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December 30, 2009
misty mornings
and now the christmas snow has gone
and a cold damp mist hangs over the little Bavarian village
Posted by john at 12:43 PM | Comments (0)
December 25, 2009
Frohe Weihnachten
from a frosty village in Bavaria
Halsbach, Lohr am Main
06:30am minus 20 degrees C.
Posted by john at 06:38 PM | Comments (2)
December 13, 2009
getting there
and so the Rough Cut becomes the Song Cut which becomes the Wet Cut
which in turn becomes the Bath Cut which then becomes the Tight Cut
and soon we'll have the Fine Cut and eventually [sometime next year] the Final Cut. Then we balance the colours, fix the saturation and levels and before you know it you've forgotten all those shots you didn't shoot.
Posted by john at 10:50 PM | Comments (0)
December 09, 2009
stumbling about in the middle eight
People that do music say it's easy. But then people from Iceland don't think it's that difficult speaking Icelandic. Hver ég giska á paõ myndaõ af is not.
Clara's Gibson mandolin
I love music – but I don't know how it works. I know how important it is in film. At college I was the only one who put soundtracks on every film I made. For my degree show I had three projectors and two tape recorders with some very complicated sync. systems.
So I'm learning about this music thing, slowly it has to be said, but learning, learning how it's made. And there’s one element that crops up a lot in the songs I work with, one that features strongly in the song in the current video. That is the middle 8 or the bridge as it's sometimes known.
The middle 8 is where the song departs from its verse/chorus structure and wanders about in a different pair of pants for a while [8 bars possibly] before returning to the verse/chorus thing.
And it is in this different place that moods change. It's in this bit where we are told a bit more of the story. Harvey tells me it goes back to the 17th century. So it’s a tried and tested device.
Harvey Brough and the Baroque guitar
In Good Ship Father, Clara has put the most intimate and uplifting part of the song, not unreasonably, in the middle 8. I, for my part, have three stories going on in the video – Clara and Harvey singing the song, Young Clara wandering about the house and Young Clara daydreaming of lying in a tin bath with a toy boat. Plus a separate animated sequence.
Clara Sanabras
So, for this middle 8, I want Clara, close up, singing her wonderful song straight to camera [very powerful, very intimate, very beautiful], I want a daydream of Young Clara in the tin bath and I want the animated sequence. All three established, told and paid off in 43 seconds.
There’ll be some fine work pulled with the scissors tonight.
Harvey and Clara
Posted by john at 07:19 PM | Comments (1)
December 07, 2009
of tin baths and phonofiddles
Harvey playing said phonofiddle to Leah in the tin bath
The phonofiddle is a close relative of the Stroh Violin
it's an acquired taste, and not necessarily what you want to be listening to whilst relaxing in a tin bath in a film studio.
disclosure: I told Leah to put her hands over her ears
Posted by john at 11:49 PM | Comments (2)
December 06, 2009
Titanic sequence for the middle eight
a Young Clara in the bath, dreaming of days with her father far away
Posted by john at 02:05 PM | Comments (0)
December 04, 2009
album cover
the album photograph for the track:
photo: Kevin Summers
and Leah as Young Clara:
photo: me, JC
Posted by john at 11:54 AM | Comments (1)
December 02, 2009
father was an island with the rising of the tide...
Posted by john at 10:40 AM | Comments (0)
December 01, 2009
tales from the edit suite
the first day of the edit
is always a difficult day
and it's always the same
I scroll through the clips
which all look great
but I haven't got enough
there aren't enough angles
there are enough angles
I've got to stop worrying
about what I haven't got
and start cutting
what I have got
Posted by john at 04:43 PM | Comments (0)