Alex de Campi: Gojira!

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21.9.06 Video Magic

When I found myself wandering around the Park Royal asda last Friday afternoon, carrying a skeleton and a bag of green apples, I actively began to wish my life was less interesting. I also regretted somewhat my attempt to film a "making of" documentary and two music videos in 21 days, on no budget. The video shoots went better than I could have dreamed, but near the end I was holding onto sanity by my fingernails, and starting to slip.

But that's not what I'm writing to tell you about. I wanted to mention the further (and slightly gobsmacking) successes of the "Raindrops" video for Flipron. In the UK, it is currently screening on Q TV, MTV2, and will be on E4's "Freshly Squeezed" next week. I don't own a TV, so if any of these shows have phone-ins or email-ins to request they play the video, please consider pestering them about our little no-budget, done-for-love David and help it fight the £10-50,000 budget video Goliaths. We're also on Avanti TV, which is the supplier of music video programming to pubs, bars, restaurants and so forth.

Clicky on the image to go to Flipron's myspace page, where you can "befriend" them in that amusingly meaningless myspace way, and see the video.

"Raindrops" will also be screening at the Raindance Film Festival, during the Sonic City Showcase at 12 noon Saturday 7 October at the Cineworld Shaftesbury Avenue in London, and at Friday 13 October at 10.30pm, Monday 16 October at 2.30pm and Friday 20 October at 8.00pm at the Flanders International Film Festival in Ghent, Belgium, before the film Wristcutters. We're a finalist in the Traditional Animation category of the California International Animation Festival, and we've also been accepted into the St Louis International Film Festival. Big steps, for a little project. Now if I could just get someone to pay me some money to do all this...

Also, there may have been some B-roll that I filmed from the "making of" documentary for Credo screened on Jonathan Ross' show Film 2006 on BBC2 this past Monday. But, as noted above, I don't own a TV, and so have no idea if they used any of the footage they requested.

Editing the Maxfield video at the moment; will post some stills from the Kunta Kinte video later this week when I get to it. Some of you have emailed me to ask why Kunta Kinte doesn't yet have a myspace page, or indeed anything on their website. The answer is simple: in this age of universal information, the only thing left of interest is denial of knowledge. In a culture of permissiveness, the only thrill is "no". So Kunta Kinte have decided to wait, to not give themselves away to the casually interested. In order to find out more about them, you must sign up to their email list and come to one of their shows. And you will arrive with no preconceptions, knowing no songs, unable to have poked and prodded them on the cheap examining-table of myspace. The tactic is risky, but seems to be working. Their gigs are packed.

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7.9.06 Running Ragged

Very little time to talk but here are a couple images from the Maxfield music video shoot last weekend:

Now to edit, and add the animation and compositing sequences in. Yes, that's on HD - we used the new Panasonic HVX-200. Gorgeous picture, shame about the Firestore drive and its metric tonne of digital dropout.

The "Raindrops" video for Flipron continues to be The Little Video That Could, and has been accepted into the Flanders Film Festival and London's Raindance Film Festival. Especially exciting about Raindance is that this is the year they've gone all rock and roll: Lou Reed and Marky Ramone are on the jury. Reports that animator Ryan Parker and I have been yelling "LOU F**KING REED!!! MARKY F**KING RAMONE!!!" down the phone at each other are... possibly true.

Beginning to work up an ideas list for my second video for Flipron, the single "Dogboy vs Monsters" off the new album. Really excited about this as I've loved this song since I first heard them play it live about a year ago. We won't do another animation. I won't say what I'm doing, but I will give you a hint: "Ray Harryhausen". Ponder on that, gentle stranger.

Off this weekend to film the first part of our music video for Kunta Kinte's "Stress" at Giffords Circus, and still working on the DVD extras for Credo. Then probable total physical collapse.