1989 'Horror at the House' movie

Yes...finally its up for the world to see!

             Horror @ the House


This was made on an old VHS camcorder circa 1989, and here's how..
1. Get an idea
2. have a loose story line
3. Get a cast - Me, my Brother Ian and my mate Matt. As thing progress, introduce new characters played by Aaron and Emma (Matts Brother and Sister)
4. Most cast double up as camera operators and actors
5. Use 'special effects' such as pre-recorded film snippets to be played in the movie, and blood curdling effects such as fake blood (courtesy of Mr Heinz)
6. Shoot the film over 3 days in chronological order using only the pause button and fade button as the 'on the fly editing suite'
7. Finish film, then place in front of Hifi speakers to overdub music and some dialogue for comedy purposes...
8. Premier the film at "church weekend away" in Otterburn Hall, Northumberland
9. Let the legend begin.....

Enjoy...

Bit of a change and/or additions!...

Ok, so now i have been beatboxing (not constantly) for nearly 25yrs and the last 3 years i have done it as my business....random - who would think that i could market and sell 'spitting and making silly noises'!??

Anyway, i have.
Now, my other 'skill/talent/gifting/hobby/time wasting' is playing Bass...
I have my trusty Ibanez 5 string - bought at the Bass center in the early 90s for nearly £1000 and some gear swaps, as well as my more recent NS WAV Electric Upright Bass (VERY nice!..)

So hey - lets get back to playing them more....
Lots of people play, and lots of people do 'session' stuff...me - i know i have the funk about things, so may as well use it, after all - I do it for the love and groove!
So i will keep y'all updated into the journey as it can be just as interesting to see how you (or me in this case) goes about it and where the breaks happen along the way!

First things first, i need music examples, photos and a website...then get playing again!...

Beatbox Microphone review...

So...i started out with a bit of 'Googling' to find some Microphones that i could use for my workshops and i came across this...

Its a Behringer XM8500. Its relatively cheap in price but sounds fantastic!
I have 6 of them, and i have used them for about 2 years and they are great. They stand up to lots of people trying them on a regular basis, and because of the low cost of them, its not too much of a worry if they get bashed about a bit.
The main comparison was over a years worth of workshops for 'Butlins' - a holiday camp/activity park in the UK. I had the chance of using a medium sized PA system with 3 mics:

1. Shure SM58
2. Shure SM58 Beta
3. Behringer XM8500

The SM58 sounded flat. Not much gain or power to it
The SM58 Beta was much better (and more expensive - about £120) - good gain and sounded a bit warmer.
The XM8500 actually sounded fairly identical to the 58 Beta, but the only drawer back was that it could transmit some of the sounds from holding it - not much to notice though. Plus the good side was the price - about £17 new!
I know you get what you pay for (on the whole) but this Mic has become my choice at the moment...
Would i change??
Well.... i have been recommended some EV mics to try, but unless EV want to send me some, then I'm not convinced! So for now....its XM8500's all the way baby!

New look!

Loving the fact that you can really get into tweaking the look of Blogger - just need to get some pictures up!
Speaking of which....try this one for size...

This is me and my Brother Ian. A clever geezer by all accounts, and a good all round egg! Thank God for him, that's for sure!...

Visit his blog for some REAL education people!

quick sketch 4 ya....

Yes....its "ACE2" again.

Names, names, names.....

 Enjoy....i'm off to work now! Bye...

Half Marathon time again....

OK....so 'The Great North Run' half marathon always figures in my life somewhere along the line, so this year with it being the 30th anniversary, and numbers are hard to come by (even though there is only about 54000 people running it) i figured i will run for a charity - it gets me a number and also raises money for a good cause.
There are loads of charities out there so i thought it would be nice to run for one of the 'lesser known' charities.
So this year is gonna be TB ALERT, which helps people with TB and Lung diseases.
I have to raise £250 in sponsorship by Sept 19th 2010.....will you help???
Drop me a line and you can watch me sweat it out for the charity, a medal and most importantly.....A T-SHIRT!!!

C'mon folks...help me Ob iWan Kenobi...you're my only hope....

The Anatomy of a can....

Hey! Ever wondered what is in side a spray can? I have, and after reading bits from the MONSTER site - in particular the info for the premier paint range - it got me thinking......
So this is what happened......
1. I got an old can - this was used and there was no more paint to be sprayed from it.
2. After making a hole in it (from a distance) I opened it up by using a junior hacksaw..
WARNING - DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME KIDS AS THE CANS ARE PRESSURISED AND WE DON'T WANT ANY ACCIDENTS NOW, DO WE?......

 

3. Then i emptied out the remaining contents.  There was actually still quite a bit of paint in the can - probably about 40-50mls left. And its really nice and bright! Also, you can see the steel balls that are inside a can. When you shake a can and hear it rattle, this is what the rattle is - its actually a really cool way of mixing the paint - but a bit noisy!

4. Then, once the paint is out, you can clearly see the tube that extends to the bottom of the can and where it joins the valve at the top of the can!

 

And thats it! Remember kids - use spray paint for legal pieces coz the illegal stuff just aint worth it! (...ahem...ahem..)

time to move on...sort of...

Bye INSPIRE, nice working with you!
One year later (how time flies!) and i have finished with inspire Arts Trust.

So my plan to simplify things and build up my business is in effect.
Well....i think so.
Its now just Beatbox and nursing. Oh...and the old graffiti workshops - slightly more of a challenge but its all good.
I still have my dreams and hopes etc...but i guess as you get older...sorry, we get older, we probably have to streamline our plans and include some sort of practicality to them.
Shame really, but i think that if we just went on with any of our dreams, we may miss having to anylise them and actually having to sort them out so that they become acheivable rather than just nice ideas and whisps of 'what ifs'...

Our dreams probably are sort of pure to start with, but then we end up having to put them into context. For example - i want to do Graffiti art. Now to make that work in society and todays culture, i end up having to tailor it so that it serves some sort of purpose and function - i cant just paint for the sake of it, so i then get the context to put the 'dream' into.
The challenge is keeping the dream at the front, rather than letting it be dominated by the context.

In my opinion. Anyway....'pointless drivvel' over with.

Inspire was good, and there are always aspects of the job you would rather not do, or forget, or move on with but the main thing i will miss is the people and the room for exploring the creative side of things.
We all stay in touch (we got to...i still end up doing some stuff with them!!) so its not too bad, i just got to find some peace about what i am doing now!
In the meantime.....i am gonna explore more art i think!

This was a commission for NGM in their prayer room. It is their slogan "Dance into the night".
This piece was a challenge because although i had the paint, i had no skinny caps (skinny caps are nozzles that produce a thin line) so i had to do a lot of it with 'pink dots' or 'fat caps' (both produce wide sprays...not great for details!).

Anyway, i think it turned out ok but what did i learn?....
THINK BIG - its ok to plan a sketch but make it big so that you can get the detail and the widths of the pencil lines you use in your sketch reflect what you will spray!
THINK AGGRESSIVE - I want to make the form of the next letters not so 'comic book' or nice. This piece works coz it needs to read by the public, but i would like to do more wildstyle and abstract.
COMMIT! - when you go for the outline and highlights, there is little room for mistakes so you just gotta spray with confidence. Its all practice i guess.

The next step - well, i think i will just paint more for the practice. Probably on some sort of self made 'wall' out of wooden boards out the back of my house - then i can repaint it as and when! I'll post the results for you to laugh at!

Well...ive enjoyed this rant - i hope you have as much as me, and dont worry.....i got lots more 'interesting stuff' to spout! ("groan"...i hear you say)

Studelicious!

money....makes you think...