Archive For February, 2010

I’ve been trying to upload a new video to my YouTube channel every two weeks this year, as a way of building audience, increasing the amount of personal output and keeping a hand in while my attention is held by the diploma I’m squeezing around the day job. So far, it’s proved fairly manageable and has meant that I don’t drop off the social radar of my own web networks for too long!

The latest video to go this weekend was another clip from the Shelf Life archive. This video was shot in 2005 and has the band performing a cover of Peter Tosh‘s signature tune ‘Stepping Razor’ as our show closer. As with most of these archive clips, the quality isn’t great but it’s enough to get a feeling.

I’d wanted to cover the song for many years, having first heard it in Brighton back in the mid-90s. Never quite had a band that would be willing or likely to take it on until Shelf Life. Keisuke, our guest guitarist for that show, does a pretty mean job on delivering some of the guitar anger of the original.

A fun song to sing too.

I stumbled across this little gem this morning, via a mailing list I’m on. The film depicts a day in the life of New York City, as seen in miniature, as was made by Sam O’Hare. I’ve come across the miniaturisation technique used in the film for photos before (known, I believe, as tilt shifting), but this is the first time I’ve seen it used for video. Nice work, Sam!

Ah, NYC, some day we shall make our acquaintance.

I was going to post a review of the previous decade on this blog, but the piece of writing has ended up being so long that I think it’s better suited for the Collected Writings one. In editing stage at the moment, so hold tight – almost there.

Check out this site and this one to tilt shift (miniaturise) your own pictures. Go here for an interview with the filmmaker, who explains that this incredible technique was all done in post-production, and using time-lapsed stills.