I was delighted to have work recently broadcast in two episodes of Short Cuts on BBC Radio 4.
You can listen to the two episodes below, both pieces are very different - one features whale song crafted from porn, the other explores the dreams of British astronaut Helen Sharman!
Porn Whales featured in Short Cuts episode “Remix”
The Astronaut’s Dream with Helen Sharman featured in Short cuts episode “Dreaming“
I was dead chuffed to hear that Blood, rats and anticoagulants made the official selection at this year’s London International Animation Festival, to be screened at the Barbican.
It was amongst a fantastic line up of films and I was particularly chuffed to get a science story in front of a non-specialist audience.
The film was comissioned by Nature, working with the fantastic Shamini Bundell and with the awesome animator Jules Bartl at Dog and Rabbit.
Before sets have been built and costumes designed there usually isn’t much to help promote upcoming theatre productions – which means creating a buzz before they launch is tricky.
So the Almeida Theatre in London has been commissioning me to produce behind the scenes films to help promote upcoming shows.
These have been quite demanding shoots, learning to work with a small footprint and minimise disruption to the directors and actors in the room.
As with all shoots it’s about getting the footage you need for the edit – capturing a sense of what’s happening in the room as well as the themes of the play in rehearsal. The location set-up is often only seen on the day of the shoot – meaning I’ll make a very quick assessment and mental shot list as I walk in.
Access to the rehearsals can be anything from 20 minutes to an hour – which means there are strict time limits to capture enough footage – this is stressful, but it also forces me to be efficient.
It also means that shoots are usually handheld and dynamic, with lots of camera movement to help emphasise action. During the shoots I’m quite procedural, using my mental shot list to make sure I get a range of close-ups, mids, wides – camera movements, detail shots – and slow motion – all of which I know I’ll need to make a compelling edit.
Interviews and access to the actors is also very limited – so quick decision making in setting up the look of these is vital. These pieces are used to promote upcoming productions, so getting the key sound bites that really sell the production and describe the tone of the play is vital.
The edits themselves usually start with music selection – which is how I tend to approach most edits – so finding the right track can take some time before cutting even begins.
Grading is also another useful way of communicating the tone and language of the production, for example with the Tragedy of King Richard II, I chose cooler colours to emphasise the starkness of the play’s content.
I’ve really enjoyed working with the Almeida because they’ve been very supportive in producing adventurous work – something that not all organisations have the confidence to do!
Over June I covered Robert Smith’s Meltdown Festival at Southbank Centre – directing and producing shoots across the festival to create highlight reels and band interview videos.
It was one of the most intense working weeks I’ve pulled off in a long time, completely fuelled by coffee and adrenaline, but totally worth it. Getting to film upfront during performances of bands such as Deftones, Manic Street Preachers and Mogwai were definite highlights.
I learnt loads of lessons during this project – particularly the need for agility and the importance of hanging around backstage to grab last minute interview opportunities!
Special thanks also needs to go to Philip Jenkins and Ben Smith who provided much needed production support!
This film was commissioned as part of a residency within the Wellcome Collection’s Hubbub Group and exhibited at the “Rest & its discontents” exhibition at Mile End Art Pavilion, London October 2016.
Using playful imagery the film presents a collection of short vignettes that explore the strange and often abstract nature of our everyday inner experiences.
The experiences were documented through a process called descriptive experience sampling (DES), a technique developed by American psychologist Russel Hurlburt that aims to document inner experiences – the thoughts, feelings, sensations and bodily experiences that constitute our everyday consciousness.
Participants of DES wear a small beeper which sounds randomly throughout the day, at the moment of the beep, individuals are instructed to note down the exact contents of their experience (this could include internal monologues, physical sensations or visual imagery).
Follow up interviews tease out the information of the experiences and distill them into short summaries. These so called “beep summaries” provide wonderfully vivid depictions, almost like a dream diary, for seemingly mundane everyday experiences.
Using material gathered by several members of the Hubbub team, this film translates and re-interprets the contents of the beep summaries, referencing the distortions and adaptations that occur when we try to conceptualise our inner experiences with others.
The film was shot over the summer of 2016 on a Sony A7s. I used old M42 lenses to help give the piece a faded, dream like quality – which was further aided by adding film grain and muting the colours slightly in post. Most of the portraits were shot on an old Takumar 50mm 1.4 lens which has a beautiful vintage bokeh, which is full of character and lacks the somewhat clinical precision of a modern lens.
Find out more about the Hubbub Research group here: hubbubresearch.org
An animation I produced last year with animator / illustrator Rosanna Wan for the Royal Institution.
Rosanna’s distinct visuals incorporate a hand drawn style that tell the story of cartographer Marie Tharp, whose work helped to detail the complex geography of ocean floors around the world.
Her maps helped to demonstrate that the ocean floor was in fact a complex assortment of peaks and troughs – which went against conventional wisdom at the time. Despite fierce opposition, she stuck fast to her findings and as more data was collated, the tide of opposition turned, paving the way for our modern understanding of plate tectonics.
Directed and animated by Rosanna Wan.
Produced and scripted by Ed Prosser.
Narrated by Helen Czerski.
Autumnal kaleidoscopes
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Rest matters to everyone. Its presence, absence and quality affects mind, body, culture and society. Rest & its discontents explores the dynamics of rest, stress, relaxation, sound, noise, work and mindwandering in an evolving laboratory of moving image, performance, drawing, poetry, data, sound, music and debate. Rest & its discontents is currently on at the Mile End Art Pavilion until the 30th October (http://hubbubresearch.org/event/rest-discontents/).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uebzjAe1FL0
Commissioned for Rest & its discontents.
The short film is the final piece I've produced as part of my 2-year residency within the Wellcome Collection's Hubbub Group.
The film uses material gathered from individuals participating in Descriptive Experience Sampling (DES) to generate short vignettes which explore and re-interpret their inner experiences. DES is a method pioneered by US psychologist Russell Hurlburt which aims to document the nature and quality of an individual's inner experiences.
Participants are given a beeper that sounds randomly throughout the day and when it does, individuals are asked to make a note of the contents of their experience. Follow up interviews tease out the detail of each experience to produce a short "beep summary", a short vignette or snapshot of an isolated experience in time.
Experience Composite, uses the the contents of the beep summaries and experiments with framing, looping and over-dubbing to explore the nature of our inner experiences. The film also re-interprets the summaries in playful ways to highlight the unavoidable distortion and artifice introduced when attempting to document or conceptualise our inner experiences.
Over the last year I've been producing a radio documentary for the BBC World Service, it's called "Leaving the Fold" and it airs today! It explores the stories of three people who have decided to walk away from their faith and the difficulties they faced in doing so.
You can stream it and download it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p046hfzb
What does it take for someone to turn their back on their religious upbringing? What effect does that decision ultimately have on them and those around them? We explore the personal journeys of three people who walked away from their faiths and redefined their morality in a world without God.
An ex-Muslim, ex-Hindu, and an ex-born-again-Christian, each recount what their lives were like growing up in devout religious families and what spurred them on to renounce their faith. The programme traces the moments that defined their journeys.
What did removing the hijab in public for the first time represent for the ex-Muslim? How did a religiously motivated bomb attack in India affect the ex-Hindu’s understanding of his faith? How did the ex-born-again-Christian learn to live in a world without morals and rules defined by God?
Two new videos produced recently for the Royal Institution that take you inside the ISIS Neutron and Muon Facility in Oxfordshire. This is a scientific research facility that uses a high-energy proton accelerator to generate neutrons which are then used by visiting scientists to research the structure and properties of materials.
Find out about how they power the facility and an example of the cutting edge research taking place in the videos below!
Here's a short animation I wrote and produced with animator / illustrator Andrew Khosravani. The piece is narrated by Hannah Fry and tells the story of how zero became a number. We were very happy about it getting a "Staff Pick" on Vimeo!
https://vimeo.com/161757232
The scripting for the piece was tricky, it took several weeks to wrap our heads around the subject and then boil a significant amount of history down into around 3 minutes... inevitably details had to be cut and even after recording the voice-over with Hannah we had to make some difficult decisions to make further cuts. All in the name of reducing animation time - which was significant for a piece like this - Andrew did an incredible job!
Oh and the chapter numbers are obviously all in binary.
Here's my first venture into music videos - made for a friend's band - Dear Leaders. It was actually shot last year, but a busy work schedule delayed the edit until the beginning of this year - they released the track as a single in April alongside the video - check it out below!
https://vimeo.com/159264392
It was real guerrilla film making, we had no budget, very little plan or script - just a very rough narrative. We shot this across London, near Green Lanes in Haringey and also in Hackney Marshes, with a lot of improvisation at the locations. I also shot this solo, with only two days to get everything done (the band live in separate cities) - which added extra pressure to the production!
The edit was quite challenging as a result, but eventually I picked a route through the footage, not that the narrative makes total sense... but when were music videos ever the bastion of linear narratives?
I was lucky enough to work with actor Julian Spooner (who put up with two days of masking tape being ripped off his face) - who was great to work with, mainly because he was very patient and took my direction without protest. The band members also make small cameos - see if you can spot them!
It was shot mostly on my Sony A7s and it's low light capabilities allowed opened up a lot of creative possibilities for shooting at dusk on the marshes.
Astronaut's share their experiences of living in space!
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A sonic impression of a panic attack
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A New Look at Astrology...
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How a simple invention saved the mining industry from devastating accidents.
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Seaside symmetry
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Interior textures.
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Continuing with the residency in Margate, here's the second short video piece:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ4OHpp2tI8
I wanted to provide a different perspective on Margate from yesterday's piece, so as the tide receded I spent time down in the harbour capturing the orange and blue tones of the sunset set amongst the beached boats.
I was drawn to one boat in particular, named Sea Horse, which featured a curious Seahorse shaped 'S' on its stern.
It was a beautifully clear evening, so as the sun set, the sky was awash with intense oranges that slowly gave way to deep, inky blues. In terms of grading, I wanted to preserve these colours so I enhanced the contrast and deepened the blacks, but did little else. When shooting these scenes I shot in a flat profile and exposed to the right so that I could pull down the blacks in post and maintain the deep blues of dusk.
Finally, I decided to add in some sound design to play off the mostly static shots. The sounds of lapping waves, gusts of wind and creaking boats are suggestive of motion and act almost like ghostly echoes of movement.
The piece was shot entirely on my Sony A7s, using two old M42 lenses:
I'm currently in Margate on a week long artist residency (PRAH Foundation) producing work that is responsive to the local area. I'll be focusing on both video and audio outputs and as part of the project I've tasked myself with the grand challenge of producing (and publishing!) something each day...
Here's Tuesday's effort:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZxrEPbQgUA
On my first day, I spent a couple of hours walking around the waterfront with my camera and was particularly drawn to the dull tones of the Arlington House tower block. This drab, monolithic structure looms, rather oppressively, over the recently refurbished Dreamland fun park below (hoping to pay that a visit later in the week).
The colours from this scene influenced the overall grading of the piece, producing a rather muted colour profile throughout. I really liked the contrast of the blue sheds that emerge half way through, with the glimpse of the ferris wheel in the distance - neither of which can quite break free from the muted, sombre tones of their surroundings.
I shot this on my Sony A7s, which I haven't really had much chance to experiment this year. I also wanted to test out a couple M42 lenses that I'd recently picked up on ebay:
