Whenever I do a new blog post I have a kind of process where first of all I go to my own blog to see what the last thing I posted was. Then I realize that its been almost a month since I last updated, tut tut. No matter how much I promise myself that I’ll try and diligently do one post a week it always ends up being once every, 2, 3 or even 4 weeks! So, just before writing this I checked my blog and the last thing was about the Site visit to Berlin. One month later and I’m back in Berlin on a kind of holiday which has comprised of a small amount of work at the beginning, then straight into a 4 week intensive German language course at the Goethe institute which I am now in the middle of week 3, so let me consult my photo library and we’ll backtrack to where I left off!
Lets start by travelling from Stage One down to London to start a 3 week job for 59productions, Davide, a colleague and a good friend was driving down south so he offered to give me a lift, luckily we managed to squeeze all of our bags and tool cases into his AudiTT, thankfully there was only two of us so we managed to make it fit!
We made it down to London in pretty good time, and Davide dropped me off in kings cross and didn’t even try to shag me once, thanks Davide, I owe you a packet of Strawberry bon bon’s.
The following day i was at the Helicar & Lewis studio to do some preproduction on a project they had been commissioned to to for Adidas. Thats what the Site visit to Berlin was about in my previous post. Im gonna digress here as theres no real other ay of telling thins, so, I digress…….
Late may i decided i needed a holiday, I’d been working my ass of since September 2013 and even I hd noticed that i was more grumpy than usual. So, knowing that i love the city of berlin I decided to have a holiday there,and also at the same time deciding that it would be a good oppertunity to have a holiday and attempt to learn German/Deutsch. So in this order, i booked a 4 week intensive german language course at the Goethe institute and then i Booked my Flight out and then after much searching managed to find a room to rent via the sister of a friend. THEN! Yes, capital THEN, in the middle of this process i got a call from Helicar & Lewis asking if i was available for a job in Berlin, it was one of those brilliant times where everything was aligned and just worked!
So tracking back i was in thh HCaL studio building a structure i had specced for their projection mapping installation. more of that later.
The amin reason iw as don london was to work for 59Productions on the install of Digital Revolution which is currently (23July2014) running at the Barbican, London. It was a hectic project, not what I was expecting in terms of workload. Initially things were behind schedule with external contractors, which had a knock on effect. At the start it seemed like there was never going to be enough time to get everything done but withe the genuinely good all round team “Shit got done!”.
It was pretty neat to see Tim Webber (Mr VFX) watching his own work (Gravity) presented by 59 in an immersive video-wall structure. The only down side was that after the install testing we all heard the grunts and panting of Sandra Bullock far to may times!
Closer to the completion of the install, classic devices like the Gameboy and the Nintendo Game&Watch were on display. Obviously who couldn’t resist having a go and getting sucked back into the early 90’s games. I think Lysander is playing Tetris and Sam is playing Donkeykong!
After 3 weeks Digital Revolution was ready, there was an opening party where we all drank free alcohol. It was quite surreal seeing visual artists whom I’ve followed their work for a long time at the press party. It always feels strange knowing someones work but not the person, and it was good to see that there was nobody at the party who came across”A bit of a cunt” as you generally find at these kind of gatherings.
Moving forward to the 4th July i find myself in Berlin with HcaL installing the Adidas Flux display which was running as part of Berlin fashion week. It was great to be working with Joel Pete, and the team on this as technically it was a pretty major achievement regardless of how easy it looks to the viewer. This was some serious projection mapping onto a surface and a shoe from 2 projection sources .
Work never really seems to stop and theres always overlapping projects which is good as its good to be kept busy and on your toes this was my desk one late thursday? maybe night.
Back at the Adidas project Jonas was busy making dome projection mapping magic happen, with some custom open frameworks software along with other developers Joel & Patricio. The install seemed to be well received from what I’ve seen but currently seems to have very little internet presence to the common surfer, hopefully this will change as the internet does its aggregation thing.
The past couple of weeks has been a pretty good time to be in Berlin, I never watch football but couldn’t help but watch the last 2 games with my classmates. On the final Berlin went mad, there were people cheering int he streets, cars beeping their horns an there was s superb vibe.
Something i didn’t realise was that beach volleyball was popular in Berlin, one of my classmates Yamman is pretty a good volleyball player so he organised a trip to one of the local volleyball places, which now we’ve al been to at least twice. Great way to spend the evening.
I have no idea what this is but i pass it most evenings walking from the train station back to the flat and it makes me smile.
On Saturday we had a pick nick in the forrest, 30 min outside of Berlin at the Grunwald forrest. It was a good get together but non of us were expiating so may mosquito bytes. Raquel on of the girls also studying at the Goethe counted 75 mosquito bytes the following day. ouch.
Before coming out to Berlin i was stopping at my mate Nicks flat in london. I came home once and noticed this, i didn’t stop laughing for about 10 minutes!
