Monday 29 January 2007

Lewisham Holocaust Day 07

Meconopsis Films was honoured to be chosen to film Lewisham Borough's Holocaust Day. Rabbi Dr. Ze'ev Amir and Steve Bullock, Lewisham Mayor (see pic) shared some closing thoughts but most of the event was thoughtful, moving and beautifully prepared work by talented Lewisham children on the theme of 'the dignity of difference'.

No still pictures of the various drama, singing and theatrical performances as we were too busy filming - they tend not to stand still!

We'll be producing a DVD record of the event for the Borough and for the participating schools and groups that took part.

We used HDV for the wide camera for the first time - so more thoughts about that after the edit. However, Avid Liquid captured it like a dream and the picture quality is stunning. We'll use it to scan and crop to match the standard definition camera we were using for the details.

Wednesday 24 January 2007

2nd version of Mec ident

Ok - same again. Following some very helpful feedback here's a new version. Thanks due to Graham, Fiona, Fly, Colin, BM, Justin and others. I hope it's quicker, snappier but has some of the same feel. No audio this time.

(In fact - this time I'll have to find audio to fit the visuals, not the other way round. Help!)



Comments gratefully received> Again.

Sunday 21 January 2007

Meconopsis video logo

Meconposis needs a new logo for a wider set of clients which has to work at the end of different types of video. Obviously it shouldn't draw too much attention away from the main film, but it would be nice if potential clients remembered the name. Or at least didn't think we are too naff.

Mood tones - understated, calm, tension in the sound (did I say remember to have audio switched on?), classic-but-current kind of thing.

God knows whether it achieves any of that - so that's why I'm asking you to play god for a moment. ;)




I'm trying to make it work for the 'YouTube' sized screen as well as for full-screen DV. Does it? On this web page the text is slightly smaller than the text in the blog - but hopefully the eye is drawn in. Do you agree?

Comments welcome.

new Meconopsis Films logo design

This is the print logo to go with the video one. The discrimination between the blues might not pass the print hurdle. We'll see. Any thoughts?

mec-logo-print

Friday 19 January 2007

Hair-care and the Holocaust

Two filming jobs coming up - one to film a glitzy show night to mark the end of a 'get the punters involved'-type competition and a London Borough's Holocaust Day. Talk about varied.





No images in this post - it just wouldn't be right. ;)

Monday 8 January 2007

St Pancras

If you don't know the Midland Grand Chambers then shame on you. Or maybe you don't live in London, or have more interesting things to do, or... (aka St Pancras aka "that huge neo-gothic pile on top of St Pancras station between the new British Library and Kings Cross station").

There seem to be a fair number of people asking about the building. See this thread at Urban75 , continual requests (via the derelict sensation) from bands, theatre groups, artists, chancers and dancers, urban explorers, and even Vicky is setting a story there (so she claims).

I guess everybody's curious because they can't get in as the developers have taken over. As a semi-derelict building thousands got in through Open House. We and others organised art events as well. The clip is a record of an event organised by TDS, Pangaea with Michael Czerwinski and Luna Nera and others (too numerous etc).





Mind you - I'd be curious to know how Paul Holmes got in recently. I have asked him, but he's not saying. Perhaps he works for Manhattan Loft Company? ;-) Anyway - his pictures are worth a look, as are Mike Slocombe's. Or see Jonathon Hall's 'unofficial tour'.

If the video doesn't work try here

Sunday 7 January 2007

Resolution

I know, I know - a bad idea to make NY's resolutions, so I won't. So it's just coincidental that I'm starting this blog in the new year, ok? I'm going to avoid defining it as I'm fairly clear how I'd like to use it, but want to leave it develop on it's ownsome for a while in case I'm wrong about that. Plus that makes for an overly obvious first post. ;-)

Ok, closer to being a NY resolution - I've been concentrating so much on making video for clients, that I've allowed my own stuff to fall a little by the wayside, so I must change that. Btw, how cool is it to discover that there's a Meconopsis variant called 'horridula' (this very one).

I've started work on a kind of disposable throwaway videoart approach to creating a music video that will work for YouTube type spaces. I've already chosen a track, but I can't mentioned it until/unless I get permission.

An interesting possibility with site-specific theatre group Crying Out Loud that might or might not come to anything, who got in touch via the derelict sensation (if you've seen Punch Drunk's take on Goethe's Faust in Wapping you'll know what kind of theatre we're talking about).

I've got a couple of urban exploration trips planned with Bartolomy so who knows what'll come out of that. We're supposed to do some time-based collaboration on his collection of Brian Haw photos. The whole 'Parliament Square' issue is throwing up interesting actions like the lone mass protests and free speech border posts - great that he's recorded some of it. We must make time for that. Sorry.

On the 'resolution' front - there's the on-going nightmare of 'shall we? / shan't we?' upgrade to HD going on for everybody in video. I'm going to have to come back to this one, sorry. It's a bad enough decision for 'early adopter' consumers - for content providers its far far worse. Even if we're only delivering in SD for the moment, there's that nagging feeling that we need HD archives for future use. So there's the whole triple-nightmare camera / computer / delivery set of issues. My resolution on this resolution thing is to use HD when a client requires it (and wants to pay for it) otherwise give it a year to wait for prices and formats to bed down. Remind me to tell you about my home-cinema-buff neighbour on that one. Ok, don't. Be like that.

Let's hope that resolution, at least, is a wise one, and let's hope I stick to the other "sort-of" resolutions. Happy 2007.