Alex de Campi: We'll have a poodle, a Baby Grand, and roses every day

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COMICS & BOOKS

10.6.08 What A Difference A Grade Makes

I've decided not to blog the progress of The Big Video, as it would mostly involve me swearing about people not being available and/or not wanting to give me £8,000 worth of stuff for £250. I will, however, try to write a bit more about the process of video creation so you can understand why I look so hassled all the time. So, today's process lesson: grading.

Even with the best DP (Director of Photography, him or her that runs the camera department) in the world, your raw footage will not be as pretty as you want it to be. This is for a lot of reasons, including saving money via cheap telecines (transfer of film to tape and then hard drive) or generally being the type of director who isn't interested in "the natural look".

So you do something called a grade. This is basically colour correction. It can be done by very specialised, talented and wonderful people called graders on hyper-expensive equipment, or (o hai budget filmmakers!) you do it yourself on Final Cut. The graders? Worth every penny. But sometimes you don't have the pennies. Anyhow, an example from "I Loved London":

The original footage, shot on Arri SR3 Super16 on an overcast day around 4pm, straw and jade filters, (from memory) 12mm Arri ultraprime lens, Fuji 500 daylight stock, shot at 6fps then unattended telecine at Todd's. Motion blur filter added.

Same frame, as graded by an apprentice grader. Note improved saturation/contrast, and general pull back from the straw and jade to something a bit more magenta.

Now I take over. In this frame, I matted in the angel considerably brighter than the surrounding area and feathered the matte so it blended in. Result: angel way more noticeable, but you wouldn't know why. Makes it look like we had a 10k in the window of Lillywhites.

And last, I pop on a gradient filter (from the Joe's Filters) to give us a nice right-at-twilight, end of magic hour look.

Up to my neck in animated videos at the moment and loving it, I've gotten a little burned out on film-film as the last two shoots were such beasts. Upcoming animated videos for Flipron (their new Rat Scabies/Damned produced album is amazing) and others; stay tuned. Note I'll also be in London next week if anyone wants to meet up.

( 7:25 PM ) (1) comments

3.6.08 Third Boxcar Midnight Train, Destination Bangor, Maine

I've had videos accepted into a couple of film festivals recently, which has made me feel no end of good. "Apart of Me" (aka The Singing Maggot Video) has been screened at Ladyfest Edinburgh and will be screened at Rushes Soho Shorts, one of the most prestigious UK festivals for music videos. I've also just heard that the Synch Festival in Greece will be screening all four videos I sent them, so sort of a mini Alex de Campi retrospective. That really is unbelievably cool.

I only enter festivals sporadically; I entered almost none in 2007 (so "Dogboy" got short shrift, sadly, despite being one of my favourite videos) as I was so broke I couldn't afford the £20-£30 entry fees that come with most non-European festivals. (European festivals - ah, socialism and support for the arts! - are usually free to enter. American and English festivals usually cost quite a lot to enter, and are thus essentially subsidised by the entries of unsuccessful filmmakers. Of which I am often one.)

Oh and my Jilted video for the Puppini Sisters is currently being promoted on the front page of Youtube by lovely Universal Records.

I'm still in post on "I Loved London" for The Real Tuesday Weld, which is frustrating - the video is such a stylistic break from my other work (it's very Wim Wenders, versus my generally far more mannerist style), I want the world to see it. But this is what happens when you do epically ambitious things on no money - you must be reliant on favours, and favours cannot be rushed. 2008 has been a weird year for me so far - I have three videos that haven't been released yet: the aforementioned "London", a Duloks video and a video for a pop duo called Martin Towers. They are all due out soon, but ah, I am an artist, I want attention and validation now. I shall just have to make more videos, eh? On that note, some interesting collaborations being discussed.

I still very much need a web designer to redesign my website, for money. Must have a strong design sense and be down with the words "quirky" and "minimalist". Please suggest names!

Also, attention comics writers: my very talented friend Toni Radev, an artist with a lovely style very reminiscent of French comedy series such as Lucky Luke, is looking for writers to collaborate with on short or longer pieces. If you'd like to get in touch with him, drop me a line.

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31.5.08 The Air Is Heavy With The Scent of Lilacs

If I ever get tattoos, I shall have the Rider-Waite card for The Magician full size on the inside of one forearm... and the card for The Fool on the other.

Things are going well. After much nail-biting suspense spread out over several months, I've landed a big music video for a well-known US indie star; it shoots in August in London. I've also written on about four more potential music videos and am waiting to hear back, so the summer could end up being quite busy. And I've been offered a feature script by an LA production company to direct. Early days yet, but it's a very good project. I shall continue doing my bit and see what happens.

How interested/curious are you guys on the process of creating music videos? I am thinking (if given permission by the singer/label) to blog the process of making the big August indie video.

Lastly, if you are based in or near London, I would point out that White Mischief, the little indoor festival started by Tobias Slater and myself last year is not so little anymore - and its next occurence is next Saturday night 7th June. If I do say so myself (although for geographic reasons I am no longer involved) it is one of the best run and most fun nights you can find in London; the closest you will ever get to one of those magic fantasy parties you see in films where there is something new and amazing in every corner. Well worth going to; and as it only happens every six months not to be missed when it comes around.

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20.5.08 St Joseph's Baby Aspirin; Bartles & Jaymes...

I really did check into a cheap hotel on La Cienaga. Last week was Los Angeles, where I was a three-time loser and at the same time I was seeing Disney about a film. Three-time loser because last Wednesday I learned I had struck out at Babelgum (where I had two films in the top 10), after the previous week's disaster at Aniboom. The boyfriend's words of comfort: "Forget it. No band ever made it big by winning a Battle of the Bands contest". And I was at Disney, pitching a feature. And the only reason I found my way back from Burbank was I remembered Laurel Canyon from a Joni Mitchell song, and knew it would eventually get me to Sunset. I find my way around cities by the ghost trails of rock and roll songs.

Tomorrow I'm off to an island off the coast of Maine, without electricity or phone, for the rest of the week. The wild roses will be out, and the beach peas.

I am, as you can guess by the Los Angeles trip, finally getting serious about moving beyond music videos to short films and then a feature. I want to shoot two short films back to back this autumn; I have the script to one (a silent), but am still looking for the other. If you know any screenwriters with interesting, slightly surrealist 10-15 minute scripts, do point them in my direction.

I am also very much looking for some help redesigning my website into a simple wordpress blog plus a front page with my videos on it. The world has moved far beyond my simple coding skills and it is about time my web presence moved with it. Can any of you help?

( 3:15 PM ) (0) comments

6.5.08 Radiobled, Or: The Fix Is In

So Martin's and my animatic didn't make the semifinals of the Aniboom / Radiohead contest. What did make it? Lots of finished videos, and a 60-second recut a guy did of footage from another, finished and commercially-distributed animation of his, in direct contravention of the contest's "must be new work" rule, among other rules.

Do excuse me, I'm having one of those teary "will my career ever go anywhere" moments.

EDIT: It appears that another semifinalist, "16 tracks" is ALSO a recut of a pre-existing project. It's a shame, as I really liked this one... although I did wonder how they managed to shoot a project on film, do a DI, then do very advanced and lovely motion graphics in the extremely limited time the contest alloted for creating a storyboard. (Similarly, the Faust Arp video I link above, there were many, many comments under it during the voting period to the effect that people suspected it was a re-cut.)

( 6:36 PM ) (2) comments

30.4.08 Bands: Fancy An Experimental Scratch/Destroyed Print Music Video?

I found this treasure trove of old 35mm film print reels on eBay. Now, I have a 35mm still neg/slide scanner that should work with movie film (but only 35! not 16!). I rather fancy taking one or more of those reels, splicing them together, painting over them, scratching designs/crude animations in them, burning them et cetera... then scanning and loading them into Final Cut to put some band footage over/under - basically, making quite an experimental and abstract-expressionist music video.

(But still with some band footage in there. Just... distorted, probably. Or I'd get a friend to create drawn/animations of the band to lay over top.)

Any bands out there fancy this as a music video? If so, email/contact me. It would be quite experimental and somewhat 60s/psychedelic. Also, somewhat disturbing.

Note: Not free! Could be quite cheap (sub £1,000) if you just pay materials (the film prints) and fees for animation or band photography, AND you're willing to wait a couple months for me to finish it - AND I think you're a band worth doing something for. But if you need the video quick for a single release date, I'll have to charge you for my time. Like they say, you can have it cheap and good, or you can have it quick and good, but you can't have all three.

( 11:38 PM ) (1) comments

29.4.08 For The Avoidance Of Doubt

Got a rather disturbing note from a fellow entrant in the Aniboom Radiohead contest the other day, basically saying "you look like a professional music video director, this contest is for amateurs, go away".

Um. Yes. Let me clarify a few things.

I have made a lot of music videos for friends' bands, because I believe it's better to keep working and learning, than to sit idle. The budgets of everything I have made so far have been between 0 and $5,000. Most closer to zero. I have never made a single cent off my music videos - or directing work in general. In most cases, quite the opposite - I have sunk hundreds, in some cases thousands, of my own money into those music videos to bring them up to a standard I could be proud of. I am neither represented by an agent nor associated with a production company. In fact, right now if I were on fire, I doubt I could even get a music video commissioner to piss on me.

There. Now you know.

In other news, I'm back in America trying to find time to start the edit for "I Loved London", in between helping my mother organise the memorial service for my father, doing a friend's showreel, and the painful but necessary electioneering for the Aniboom and Babelgum contests/festivals. Aniboom, we find out on Friday if we made the semifinals; Babelgum - which has extended its voting until 7 May - a few days after voting closes, I guess.

Speaking of this Friday, if you're in or near Marfa, Texas towards evening-time, Ryan & my short "Raindrops Keep Falling on the Dead" is being shown before Night of the Hunter on the big outdoor screen at the Marfa Film Festival.

( 7:35 PM ) (1) comments

22.4.08 We Are Doing Well, Mostly! Festival & Shoot News

Wrapped the shoot for The Real Tuesday Weld's "I Loved London" on Friday. Nearly killed me but we got some great stuff - I will upload a still or two in a few days.

Meanwhile, we were Number 1 in our category for this past week at the Babelgum festival with "Jilted" - thank you so much to all who voted; and if you haven't voted yet please do (or if you have a second email address, you can vote twice) as we still need your help to get into the final 10! Voting closes end of this week. (Remember, you can win a trip to Cannes or a rather blingtastic watch if you vote/comment.)

I also still very much need your help and support for the Aniboom/Radiohead music video contest - we really need to get over 500 views and ratings in order to have a hope of getting to the next stage. We're currently at about 420... although I'm told (via friends) that some of the guys from Shynola voted for us which is uber-cool because Shynola are One Of The Reasons I Started Making Videos In The First Place.

Lastly: "Raindrops" (my and Ryan Parker's animation for Flipron) is being screened at the Marfa Film Festival next week. Very exciting, as Marfa is not only the setting for such movies as Giant, There Will Be Blood and No Country For Old Men, it's also a hotbed of contemporary art.

I'm back to America on Thursday, more then.

( 2:18 PM ) (0) comments

15.4.08 And Now, Radiohead

I swear to God this is the last time I will ask you to do this for the rest of 2008. Yes, it's voting time again, but no, you don't have to download anything.

Those with long attention spans will remember that about 10 days ago I was looking for an animator to collaborate with for Aniboom's Radiohead music video contest. Thanks to the glory of Livejournal I hooked up with the wonderful Martin White who agreed to go without sleep for a week to bash together an animatic for Stage 1 of the Aniboom contest. Here it is:

NOTE! Only a rough animatic - essentially a moving storyboard. It's going to be well more crazy-sophisticated before we're finished. (The end will be much more Takashi Murakami/Chiho Aoshima, for a start). But I'm so proud of what Martin's been able to achieve in such a short time.

If you watch it above and enjoy it, PLEASE clicky through to our video's page on Animatic and rate it (5, um, whatever those are. Booms.). Your quiet approbation won't help us get into the final 10 and receive funding for the next step in the design - only voting will. If not for me, do it for Martin, polymath musician, director, animator, writer and generally the Mervyn Peake of Purley. (Check out his lovely animated short The Goat, The Boy And The Sun for what he's capable of.)

Oh yeah, and the B-side/Naive version of the Puppini Sisters "Millionaire" video is up now. Ballgowns, scouring the reduced rack at Argos, not being able to get any money out of the ATM.

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14.4.08 Help "Jilted" Win A Big Online Film Festival!

It appears with 9 days left in the voting, my video for "Jilted" is sitting in 3rd place in the "Looking for Genius" category of Babelgum, a big online film festival. Can you vote yourself AND hit up all your friends to vote for this?

See below, you have to go through kind of a tortuous process downloading & installing the programme - holy shit I really could use Euros20k to finance my short film (plus retroactively paying my cast & crew more for the Jilted shoot). There are so few people voting in the festival (because it does require installing a new type of video player) that if we make a concerted effort we really CAN push this thing in to number 1 and bag the prize.

Note that unless you RATE the video, it doesn't count towards helping me win. And also note that anyone who COMMENTS on the video gets entered into a draw to go to Cannes film festival and go to lots of premieres. (Yes, smartypants, we know some of you go to Cannes all the time and kind of dread it but remember how much fun it is if you're not spending the days begging for film finance)

Thank you - I'm sorry to ask you all to take the time to do this but the award is so huge, and we really do have a shot. Below are details & links (as written by Babelgum, not me.)
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Help me win the Babelgum Online Film Festival!

My film, "Jilted - The Puppini Sisters (dir. Alex de Campi)", is competing in the Looking for Genius category and needs more votes to make the shortlist. So please give me a helping hand by voting for it yourself – it's pretty simple:

· Download Babelgum here: http://www.babelgum.com/download
· Enter the Films & Festivals Community (it's the first one on the top left corner when you start Babelgum) and search for my film: Jilted - The Puppini Sisters (dir. Alex de Campi)
· Use the Rate tool to give it your vote – 5 stars please!

If I win, I'll be heading to Cannes to pick up my award of 20,000 Euros from Spike Lee, on May 20th. I'd love you to come with me and sip champagne while rubbing shoulders with the stars…and maybe you can. Because Babelgum is offering a prize for the person who writes the most original review of the winning films, using the Comment tool or Message Board. Write a glowing review about my entry and if I win, you win!

Thanks for your support