Back on the Beach – Exhibition

I was invited by the Aberdeen City Council run Gallery 17, to hold an exhibition of my work relating the the North Sea oil industry as part of the 2013 Offshore Europe Energy Festival.

The exhibition brought together a body of my work that has been growing and developing for a number of years, it also showcased some previously unseen works. Bringing together photography, video and projection mapping the show was part of the 2013 Energy Festival, the festival was a program of cultural events to coincide with Offshore Europe 2013 organized by Aberdeen City Council and SPE Offshore Europe.

TECH TECH TECH IT OUT

In the Process of making and watching video I end up making a lot of what I call Tech Test’s, a lot of short videos that I make purely to work out how someone made something or experimenting with technique and effects. most of the time they don’t progress far or I learn enough from them that they are left in their rough unfinished state, so I thought it would be interesting to see a collection of them in one place.

Degree Show 2013 Promo

This years Degree Show teaser video was based on the printed advertising media.

There were multiple variations of the printed media, from multiple versions of the posters to invites and VIP private invites each with a different background image. I produced a different variation of this video for each of the different backgrounds so that the videos could be used as part of a AR (Augmented Reality) campaign to compliment the conventional printed and web promotion of the Show.

Land – Projection Mapping

Land was a projection mapped piece made for the exhibition XTEN, the show was of personal work made by technical staff at Gray’s School of Art as a means of showcasing the skills of the staff.

The work was a sculptural piece made of laser cut MDF with a projection mapped animation depicting the evolving use of the landscape around Aberdeen.

Get Scotland Dancing – Film Premier

Well its here, the final edit of my good friend Fraser Denholm’s dance festival documentary that I worked on over the summer. The film has been mixed and graded, signed off and handed over. I saw the complete edit for the first time at the films premiere that was held at the Belmont Cinema in Aberdeen.

Hosted in part by Citymoves Dance studio and Creative Scotland it was a great way to call a formal end to the project. The film was screened on Screen number 2 which if you know the Belmont is the other large screen, it was a bit of a kick watching stuff I’d shot or worked on playing on the big screen.

Fellow crew member Richard Watson was also in attendance, Roisin Corrigall and Amy Downes unfortunately couldn’t join us for the screening as they are off gallivanting around Europe.

Also excellent catering provided by the Belmont, if your eating in the Basement Cafe at the Belmont try the steak sandwiches.

ROAD TRIPS 2

So the time had come for the second leg of my involvement in the filming of Fraser Denholm’s latest project, Get Scotland dancing/Big Dance.

This time like last would be a road trip of sorts filming around the country, not documentary but a purely cinematic shoot of five short sections from each of the dance hubs across the country. Not only did this make for a very different shoot style and experience this time it was going to be a much longer road trip.

Starting in Glasgow then to Inverness, Aberdeen, Dundee and finally to Glasgow again. 440+ miles not counting the stuff in the cities themselves over five days was shaping up to be a long week.

The first days shooting was in Glasgow, the dancer was from Dance House and the location was the top a warehouse over looking the Clyde half way between the Armadillo and the new Transport Museum.
The weather was typically Scottish as we were able to watch the clouds bringing the rain down the river towards us.

That said we worked as a tight unit turning around set ups quickly regardless of the rain, we were shooting with a Canon C300 all week with it on Dolly’s, Jibs, Tripods and handheld throughout the week. Unfortunately we only used the camera jib in Glasgow, I really loved using this bit of kit, the smooth motion it gave was amazing and once you’d spent some time with it was really fun to operate.

Play stopped once again due to the rain, thankfully this wasn’t the tone for the week, weather wise we somehow managed to have a week resembling what we remembered from our youth’s as being a Summer.

Once we had the first segment in the card we were heading north on what I think is one of the most stunning stretches of road anywhere, heading north to Inverness on the A82 via Loch Lomond, Crianlarich, the Green Wellie Shop, Glen Coe, Fort William and Fort Augustus. We went the scenic route to film some GV’s of the Scottish landscape at its best and it didn’t disappoint. We arrived just as the light was falling into the “Golden Hour”

Movingly beautiful.

Film wasn’t quiet in Inverness but was with two dancers from Eden Court Theater on a cable bridge over Rogie Falls half an hour north on Inverness in the Black Isle.

The weather was incredible which was only surpassed by the location itself.

Once the Bollywood inspired Rogis Falls shoot was done it was doen to Loch Ness for some GV’s and Ice Cream.

Aberdeen didn’t fail to do anything unexpected witht eh weather, it didn’t rain it just drizzled, calming hanging in the air like a meek fog. This we could shoot in though, the location was Union Terrace Gardens or UTG to the initiated and once sheltered within its arches the two dancers from City Moves could get to it.

The following day was Dundee and again with some not at all surprise and shock from us the weather again was beautiful, only problem today was the cloud cover rolling over the shot messing with our lighting. But not happy when its raining why would we be happy when its sunny.

This segment was shot with dancers from the Dundee Rep on the lawn in front of the theater, it was inspired by the culture for ballroom dance Dundee once enjoyed during the mid war years.

Catch a cheeky wee GV as the light fades in North Queens ferry.

The last days shooting and back to Glasgow and back out with my new favorite toy, the Jib. we were planning on shooting by the Clyde near the Briggait art centre but finally the summer broke and the weather returned to form with heavy showers turning into all out monsoon as we repack the kit and run for shelter.

The dancers from Y Dance performed the duet with the amazing open hall space of the Briggait while the rain settled itself down outside. By this point in the week this tight little crew fly through the shoots at a personal best time and struck for an early lunch.

Having seen the rushes and some rough cuts of the cinematic segments and parts of the documentary as a whole I have to say its going to look amazing and I cant wait to see a final cut with a mix and some sexy grades on it. I would also like to say as tiring as this week was and how far we traveled it was a lot of fun and if the chance came up to film a similar project with these guys I wouldn’t think twice.

Cheers for a cracking week of film making guys.

Big Dance Roadtrip

Well I recently accepted some freelance camera work on a friends documentary project that he was commissioned to produce by Creative Scotland. The project was to produce a film of the national festival of dance that is The Big Dance, it is currently still taking place across all six of Scotland’s cities and is due to run in one form or another until the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

I was to be the B Camera operator on some days and a camera assistant on others, the shooting days I have been involved with thus far have covered Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Inverness. With more filming to be done in Glasgow, Dundee and Stirling.

The shoot breaks down into two types if filming, Documentary and staged shoots with a more cinematic style. The documentary shots used various cameras, Mostly HDSLR’s and a Canon XF305. The cinematic shoots are shot on a single camera, a Canon C300.

The C300 at the first cinematic shoot at Edinburghs Dance base.

The Documentary shoots where pretty hectic, they mostly involved running round city centers with several pounds of kit to get to key locations before a performance started. Some were more sedate with more than one camera present some were a bit more manic.

Getting kit together for the first day of filming in Edinburgh.

Filming the first cinema style shoot using the C300.

The shoot has taken us all over Scotland, and as such we end up getting some pretty iconic imagery as set up shoots, like this one under the Kessock bridge at Inverness.

Some of the documentary stuff is a bit more formal, like this days shooting at His Majesties Theater in Aberdeen.

Here the local dance studio City Moves put on a massive show of 33 acts over two and a half hours of dance styles ranging from childrens classes, Ballet, Jazz, Hip Hop and even through to over 60’s. The show ended with a finale which involved all the performers being on stage at once, needless to saw it got a bit crowded.

The Theater also sold out with over 1000 seats sold.

The project is still ongoing with more cinema shoots happening in August so I’ll post updates on them when they are done.

SPRING HAS SPRUNG

Well I finished the edit of the Gray’s School of Art project I have been working on lately, the film was to illustrate what the schools normal operation looks like for prospective students and visitors of the Degree show.

The film is now live on the Gray’s Youtube Channel and will be screened locally within the school itself. It was a fun project to work on, being a purely visual exercise I was able to focus on editing to music and the quality of the visuals.

SPRING

Well the short film I was trying things out for in the last post is coming along nicely, its nearing the end of the photography with most of the edit down as well it looks like it will be finished before long. The interim “work in progress” edit looks ok but needs a little polishing to make it what I want to be.

The film is for the run up to the Degree show in June and is to show people who may not necessarily know what the schools normal operation looks like, it should be a tight wee edit when its finished.

UNTITLED TITLES

A short style test for what I’m thinking for this years Degree show promo film

Last years was the first I had produced and focused on the build of the degree show itself, a fairly straight forward edit of timelapses showing the transformation of the school during the build of the degree show itself.

This year I wanted to add the additional element of showing the school in its normal working day as well as some of the degree build to show more of what goes into the show. I’m thinking that some subtle and classy motion graphic transitions can move the edit on smoothly so that is mostly what this test is for.

So with this in mind I shot some more footage to have some raw material to play with and came up with this short test edit to see how the motion graphic transitions would work as a device for moving the edit forward. The idea being each department will get a short segment, around a minute in length with the graphic shifting the edit to the next department.

Callum Kellie

Artist & Filmmaker

video