...been stuck in far too much.

Still can't find anywhere round here at the moment :/

I know of The Rack and Electrocute that go on in Reading, and of course a few things in London, like Propaganda and Dead 'n' Buried...

Is there nothing else ?

...Mr.Suter has joined our company, and quite possibly my team.

The world really is a small place innit.

...be at the Dungeon on friday.

anyone else going ?

I now have a full length music video.

That doesn't mean I'm finished, but it does mean I can start to take a look at it properly as a whole and work out what needs changing and possibly looking to shoot some extra scenes.

Of course I don't know when I can release it, cos the album isn't out til september, but that at least gives me loads of time to tweak it.

To any of you that voted for layla in the coffin girls thingy....

She won!

You've made her a happy girl, and given me a quieter life ;)

thankies <3

So, more editing... I spent about another 4 or so hours on it, got another minute of footage done and went back and added a few new bits into the existing footage. I'm still putting longer scenes in to begin with then going back and cuttin in smaller sections as I see fit later. Hopefully that way I won't run out of incidentals before the end of the video :)

I'm less worried by the lack of solo footage now, I'm past the majority of verses and have truck loads of whole band shots to play with for the remaining choruses.

I also found the motion tab so I've been able to add the camera pans and other motion shots in post that I couldn't do on the day.
It's also allowed me to tighten up the cropping on some shots. Obviously Final Cut has to stretch/interpolate to some degree, but I'm keeping the motion small and the software is doing a good job at the moment. If you weren't told you probably wouldn't realise they are digitally zoomed.

I can't play my output video back 100% smoothly on my celeron 3.2 based edit machine, which is somewhat worrying, tho that's the price of HD I guess. On more powerful machines, however, it's looking quite swish.

Final Cut is an amazing bit of software, hugely easy to use and quite intuitive.

I am now editing the video footage I shot on sunday, syncing it up selecting shots, adding fx (nice fx, not that shite you get on home video editing packages).
I've been at it for about 4 hours roughly and got the first 20 secs sketched out. It's *kinda* looking like a music video, tho already I'm going back and tweaking/changing things, so this could take "some-time"....

I shot the entire thing in 1080i HD 25p which is putting my aging P4 processor through it's paces something shocking. I might export the entire thing at 720p later, but for now I'm sticking to the monitor busting 1440x1080 res :)

...and yes this is my first real bit of video editing so I'm learning as I go and hopefully I'll get something decent at the end, and if not I'll know what I did wrong for next time. Hell, I've already realised a few things I wish I'd shot differently.... but then we can always go back later and shoot some more.... this time.

That was aggrivating.

There we were all ready to go the morning of the shoot. I had a lot of shots in mind at a location I knew quite well and they guy with the keys rings and cancels citing some urgent family emergency.
Fair enough, but kinda left us a bit high and dry.

Our manager steps in finding us an industrial unit in gosport that had some promise, so we all trundle down there.

Of course by this time I'm getting quite tetchy as I now have to come up with shot ideas on-the-fly, which when you are tryign to have a theme/narrative is never good.

The place was pretty good all things considered, we basically had the run of all the grimy corridors we could find, but plug sockets seemed to be a rare commodity. It took about 45 mins to find one near where we wanted to shoot and had to borrow some extra extensions from the denizens there just to get power to the lighting.

Add to that the bands shifting stuff in and out of the practice rooms they had there, and things wen't quite slowly.

I got about 75 mins of audio sync'd shots and another 45 of random arty shots, but we had to forgoe the narrative somewhat. I'd have liked to shoot at least twice that, but we just didn't have the time.

So now it's just a case of lobbing it into Final Cut and seeing what editing trickery can be done and if the entire exercise will yield anything usable.

I'm confident that we'll get something out of it, if not a full music video, I'll definately get some nice clips for later use.

We had a photographer taking behind the scenes shots too, so there's gonna be plenty for the fans to gawk at :)

A live video, the sound wasn't that great and I was trying to figure out how to change the audio stream using Final Cut so I lobbed a rough mix of the song audio over the top...

PS, I'm the one on right (above the YouTube logo)



Proper video shoot tomorrow... yay. Hopefully it won't be a hideously amateurish debacle :)

Um yeah, I'm shooting a music video this weekend and need a couple of plastic/mannequin arms....

Anyone got any ?

Got my blue chinese top today... one of those high collar buttons up to the side type things... looks like it might fit as well xD

Now I just need to get *something* to wear with it.
Forgoing the obvious girl thing of a panel skirt or a pencil skirt, I was after something slightly more androgynous.

My current thinking is to get some 3/4 length cargo pants and some blue/black dread falls that I can wear with my Swears (big platform trainers), and possibly some baggy black linen pants too.

Any thoughts?

There are a lot of you on here that know me and layla personally, or over the net...
you might know she is in this coffin girlz thing and it is the last day today.

She was in the lead and now that lead is eroding quicker than blackgang chine.

so, if you have a myspace please just take the time to vote for her, she could really do with your support. details follow:

------

Vote over at http://www.myspace.com/coffingirlz_
by adding a comment with the word "vote" for deadlyd0ll's pic, she is using this
pic:


You will prolly have to add coffingirlz as a friend to make a comment. You can delete them again afterwards.

or if you want a direct link to where you vote, try here:

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=172283963&albumID=846273&imageID=19029262


Thanks....
Andi

not that I should have to explain myself, but I think if anyone here is in any doubt as to what I do and why I do it, the below is a good explaination.

----

Generally I shoot to make nice images.
Stylistically I have numerous influences, I guess the most obvious and recent one being Nandi/Nitemare, having seen her use of colour and contrast and angles it's very hard to shoot "straight photos" again. So I do tend to up the volume of the colours a bit.
Another influence of mine is Dave McKean, tho admittedly I've not done anything like that for about 8 years now, but at somepoint once I've got the hang of the photo bit again I'll prolly start adding more of those elements back into my work.
I don't like Black and White at all, it feels like a cheap fix to me, and far prefer to desaturate and leave an essence of the original colour there. that's not to say I don't use B+W, but I rarely find anything that is good in B+W that can't look better with a little more colour.
I'd love to be able to do more creative things, and most of the stuff on modelmayhem in the high end fills me with absolute awe....

As far as manipulation for models goes, I try to do as little as possible. I'll remove the odd line or wrinkle, possibly even out some skin tones. I will make the model look "unreal" if the photo requires it, which, given most of my subject matter is towards the dark end of things, isn't always a rare occurrence, but on the whole I prefer pink skin to white, and would rather leave the imperfections, cos they define us as people.
Unreal is good for some things, but even then there is no point making the model look like someone else, it's never flattering to the model, no matter how ugly they are. When people realise they've been edited a lot it's never good for confidence.
At the end of the day tho, if the model wants a particular edit or style I'll attempt it, for better of for worse.

So that's basically it, the more I do this, the more I learn, the less that gets done in post, but if you are the kind of person who thinks photoshop is just about making people skinny or a sign that you took a shit photo in the first place, I suggest you go read about darkrooms a bit, esp. stuff like dodge and burn and see just how much can be done there.... then imagine you have no darkroom cos you are using digital.... then tell me photoshop is only for people who can't take a good photo.

I take thousands of pics, if just one person loves just one pic of themselves that I have done for them that means the world to me.

Layla made a new corset and fishtail skirt, so what better way to see how they looked then jaunt down to the local cemetary.

First up a couple with the uber goth treatment:



One with a bit more colour:


And then finally back at home something a little more fashion-esque...



I still got loads to edit, so expect more on here soon :D

My Parents-In-Law are coming over to stay for a few months, which is great, I enjoy having them over.
It does mean that I don't get to wear makeup or anything like that while they are here tho, which in turn makes going out a bit more of a pain.
Last time I changed in the car and got pulled over by the police on suspicion of terrorism...
It also means no girly pics at home for me either.

Oh noes I hear you all cry in sympathy.

well, at the same time I kinda get a bit more freedom as Layla isn't left on her own if I go out, and if we both go out we don't have child minding issues.

so I'm wondering:

1) Any clubs or events in June/July/August that are worth going to ?
2) Anyone offer me changing space for such events (before and/or after) ?
3) Any togs wanna shoot me TFCD, again with being able to provide changing space ?

She's only about 27 votes shy of the top spot on coffingirlz, so I really mean it when I say "Go give her a vote", it really will make all the difference....

Asides from the obvious "she's my wife" element to it, the pic is also one of my bits of photography, so I'd also love to see someone having won coffingirlz with a pic I took.

anyway, vote over at http://www.myspace.com/coffingirlz_
by adding a comment with the word "vote" for deadlyd0ll's pic, she is using this
pic:


of if you want a direct link to where you vote, try here:

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=172283963&albumID=846273&imageID=19029262


There's like 100 of you that are read this blog apparently, it wouldn't take many to tip the balance.


Thanks....
Andi

So last weekend I spent about 6 hours in high heeled boots that were too small for me, cos I forgot my shoes for wearing onstage and had to borrow some of Layla's.

The result was 2 of my toes have been numb for about a week and I get sciatic pains when I press down on the ball of my feet.

Not good.

so after a week of trainers and other soft shoes, I spent the entire weekend in 5" heel platforms.

My feet are now much better.

I wonder if I can get a doctors prescription for heels :D

Girl:


Boi:


Discuss <3

So then, we had 30 mins to spare when in Southampton a few weeks back, so I whipped out the SLR for a few impromptu snaps of my good lady wife.



( +4 )

I'm working on a number of proper planned shoot ideas now that the weather is getting betterer, any of you that messaged me I will be in touch if I haven't already.

She's in Coffin girls at the moment and could do with as many votes as possible....

click here and just comment with the word "vote":

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=172283963&albumID=846273&imageID=19029262