There’s some info on the About page that describes what pays the bills.
However, sometimes at weekends I get the chance to let my hair down, and get downright and dirty with motorsport activities that involve multimedia, video, racing technology, radio and petrol fumes.
One regular highlight for me over the past 11 years has been the Le Mans 24 Hour race. If this could be your idea of fun, then I have to encourage you to hop across the channel and join the many thousands of Brits that make a pilgrimage to the Le Sarthe area each June.
It’s not just about the race- it’s the entire experience- the drive there and back, the people we meet and the sense of community on the site amongst many varied nationalities.
Maybe, this is also the appealing thing about the social side of social media for me… it’s all about the people and the conversations, not about the bling, the badges or the trophies gained from sales targets.
Here’s a a flavour of what Le Mans was about for me last year. Automobile and racing technology continues to be at the cutting edge of motorsport excellence, with much of what is developed filtering through to road cars in the fullness of time (take the Audi TDI engine for one example). The technology improves every year, but it’s the sense of community spirit, common ground and ideals, pleasant intelligent conversations and mutual friendships that keep me coming back every year.
Sit back, and enjoy. Maybe there’s some voices you’ll recognise…
Many thanks to Audi Motorsport for allowing me to play a very small part in a very large piece of motorsport history. Long may it continue.
I give up – throw the towel in – resign – chicken out. Call it what you will.
I was thinking about investigating how computer generated graphics work in a video context, in order to try to enhance some very basic animation, so ran a search to see what sort of examples were available, just so I could see some good case studies that pushed the imagination. And no, I’m not talking about flash bang explosions, or men turning into robots for an all-out death race in outer space shoot-em up either.
I’m talking about the artistic interpretation of ideas- the creative realisation of thoughts and images inside one’s head.
I really wish I hadn’t bothered.
This piece, The Third and Seventh, by Alex Roman is an absolutely stunning demonstration of where the pinnacle of cgi currently stands for me. Produced using 3dsmax, Vray, AfterEffects and Premiere, remarkably, there are only 5 segments that are not cgi: the photographer (shot on greenscreen), pigeons, timelapsed growing flowers, flying airplane and sky backgrounds. All the rest is pure cgi, rendered on an i7 920 and a QX6850.
Fantastic work Alex.
Beautiful. Poetic. Sublime. Cutting edge – most definitely.
Now, please do Alex’s piece justice- turn up the volume, and watch full screen in HD.
As part of the usual European Tour when promoting singles, artists will go from national TV station, to national TV station, performing the same song time after time.
My involvement in this year 2000 tour was stage design coordinator, technical specification & set up consultant, camera jimmy jib, and crew management.
The brief was for a 7 minute turn-around in between sets, to enable very fast scene changes between artists, which involved coordinating a crew of 30 technical stage hands.
The turn-around involved complete set up of all equipment, including pa, instruments, mics, foldback, plus all the TV equipment.
The total time we had to rehearse the schedule with the artist was 4 hours, so a huge amount of pre-production and planning was involved.
It was events such as these that proved to be my grounding and learning for the future.
Amazing what you can do with a bit of applied knowledge.
This short video shows the stage of the Lowry Arts Centre in Manchester- the screen and corporate stage set is a temporary 1-day installation, for an event I produced and coordinated for the British Council of Shopping Centres, back in 1999. The video itself shows just a small part of the event- this piece is just the opening introduction that was captured in an empty conference hall during technical rehearsal checks.
Using powerpoint and photoshop images as the background, the embedding and overlaying of live video, afterfx, graphics, text and moving images are produced from a system called Suite P. The system incorporated all the above, and also allowed for live camera relay and incomming satellite video links to be placed anywhere on the screen, on-demand, during the event.
Owned by Blitz Communications (the production company I was working for at the time), the system is based around 3, soft-edge masked large screen digital video projectors, with images hitting the screen to produce a 20×8m image, from a distance of approximately 100metres, front projected.
The technical knowledge behind the design of the software system and soft-edge masking controller was completed by Alan Cox, and the widescreen display programmer was Richard Turner. I’ve got to give a huge hat-tip to those guys- they were (and still are) so far ahead of the game (remember this is 1999 we’re talking about here).
The system was installed overnight after the orchestra had vacated the stage, and was up and running for 8am the following morning. If memory serves me correct, there were 8 technical staff on the crew for this event.
It just goes to show just how forward thinking the appliance of technical skills and expertise can push the boundaries. I feel privileged to be able to work with such technical experts from time to time. It’s guys like these that shape the future of technology, so standards such as this become commonplace in the hi-tech world we live in today.
If this type of presentation is something you are interested in for your events, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
p>Filmed at Goodwood, September 2008- Harrods McLaren 95 F1 GTR. A great day out.
To Sir Stirling Moss for the reason -Happy 70th Birthday. Sincere thanks to David Clarke (you lucky man) for the opportunity and Derek Bell, multiple winner Le Mans 24 Hours for the instruction & history lesson.
You simply would not believe what this car can do- this video does not do it justice at all. The car handles like it’s on rails, and the torque is emmense.
Well done Gordon Murray for a simply stunning design. The car is truly worth every penny.
