Better than tape and card

Trouble is the viewfinder sticks out when I am working and just gets in the way. So a while back I removed it and resorted to the usual high tech approach of protecting the remaining viewfinder stub with a bit of stiff card and some gaffer tape. Job done.

I thought I was in the minority of people who did this until I saw a post somewhere on the Interwebs which advertised a custom made viewfinder cap for the XF300 or 305 which would be much better than tape and card.

Not science fiction

The Canon XF300 / 305 viewfinder cap is made by a company called Shapeways who specialise in 3D printing. How whizzy is that! If you are into 3D printing (which to be honest I thought was still the stuff of science fiction and breathless news reports from tech challenged reporters) you can work with Shapeways to turn your 3D designs into reality. Check out their site for details.

Shapeways is based in the Netherlands and it took a couple of weeks or so from me placing my order (cost was €20.55 plus €8.64 shipping) to getting my cover but it turned up this afternoon and is perfect! Very snug fit and much smarter than tape. Recommended.

I wonder if uploaded a 3D design of a nice Arri Alexa they could make one of those for me? No? Oh well…. One can dream.

Although I have a tendency to spend a lot of time running (well, ambling) up and down the River Thames in search of ships to film I have outdone myself while filming HMS Ocean.

The largest ship in the Royal Navy HMS Ocean was in town to act as the central point of the security exercise for the London 2012 Olympics. Greenwich is an ideal place for her to be berthed as it is probably no more than 30 seconds flight time to the Olympic Stadium in Stratford.

I found out about the imminent arrival of HMS Ocean through the immensely useful Ships and Boats in London blog which I recommend to anyone living in London who wants to keep up to date with interesting things happening on the River Thames.

Although the Thames is difficult to miss most people take it for granted. Fact is of course that if the Thames did not exist London would not exist. Simple as that. Well, it might exist somewhere else but then it wouldn’t be called London, would it?

London’s best filming location

The choice of where to film HMS Ocean coming in to berth at Greenwich was easy to make, Island Gardens is my favourite filming spot in the whole of London for the very simple reason that it has it’s own cafe. How cool is that? Oh and it is directly across from Greenwich too.

Once the film was edited and posted on my YouTube channel I spent several more days filming HMS Ocean at different times and also various events related to the security exercise on the River Thames, mainly Royal Marines zooming along in a wide variety of assault boats and landing craft. Although I got some good footage there was no real highlight event which made it worthwhile posting a second film.

All dressed up with nothing to film

A highlight promised to be a security exercise taking place between 5.30 am and 6.30 am one morning so I hauled myself out of bed at 3.30 then went and stood on London Bridge with two other hopeful colleagues for a couple of hours to film – nothing. No idea why the exercise didn’t happen but that’s just the way it is sometimes with news work.

What did happen was a large crane on a barge coming through Tower Bridge to fix the last piece of the new gangway for HMS Belfast into position. As the Marines were not providing me with any kinetic activity to film I shot this instead. The resulting footage is not the most exciting in the world but was of enough interest to post and the Imperial War Museum appreciated it. HMS Belfast is a unique floating museum and it was good to see that it was almost back open for business again.

Alternative Fashion Week was the first time I have been to any sort of fashion event ever and it was quite good fun! Could have done with a second camera maybe but I think the result gives the viewer a good idea of the spirit of the event.

During the last few years the huge increase in video has only increased this interest.

Do users want non linear narratives?

Now you and I could argue over the need for a non linear narrative for quite some while I suspect. I am not totally convinced that users want non linear narratives. For me one of the main reasons for watching a documentary (or watching a play or reading a book for that matter) is to see how it is presented to me. That is the experience. The author tells me all their story in the manner in which they chose and that’s it. Fine by me.

But I digress onto a subject which I suspect I will return to on a regular basis here.

Having some spare time while I sort out my hard disks and copying terabytes of data from one RAID drive to another I thought I would have a proper look at web documentaries. Another buzz word or a useful tool? Or both?

Anyway I found Journey to the End of Coal produced by Honkytonk Films this is generally regarded to be one of the best web documentaries around. Make your own mind up and have a look!

Flash = #ux #fail

The tool used to create Journey to the End of Coal is called Klynt and obviously is capable of producing good stuff. I was just about to dive in and download a trial version when I noticed the dreaded word – Flash! #ux #fail

Don’t get me wrong, Adobe’s Flash has been a fantastic tool which has changed the web for the better. Notice my use of the past tense there? Flash is a goner. Old news.

With my pointy user experience hat on I refuse point blank to use Flash to deliver content because it excludes a significant user base, the huge numbers of people using iPads. And if there was ever a perfect form factor for the delivery of a web documentary it’s an iPad. So for me delivery of this sort of content (well, any content to be honest) has to be HTML 5.

I did notice that Klynt have got a HTML 5 version on their to do list and when that is available I will have a play.

SMIL, a blast from the past

But looking at the technology requirements for Klynt (is it just me who thinks of the main man Mr Eastwood every time I read that word?) I noticed that it uses my old friend SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language)! Now there’s a blast from my past. I have meddled with SMIL in the past (and I mean around 1999 – 2000) but it’s one of those technologies that has never quite become mainstream.

Odd because you would think that interactive video would be hugely popular. Wouldn’t you?

I shall end there. No choices for you this time round. This has been my narrative and I can do what I like with it. I am off to see what other SMIL tools are around nowadays.

In March 2012 the tall ship Thalassa spent four weeks training skippers in the art of navigating the Port of London in preparation for the Sail Royal Greenwich 2012 event.

The Sail Royal Greenwich event features 16 classic tall ships providing cruises up and down the River Thames for corporate hospitality clients. If that isn’t enough the Parade of Sail which kicks off the event consists of no less than 216 vessels. Not to be missed.

Living within 100m of the Thames and an avid river watcher the Thalassa soon caught my eye. I then spent the next four days pursuing the ship on land (via the underground, see previous blog entry but getting good footage for only the price of an Oyster card top up.

Locations for filming on River Thames

If you know the Thames in central London there are many good places where you can get an unobstructed view of the river, my favourite spots being Wapping of course and just over the river (courtesy of the Overground and the Brunel tunnel) in Rotherhithe and Bermondsey.

Defined by its famous U shaped bend at the Isle of Dogs the Thames presents some problems for filming as different locations give very different views and different light. South of the river is probably better as you can get a better view along the Thames.

Opening and closing shots of the Thalassa with Tower Bridge (my local bridge) in the background were shot from Rotherhithe just along from the Mayflower pub (yes, THAT Mayflower if you are reading this in the USA). This is the only spot east of Tower Bridge where you can get direct line of sight. Pity about the smog. The shot did work though.

Don’t photograph the Emirates Cable Car

The only place I had difficulty getting to the riverside was at the O2 arena. The signs are pretty useless and there is a lot of building work and it was only when I was shown where to that I realised that you can get to the riverside by heading to the Thames Clippers pier. Just make sure you don’t photograph the new cable car pylons though as they are secret apparently. Honest.

Nearer to home was much easier as I live quite close to Tower Bridge and part of the skipper’s training was turning the vessel through 180 degrees just before the bridge then going back to Greenwich.

Clips, cuts, north and south

This took place just opposite Hermitage Moorings but I didn’t shoot any footage from this (north) side of the river, only the south side. Given more time and more trips by Thelassa I would of course have shot some more footage there as I would liked to have cut this together with shots of the ship turning from the other side of the river. As it turned out I cut shots of the turn on board in with the south side shots which seemed to work.

The Thalassa only went up and down the river twice in an afternoon and this combined with the light meant that the shots I needed for the film were best taken from the south side. The Thalassa does not race along but being a ship she doesn’t have to worry about getting to an underground station, so I was limited to one or maybe two shooting locations per day.

Idyllic weather for filming in London

However thanks to Sail Royal Greenwich I found myself on board the Thalassa one idyllic spring day. To have reasonable weather in London is something but last week was just perfect. I used my Canon XF300 for all the shots. Had a 5D Mk2 with me but didn’t need it.

Odd thing is, and some may find this heresy to say such a thing, but although it was huge fun and very interesting being on board for filming purposes being outside looking at the ship was better.

Working on board a ship like this can be quite tricky at times even though the Thames was like a mill pond that day. Partly because there were quite a few other people on board but also because ships tend to have odd things sticking out from odd places on the deck which are ideal for tripping you up. Working on a normal sea with a little swell would be very interesting to say the least.

Although most shots were taken on (my rubbish) tripod I found my Manfrotto 561BHDV-1 monopod to be extremely handy on board and produce good results. External audio was recorded using a H4N Zoom. Post was all done in Premiere and Soundbooth.

Many thanks to Captain Jacob Jan Dam, the crew of the Thalassa, Nathalie Delahaye-Penfold and all at Sail Royal Greenwich 2012.

This is because I do not have either (a) or (b). The more work I undertake on or around the Thames the more I am considering getting (a).

The tall ship Thalassa has been in London the last few weeks training tall ship captains in the specifics of piloting the tidal Thames in preparation for Sail Royal Greenwich later this year when 15 tall ships will be visiting Greenwich. Yes – 15 tall ships!

Training involves learning about the River from Woolwich up to the Lower Pool of London (east of Tower Bridge) which is where I live. Well, not in the river, just next to it.

Walking across the Thames

The Thalassa is an elegant craft and a reminder of the days when it was possible to walk across the Thames without getting your feet wet. There were so many ships on the river you could walk across their decks from one side to the other.

I have been fortunate enough to have some fantastic weather to shoot some footage of the Thalassa and every time I see her gliding along it’s easy to recall the days when the River Thames was the commercial heart of not just the UK but the British Empire.

Different days, different angles

Day One I nipped south of the river to Rotherhithe and got a few minutes worth of footage as the Thalassa turned just short of Tower Bridge (aka Our Local Bridge).

Day Two I returned to Bermondsey to get a better angle on the turn and then hopped on the Jubilee Line and DLR to Island Gardens that gives a great view of Greenwich and the Thalassa cruising past. And it has a tea stall! How cool is that?

Because I have been shooting from different locations at different times of the day I finding that shots taken one day will work with shots taken the previous day. Well hopefully.

Actually being in the same place as the Thalassa let alone the right place has been down to a little inside information, some help from my marine tracker, quite a bit of local knowledge and a lot of luck too. More than once I have beaten my own speed record for setting up my (almost useless) tripod just in time to get the shot.

On the way back from Island Gardens I and my faithful crane loving assistant got off the DLR at Limehouse and just managed to get down to the Thames by King Edward Memorial Park as the Thalassa came back east on the return leg of her second outing of the day.

Colin the Cormorant and Mr Burns

Other highlights of the day’s filming included Colin the Cormorant trying to swallow a very wide fish down his thing neck (and failing) and our local heron Mr Burns spotted sitting on a mooring buoy mid river.

With some luck I might be able to enjoy filming the Thalassa again tomorrow if she is out and about. All this running around was simply to provide me with some contextual shots for a more detailed shoot on the Thalassa this Friday.

UPDATE: You can see the final film of the Thalassa here.

The International London Tattoo Convention takes place at Tobacco Dock, a few minutes walk from where I live in Wapping, east London. As a film maker and without a single tattoo on my body I was intrigued by the convention and what the big deal was about tattoos.

Last year I went along with my camera and audio recorder and spent two days talking to artists and visitors to the convention about tattoos. The question I asked was quite simple: “Why tattoos?” The answered I received were varied but all were friendly and clearly people who were keen to share their love of their art.

Post production was delayed by many months due to my normal commercial work and it was only then that I realised the connection between Captain Cook (who lived in Wapping) and the introduction of the tattoo into western society by sailors returning from their travels to the far side of the world.

The tattoo convention is being held again this year and if you are curious you can find more details at the organisers website: thelondontattooconvention.com

Don’t be fooled by the sometimes outrageous appearance of some tattoo fans. They are ordinary people who just happen to have an extraordinary passion.

Tropical Extravaganza at Kew Gardens, London, is a celebration of all things bright, beautiful, and tropical. Displays of tropical plants and flowers can be seen against the lush green backdrop of the Princess of Wales Conservatory.

This year’s festival is inspired by the ‘forces of nature’ – fire, air, water and earth.

For more information pop over to www.kew.org.

Tower Bridge opened several times on 28th February 2012 to welcome the Olympic Rings to the Pool of London. The event was organised by the Mayor of London to mark 150 days to go until the start of the London 2012 Games.
The rings, which measure an impressive 11.5 metres high by 25 metres wide, were on show between London Bridge and Tower Bridge between 6am and 1.30pm.
Londoners and visitors alike flocked to the river to watch the rings being displayed in the heart of the capital. In the afternoon the rings were towed down river to Greenwich and Canary Wharf.
This time lapse sequence was taken in the morning from the south bank from Shad Thames and in the evening from the Tower of London.
For more information visit molpresents.com

I may be visually literate but I don’t know much about ‘real’ art. (Although I did do some post-grad research at Goldsmiths once and learnt a lot about contemporary art.) I do know what I like though!

The Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square is a classic British institution. Born out of being unable to decide what to do with the plinth it took 150 years for us to get our act together and come up with a triumph.

I quite liked the previous incumbent (Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle) but spending a couple of hours filming the new resident, Powerless Structures, I really appreciated the benefit of public art as I talked to various people and appreciated the diversity of opinion. Because the diversity is the whole point.

My main problem when filming Powerless Structures, Fig 101 was the continually changing weather – and so colour temperature – in the square. Typically British weather to welcome a typically British institution.