Hey GI!

I've been working on Glasgow International festival's viral video team this week going to exhibition launches and parties to capture the atmosphere in short video clips. They specifically asked us to use basic equipment and make our clips quite candid, guerilla style.

It's been a good way to get around the festival and has meant that I've seen a lot of exhibitions that wouldn't have necessarily interested me otherwise - some of them still don't!

The high profile works, Jim Lambie, Catherine Yass, Wilhelm Sasnal, etc, were the ones which have grabbed all the press attention but I really wasn't convinced by Sasnal's piece. The idea was good and very provocative but it just didn't really seem like an interesting final piece.

Ceryth Wym Evans piece at The Local, however, really got me going. It's a film projected onto 3 mirror balls positioned so that every now and then there's an 'eclipse' and people are suddenly aware of the darkness which then draws them into the piece more. The Local isn't set up like a gallery space, it's a bar with art. The art isn't obvious so when Evans piece draws you in you then start to notice the other works around it and to me that's much more interesting.

These Things Happen

These Things Happen when three dancers and one dancer/film maker follow instructions given by choreographer, Angus Balbernie at a Dance House research lab. Spontaneous, textured and very low-tech.



Following another failed attempt to hire any equipment I ended up using my own Mini DV and mobile to film improvisations at Angus' research lab. Angus had agreed to let me use the footage anyway I decided but I wasn't sure how to put it all together with it being on different formats and still make it look like one cohesive piece. After a lightbulb moment last weekend I decided to embrace the low-tech aspect and only use the footage from my mobile. The only editing I chose to use was to rotate some of the sections which had been captured in portrait to give the feeling of the camera rotating but the dancers remain standing.

I'm quite pleased with the results and am now thinking of ways this can be combined with my final project.