My input
Sound recording
Camera man
Editor
The new festival of light and art installations was first held in 2011 all around Bath. It showed us new talent, new thinking and new ways to use light and performance.
For the days that I was there, I recorded sound video and completed editing work for the performances during the festival in Bath city centre.
Bike Rides
We first started at the top of Victoria Park, where the race was starting. The light visibility was low for conducting interviews as it had just got dark. The bikes were fitted with all sorts of flashing lights and neon glowing bulbs which looked great on camera. We got an interview before the race with Richard Bidgood who is on the board of trustees for Bath Spa as the chair/union president. We took him slightly out of the park into the street lit areas and used LED lighting to contribute to the available light. Naturally, he spoke very well on camera which would prove to be an interesting and exciting interview for use later on in the post production edit.
This shoot in particular was more difficult than the later Illuminate shoots I was involved in as everything we did was new to us, filming off the cuff and finding as much important, exciting and relevant shots throughout the short bike ride event. We only had one chance to get the bikes coming into the finish line so we had to make it count.
Interviewing people on the spot on their bikes straight after the race was difficult in terms of content of what they were saying, but also a way of gaining an exciting reflection of the event that had just taken place as this made each interview both interesting and vibrant as the bikers were panting and rather worn out after finishing the race. Ciaran, who was interviewing the cyclists, interviewed them without prior planning. After the third and fourth person we managed to interview I noticed that the questions were ‘closed’. This meant that the responses we were getting were limited in length and complexity. If I was to repeat this again I would prepare some ‘open’ questions for both before and after the race so that our answers would vary across the board, making a more interesting piece for the viewing audience.
Performance Art
In the centre of Bath in the newly built shopping precinct there was a performance art show. The show consisted of miming acts, circus movements, running, screaming and general circus type performances. There were people in strange masks, balls that lit up, lots of makeup, general clowning around, running about and dancing to music. I managed to get some great reactions from the public who where passing through. When I was using the camera I tried to cover as much of the public’s reactions during the event as I believed it to be the most interesting thing for the viewer, besides the actual event. Children’s reactions were also great on camera, as they stared in amazement and laughed with joy at what was going on around them.
I enjoyed filming and getting some great shots for the project and it was a good learning experience which taught me how and when to seize the right shots. It was good to experience how to react to a crowd quickly and which shots to take when the opportunities presented themselves. Along with the general running around of all the characters in the performance, there was also an ensemble type event where people all joined together to dance. The dance was a cross between tribal African and bebop jazz swing. It looked so exciting on camera with all the lights around it as well as the audience watching. There was also a smooth Jazz band playing in the background when the dancing performance art was closing up. I decided it would be useful to capture this on film to show the community spirit of Bath and link it into the Illuminate Bath festival later on in the edit.
Projector Installation
This was more of a sideline project that was around the rest of the main events such as the performance art piece. There were three projector installations that I was involved in. The first projected image was a straight shot of a wall where the passers by were walking on the pavement. They were captured on camera. This footage was then projected onto where the video had previously been recorded so it looked like there were people walking by where the projector was presenting the video. Some people saw the projection and thought they were being recorded and shown onto the wall and hurriedly got out of the way of the projection. Some realised it was not them and laughed, which looked great on camera. Some didn't notice at all. The sound for this was not needed as we were just gathering shots of the projected images on the wall and gathering the reactions from passers by who were walking through the projection.
The second projection I was involved in was another small installation using an overhead projector with small objects such as buttons, shells, felts, cord and many other small pieces blown up and put on a wall. We interviewed an array of people who had a go on the projector, getting snippets of what they thought about the festival so far. The audio for this was more difficult to record as we were in the type of alleyway which channelled the wind past us. To solve this I had to put my back to the wind to keep the microphone sheltered.
Light tubes and interviewing the artist
We interviewed the artist responsible for creating an array of huge coloured glass light tubes. They were absolutely beautiful in colour, and magnificent in size. There was also a golden chair and desk piece and a row of large light bulbs that lit up the far end of the room. Because the room was very light and quiet we didn't have any problems when recording audio and video. The interview was also successful in terms of content and information about each piece.
Coloured light projection on walls
I was involved in camera and sound work for this. The room was a large white walled empty shop that contained two large high definition projectors. The two projectors cycled through the spectrum of colours, merging each colour slowly into one another and creating a pulsing effect with the colours. This was then projected onto two white walls. The effect was vibrant and of course very colourful. People wandered in off the street to see what was going on. We interviewed a couple who were creating shapes with their hands and body which was cast on the walls by blocking the projectors light and we captured them talking about their experience. We then interviewed the two guys that were in charge of direction for the installation. We asked them questions about how they came up with the idea. They gave great answers and interesting references for the viewers of the light festival to look up. I managed to get a few nice shots of the light behind a large gate that had been put into an empty shop that we were filming in. I liked how the gate was silhouetted behind the colourful lights. Although this was not part of the concept of the installation I decided it would be a good shot to include in the edit and it could be used for pictures of the festival for a DVD case or screen shot for blogs about the festival.
Editing
I took part in some of the editing including the introduction for Illuminate Bath 2011 and two Interviews of the lanterns light show. One of the Interviews consisted of talking about a coloured ice sculpture made into columns which slowly melted over time. The interview was quite dry but I managed to cut it down to a two minute interview from 20 minutes of footage which still included some interesting points such as what the sculpture was about, what it did and the reactions of some passers by. I layered these cuts of passers by and included shots of the sculpture over the top of most of the interview to keep it as stimulating for the viewer as possible.
Illuminate Bath 2011 was a fun festival for all the public and I was able to learn a lot about different filming techniques and sound skills throughout the project work.
Check out the Bath Illuminate page here
