borders @ 1024×170 at 100% zoom.
Step 4: On a black background draw out or colour in the areas which you want to project onto, in this case it was several circles. This gives us a pixel accurate mask.
Step 5: Use this mask in an animation package or image manipulation suite to begin animating your video content which when played back fullscreen @ 100% will lineup perfectly if you get all of the real world elements in the correct place.

This is a very brief overview and i may do a full post on this method later, as always there are may other ways to do the same thing.

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Post berlin……. 3D Disco, Romania, Cluj!

Posted on March 29, 2012 by andy

Berlin seems like it was quite a while ago now, currently, 29th March 2012, since then, again, things have been busy! I was back home for a couple of days and then had to head off again helping out with the guys from Novak for a large scale job they had on. The gig was for Gillette which consisted of 7 VJ sets happening in several different cities at the same time Romania: Cluj, Iasi, Bucharest, Constanta, Timisoara, Bulgaria: Sophia, Serbia: Belgrade.

I was at Obsession club in Cluj Romania, which at the time I had no idea what was in store. We met at Novak studios at 10.00 friday morning (16th march) and from there, we all pretty much, had around 12 hours worth of travelling to reach our destinations. My flights went, Newcastle Dusseldorf, – Dusseldorf  Munich, 6 hour wait for the next flight, gave me time to go over the content for the VJ set:

Munich Cluj. I got picked up from the airport at 01.00 Romanian time and was in the hotel by 01.30, bit of a mad day travelling.  After an evening of vague broken sleep I woke about 09.00 and had a great view over Cluj from my room.

After getting showered I called Andreea who was my point of contact for the gig, we met, had a walk around the town and grabbed some lunch. I can’t remember what I ordered but it was chicken wrapped in pickled cabbage fried then served with sour creme and yellow cheese onto, to was rather tasty!

We later went to the venue to do video checks to make sure that all the kit was inlace and we could make a smooth transition from the house DJ to the 3D set. The venue wasn’t to big but it was cosy and already fully branded with the Gillette logo for that evening! Checks went well so we headed back to the hotel, I we weren’t due back to the venue till 01.00 so when we got back tot he hotel I spent a couple of hours wandering around the city! Cluj is a very old town with lots of character, in some places there were them many telephone wires dangling between the lamp posts the weight of them made them hang so low you could easy grab them!

It soon got dark around 18.00 so I headed back tot he hotel, it’s a stance thing with gigs like this when your work starts late. You find yourself just waiting to go to work, finding ways to pass time, 2 hours of reading, 1 hour of emails then i decided to eat.  I met Andreea again and we chatted over dinner whist she kept getting calls as she was managing many other gigs that weekend.

A couple of hours later after a quick, late night shower we met in the lobby at 12.30 to be taken to the venue. Cedric the DJ for the 3D part of the night and myself were due to start at 01.30, the club was quite busy when we went on, not full but around 80% capacity and a good atmosphere.

I did over an hours VJ set, delivering Novak’s content using Modul8 cut and mixed to the tunes with almost the entire dance floor wearing the 3D glasses at one point which was quite fun! The time flew by and around 03.30 we travels back to the hotel where i had to pick up my suitcase and catch my flight boarding at 06.00. I made it to the airport in good time but had to wait ages in the cue to get through security. I eventually got through, sat at the departure gate for 15mins.

we eventually got on the bus and were taken to the plane, it had been warm in Cluj during the day but now, at 05.30 in the morning it was fekking freezing! eventually we were boarding our tiny plane which was to take us to Munich.

We landed in Munich, had an hour to kill then on another plane to Dussledorf, landing in Dusseldorf I had 6 hours to kill. I decided to leave the airport and hop on a train to visit Cologne, just over an hour trip there, a wander round the city on a kinda damp sunday then i was back on the s11 heading back to the airport. In hindsight I could have spent more time exploring the city but didn’t want to get stuck and miss my flight home!

Eventually I was on my plane to take me home to Newcastle, had a nice chat form a girl from Bulgaria who was staying business in Newcastle and then fell asleep. More than likely i fell asleep in the most unflattering way, head back mouth open, catching flys! After landing in Newcastle I got the train to Sunderland where my mate James with his girlfriend Lesley had borrowed and looked after my car whilst I was away. Lesley knocked up a cracking Sunday teatime meal which was perfect after the madness of the weekend :-) . I eventually drove home, said hello to my house again and proceeded to sleep for many hours. It had been a crazy weekend of travelling, and many thanks to Novak for getting me onboard for the gig, top times!

 

 

 

 

 

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Teufelsberg (Today is 6th March 2012 )

Posted on March 6, 2012 by andy

Yesterday before the show, when I say yesterday thats only relevant now otherwise it has no reference of time.  I asked Giorgi, one of the lighting team about things to do on our few days off. He recommended a few things, but this one, possibly being the least touristy thing caught my attention.
Teufelsberg (Devil’s Mountain) is an old cold war listening stain built onto of one of the largest man made hills in Berlin. Buried beneath the hill is an old Nazi technical college, which the americans tried to blow up with explosives after the war but because it was built so sturdy it was decided to bury it instead! Ontop of all of this was built a US listening station, I cannot find the exact dates when it was built but from various google sources (this one is quite interesting Dirk) it was occupied between the mid 50′s until 1991 when it was abandoned sand all radio equipment removed.

I began my journey by getting the S5 from Alexander Plats to Westkreuz, then on the S75 getting off at Heerstrasse, it too about 40 mins but theres lots of interesting stuff to see along the route. After getting off at the station head South down Teufelsseechaussee for 1km until you see a car park on your left. turn left into here and there us a really obvious path which takes you straight up the hill to the site.

I have heard they the site is to be opened up to tourists at some point this year for guided tours but currently the main gates are closed and there is a fence, sometimes double, sometimes triple around the perimeter. And of you walk around the fence perimeter there are some entrances into the site which appear as holes….ahem…..

 After going through this particular entrance you may find yourself between two fences, one interior and one exterior.

If you continue down here in a clockwise fashion there is a second entrance which also looks like a hole in the fence which will take you into the main complex. continuing a further 100m there is a larger entrance and you don’t need to scramble up a short crumbly hill.

Upon getting the first glance of the site on the other side of the fence up close the whole thing seems nuts, and it is. The entire area is covered in graffiti up to arms reach, and it feels completely desolate, that was until I heard noises coming front he main building. There were obviously other people there bit it just felt weird, I continued around the site exploring, circling the whole perimeter and venturing some erie dark corridors. Here was place which was what looked like office building with a pretty hefty save door, you can’t see it from the picture but their are some rather big deadbolts in this 4inch thick door.

Behind me was a cul-de-sac which looked like office space, there was some amazing graffiti on the wall. Here I was in a room with only one way out admiring the graffiti it was bizarre, it was kind of a mixture 10% Uncertainty, 2% Fear, 3% Null, 2% Thirst, 73% Excitmenet & 10% Whatthefuckamidoinghere!

I ventured back out of the offices area and continued clockwise around the perimeter, turning the owner I passed a girl sitting on the grass eating sandwiches and a couple of people with a camera and a tripod taking snaps. this was the first time seeing some other people inside the complex! Everyone smiled and replied to my half English, half German “Hallo”, it was the accent which came out at the time, I have no idea why!

I had eventually done full circle and headed towards the steps which look alike they lead to the main tower/golfball. I got to the first floor and had a mooch around, both long sides of the building were open and gave an amazing view over berlin which was stunning on such a nice March day. Venturing up another couple of floor’s I eventually got the the main circle base of the tower which rose above the main building. Theres a central (disused) lift which runs up the main tower and a concrete staircase which goes around it opening up on each floor.

On each floor of the main tower you can walk a whole panorama and take in every direction of Berlin. This particular day the weather was awesome and you could see for miles. On the third tower floor there were a couple sitting quietly just taking in the view, I said my obligatory German/English “Hallo” and they said hello back, they sounded Italian but if they were anything like me they were probably Welsh.

I think it was the next floor, possibly the one before the golfball which is the following picture. To note, all of the sides of the structure are open, apart from rooftop areas there are no barriers to stop you falling off the edge, if you do visit this place before it becomes commercialised, or the rich “eat it”, be careful.

I had noticed sounds before I approached the top of the main tower, a kind of symphony sound coming down the stairwell but impossible to tell where the sound was coming from. I slowly ventured up what was the last flight of stairs and into the golfball to find 3 people. One girl playing violin, (which I cannot remember the name of the tune),  one Polish girl who was brilliantly quirky and unintentionally funny, and a guy who didn’t say much, i think he was spanish?

I spent a while in the golfball, just listening to the girl practicing and playing violin, it was so sureal but nice. Being in an almost completely enclosed parabolic structure meant that any noise you made is completely reflected back at the point of source. So, for example, when I spoke, my voice was louder to me than it was anyone else, and then when someone else replied their voice was slightly muffled to me but completely clear to them.  Its such an amazing space with one main opening which is a doorway of light and a sheer drop to the ground.

This whole place is mad, surreal, steeped in so much crazy history, I’m so glad I got the chance to visit and on such a clear day. For now this is a great alternative tourism spot, although its probably inundated in the summer and will only become more and more popular.

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Concrete, History and all that Jazz…….

Posted on March 6, 2012 by andy

Yesterday (05/03/10) I had the entire morning to myself in Berlin with a multitude of options, so i decided to head west and visit the old olympic stadium, quite easy to get to, a short trip on the U8 to Alexander Platz then the U2 to olympia Stadion. I had no idea what to expect apart from remembering someone saying if your looking for things to do you may as well visit this place. So after a 30 to 40 minute train ride I got off at the stain with no idea where to go so just followed the most obvious route.

Its just a 2 minute walk up the hill away from the stain and your into the carper faced with this imposing Nazi architecture. Its crazy, it does look impressive and grand but its linked with so much bad history, to think on the tower where the isn’t a clock face once was a swastika is quite crazy to comprehend.

It cost 5euros to get in which I didn’t think was unreasonable, and from entering the fenced stadium you are given a map and left to your own devices. I expect may other people have done the same as me and headed straight towards the innards to get a view of the oval. Once you go from the outer perimeter walls and get view of the expanse of the whole thing its quite amazing. Its reminiscent of images if seen of Rome’s Colosseum which i haven’t visited yet and discovered later that the controversial designer Werner March based some of the ideas on the Colosseum.

I spent another hour wandering round the site reading the information boards and taking in the history of the place. There is no point in me typing what read hear as it would no way do it justice, wikipedia it, its all there.  I left the Stadion and headed back East towards work where we had a show that eve and i was amazed to find a slightly jaundice and box eyed Paul MCartney sat on my desk, Amazing!

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Lost In Berlin

Posted on March 6, 2012 by andy

Its been quite a while since I last posted on here…blah blah blah etc….who cares, heres the madness which has happened in-between!!!!  Again I’m not going to talk much about work as we have been going over scenes constantly each day refining reprogramming and rehearsing it all. We finished tech-ing the show were working on Al Gran and are now up and funning with only 2 more performances left to go (as of 06/03/12). We also made the front page of the newspaper.

Prior to the show opening there have been many hours of work and may hours of socialising with friends to balance things out. I was Betinas birthday on the 12th, bet inis our show caller/ASM and has been doing a stunning job of calling the Cues, lighting cues in german and video cues in English, AMAZING. We all meant in Monarch for her birthday (134, Skalitzer Straße ) which we never would have found as its the most unassuming entrance. The socialising continued on the ubahn Jack making sure Megan knew where she was going…….

Right next to Kraftwerk where we are working we discovered the most amazing side of a building pained. I still really don’t understand it, but, I believe, the cow is spoking a pipe whilst the sky is licking the sun like a lollipop and a strange looking cat like creature is appearing out of a hill, double pause,  FANTASTIC!!!!!!!

Thomas who has been our technical contact front the Staatsoper came and cooked us all a magnificent meal called Käse-Spätzle which was ace, it was fantastic to see the making and cooking process, thank you Thomas!

Jonathan also cooked some mega meals and made the most fantastic vinegary onion sauce stuff which made Megans eyes sweat. We watched all of the episodes of the TV remake of Sherlock Holmes even if we didn’t get in from for till late which made Jack jump. and occasionally we had some phalic like deserts, ahem…….

It was Jacks  birthday so Megan and Momma Megan cooked a cake, unfortunately the chocolate didn’t dry quick enough before we had to leave to go to work. This it travels open top style gaining strange looks of passers by. Ubahn Cake, Reichstag Cake, Cake by random advertising board.

Not the greatest photo but i think Jack was pleasantly sup prised when he was presented with the completed cake, topped with creme fresh and berries!

We visited the Reichstag with Family Warner, Family Kearney which was a great couple of hours seeing one over Berlin’s magnificent buildings. Im not quite sure why but Jon and myself are looking particularly pleased in this photo whilst leaving the Reichstag, who cares, it was a fucking great day!

There are many other things which have happened, far to much to put there in one post, saves me right for not keeping on top of this blogging malarky! So currently I’m now alone in 254 Hermanplatz planning some adventures on the days off!

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AL GRAN SOLE CARICO D’AMORE with 59productions

Posted on February 18, 2012 by andy

Mid February 2012 and I’m in the great city of Berlin working in a old power staion ontop of the cult techno club Tresor  with 59productions for the re-mount of the Opera “Al Gran Sole Carico D’amore“. This is a technically intricate opera, live video show consisting of 5 live roaming cameras filming the scenes acted out live onstage and reprojected onto a huge screen above. Alongside this we have a full orchestra all inside the space of the old Kraftwerk Mitte building Berlin.  I’ve been here just over 3 weeks now and it has been a steady working regime and lots of fun working, and having fun with friends. So, lets get the classic work photo out of the way ……….. I push buttons.

And onto Berlin…….

On the first sunday off, (were working every day apart from Sundays), we (we, as in family Warner, Bruno, Megan and Myself) decided to have a walk around Berlin ad see the sights. First of all, it was frikking cold, and I mean really cold, we left the apartment around midday and headed toward the centre. Getting off the train at Alexander Platz  we walked by the river towards the Holocaust Memorial which was recommended to see,this is well worth a visit a very grand but tasteful memorial.

Following on from here we continued wandering round taking in the sights and trying to keep warm we ventured towards the Brandernburg Gate. The buildings around Berlin are ‘ace’ , everything is so big and grand which is quite deceptive, as quite often something places look closer than they actually are!

Heading back down the away from the gate, being the gown ups which we are, we passed the a bin which looked like the cookie monster and only thought it right to take a photo. Maybe we were the only people who found this funny…….

I think it was later in the week when Leo suggested that we try and get everyone together for a meal somewhere. Chris one of the camera operators on the show suggested a pizza place close to where we were living in Hermanstrasse. We eventually found our way there that evening ordered and were presented with the biggest pizzas I have ever seen, Jon took the challenge of cutting this up.

After getting through some nice wine and great food, Chris, who had suggested the Pizza place recommended we went to his mates bar in Kreuzberg. In the end 5 of us went to the bar which was a very cool old building stripped back to brick with smoothly sanded individually crafted tables. We spoke to Duncan who owned the bar and his plans to open it up during the day soo to sell teas from around the world, the place doesn’t have a name just T, or Tea, or Tee. Anyways we sat round chatting drinking Rum and ginger beer out of jam jars till late. You wont find this pace via a google search but if you go to the corner of Kopischstraße at the top of the hill on the corner you will find it.

So thats a very slimmed down account of the past couple of weeks, more work, fun and frolics to follow.

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From Universe of sound to Al Gran Sole!

Posted on January 28, 2012 by andy

So!………. Another roller-coaster of a week starting with last Saturday 21/01/12 spent my last weekend at home for a while catching up with friends and family. Thnkyou James & Charlie for a pleasant lunch on saturday and Dan for a funny night of Beer and mysterious shots (Coffee Tequila!).

Sunday night I traveled down to Watford to spend a day with the Philharmonia helping prepare for the new video installation Universe of Sound following the success of Re-rite. This was a 36 camera shoot of the Philharmonia Orchestra and Esa Pekka with the installation due to go into the Science museum later this year. The rigging had been done the day before and Lighting were making a start with a load of Spacelights!

We started early 08.00am, and began plugging up the kit, multi-viewers, SDI camera looms till we had a controll station with 4 plasmas several smaller monitors and lots of cable.

Mark from the Philharmonia had been working on a recording skeletal tracking data from the Kineckt to track Esa conducting but was having trouble with the amount of light around the place from the space-lights which was tricky. Erick may have solved the issue using some F:Stop Gel but I’m not sure if the conditions made it possible to capture this data as I wasnt there for the shoot. Hopefully he managed to capture something but sometimes its impossible to anticipate these things which crop up now and again.

We worked quite late, until we had all of the cameras out and a signal running through, at this point the whole room looked quite techie and rather matte black.

Callum, Ana’s fella came around to lend a hand and he showed me the GoPro Hero2 camera and some footage he had filmed and cut with it which looked great check out his Vimeo here: Callum Cooper. I headed back to the hotel arround 0:30 whilst Richard, Marina & Mark stayed a little later to finish off with the audio guys.

The following day I was on the train back to Newcastle at 08.00, at around 09.00 i had to call the police station as my card had been broken into on Sunday night, the window smashed and the police had had to take it away. Lucky James had my car keys so he helped me out HUGELY by traveling to where I had parked it dealing with the police on Sunday eve. Between 09.00 and 10.20 on the train travelling back I spent ages on the phone to get my car released from the compound. I was passed between departments so many times and to so many different people it was a chore to say the least! I very much dislike the 101 service to call the police, when you just want to speak to a duty sergeant at one police station it is nearly impossible to do this at ant speed! I finally got the answer to ay my car had been released, and Iain had offered to pick me up from the station so i could pick up my car, take it to auto-glass to get the window repaired then I had to leave for the airport at 15.00, to catch a flight to Berlin for 7 weeks. Thanks to Iain, i managed to get sorted and was set and in a taxi to the airport mostly on-time!

A short flight, a switch at Amsterdam and then a short flight to Tegal Berlin, I landed, grabbed my bag, and followed Jon’s directions on how to get to the apartment. i managed to get off the buss one top early and found myself a little lost until I got on the next one to Jacob station.

I was then to get the train from here to Hermanplatz, i got so far then we were transferred onto a replacement night-bus, thats what I assumed at the time and thankfully I was right! After a quick call to Jon after i got lost again, (my sense of direction can be somewhat terrible on occasions)  I was in the apartment which is to be home for the next 7 weeks.

Im working video programming for 59Productions for a remount of an opera called Al Gran Sole Carico D’Amore which were staging inside a disused powerstaion on-top of the famous Tresor Nightclub which was still going at 10.00am this morning (28/01/12) as we came into work. The opera directed by Katie Mitchell is hugely complex which involves 5 live cameras filming actors acting out the scenes and this being projected and cut live above the stage where the action is happening. As well as this there is an orchestra playing a score written by Luigi Nono, Opera singers and a full choir bringing music and atmosphere to the production.

Its big, complex, geeky and exciting!

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Creative Distraction and layering Google searches.

Posted on January 17, 2012 by andy

Over the past 6 month ive been making a habit of noting down interesting things on my Iphone in various lists I have which vary from films to watch books to read places to visit things to learn etc heres a snippet:

  • Reggie Watts Performance – Find Music
  • Get laura marlin CD
  • 8051 Microprocessor – Investigate
  • Learn the names of the ligaments and bones in the hand
  • Lana Del Rey New Album
  • Niki & The Dove
  • Find the Nordic word for tree at the centre of the earth:Yggdrasil!!! 

Basically I’ll do that, in the past I’ve forgotten so, so many small things I wanted to investigate hear visit see and do that I’ve kind of just begun jotting these notes and revisiting them. On top of that I take pictures of things to remind me to do things or just generally of things which appeal! This was walking through the streats of York last week when going out for some food with Jo & Musah.

And this was at work today after glancing over and seeing the wire-numbers bully was using set in a easy pick container.
Its always Hues, I dont know why but things like this just look appealing, long may there be more of these kinds of things pop up day in and day out! Anyway back to what I was trying to get at, because I never really sit still, when i find someting I like, I go deeper generally with the help of Google. So after hearing a song on the radio last weak which I really liked I managed to catch the name of the band and stick it in the music list on my Iphone. Later on in the week at work I decided to Google the band “Niki & The Dove” and ended up with their Youtube playlist on whilst I was working and the music was superb, many influneces, lots of detune synth and great rhythms, I was sold!

 At one point I looked over to the YouTube player to see the video posted for the song Under the bridges which consists of a dance school doing some incredibly good dance movement. I’ve seen quite allot of dance of many flavours in the past from doing lots of gigs at Dance City and other touring stuff and this choreography looked interesting, similar to seeing the balls of wool mentioned earlier. So I dug deeper, the choreographer is called Kate Jablonski , digging deeper agin she had choreographed a piece to one of Laura Marlings songs “I Was Just a Card” (Which I like, and her album is on my “LIST”!) so I clicked to watch. All I can say is that this is SUPERB!!! The Coreography is excellent and the camerawork and lighting (L201?) captures it well allong with a great song!

Kate Jablonski - I was just a Card

This was definitely worth the distraction and had to share!

 

 

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