Happy New Year

Shamefully this is my first blog post of 2013. However I hold a valid reason for neglecting my blog as this year has already been buried in late night shoots, and clocking up thousands of miles driving up and down the breadth of England!

This year I have been working for ROK TV. Since I have been involved with this relaunched production company I have been involved with many wonderful and exciting projects. Primarily working as their in-house camera operator and editor; I have been busy with many development projects and productions.

Coldwell Television is one of the many apps which ROK have developed. We stream out Live boxing matches out from Manchester, Sheffield, Liverpool and Doncaster to Apple devices, Android devices and over the Internet.

The shoots are hard work! 12-bout long fights make the boxing nights seem to go on forever. Having started out as a camera op, I have moved on to vision mixing for the events and running graphics (assisting the director.) Set up would consist of arriving 4 hours prior to doors open, to set up cameras, directing/stream/commentator stations and hundreds of metres worth of cable runs!
The work is simple enough, it only gets tedious on slow fights in particular making the long drives home take its toll. That said, the events are always good fun - it makes a great change from being stuck in an office with a temperamental toilet and is the perfect excuse for a well deserved lie in the morning after!

Setting up the master shot

Live editing at the Vision Mixing station

From behind the directing, mixing, and streaming desk

Coldwell Boxing event about to start

Here's a little peak at the mastering workflow!

It's not been a strange sight to see multiple machines running multiple renders and exports in the office.

Back in February, ROK had published Angie McCarthys recent book and as part of the launch, had hosted a Beatles Tribute event which ran over 2 days at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Hall.

Here I was working mainly as an AV camera op for the event. This was a great event, yes the nights left me physically mangled afterwards but it was the type of work I would jump at the opportunity to do again. Working with the director in finding different shots during performances meant I was on stage with the acts. Being so close to the action that I nearly blasted off when the streamers blew for the finale! Definitely something I would love to do again! Met many wonderful people and the acts were impressive.  Photos from the event were taken by Atul Patel.

Shot from the DVD

With 2 of the Tribute bands

I've had the chance to film and work with the snooker pros: Jimmy White and Ronnie O'Sullivan as part of ROK Stars' sponsorship. We produced a snooker app for Jimmy who is an incredibly humble and accommodating guy.

Setting up a shot for the App

Filming press conferences with the guys on the other hand allowed me to have a taste of video journalistic work and left me with one impression...

Frantic!

With the Press

I was once sent to cover a press conference independently and was very anxious about this. I knew I had to cover it professionally and deliver good quality. But after I realised how quick you had to be and seeing how BBC and Sky managed to make the best of an imperfect situation - I understood the reasons as to why press conferences look and sound the way they do. Sometimes there isn't enough space to set up comfortably, or your mic will be placed perfectly and the speaker moves away, in one case I had set up the camera and the speaker sat behind a booth which covered his face! So all in all it would be something I would like to avoid...

Unless more of them handed out cake, cookies and doughnuts like this one!

So that has been the most of how work life has panned out so far.

During all this I had not forgotten the folks at Blue Hippo who had been extremely busy themselves working on their Greenbelt at 40 project. Through emails and keeping an eye on their social networks I got to stay up to date with all their news. Last weekend happened to be the premiere of the film at the festival itself, and as gutted as I am to have missed it, I have no doubt that it went down successfully.

Whilst I was not involved with the Greenbelt project, I did however get involved with a voiceover for a different project. This was the first time I had done some voiceover work and it was for a dvd project. I only had a small contribution but nonetheless felt nervous! It went smoothly and was very positive which made me reconsider about other on/off camera work prospects I could get involved with.
Now that the Greenbelt at 40 film has been released, I will be pestering them once again to get involved with some more Hippo work!

I have replaced my gig-going with catching up on much neglected reading and ever longed swimming. Over the last year or so I have read Burroughs' 'Naked Lunch', Kerouacs' 'On The Road' , Krakauers' 'Into the wild' and have just finished Nicholas Krisof and Sheryl WuDunns' 'Half the Sky' (...of which the last 3 in particular were outstanding reads!)

I had been reading 'Half the Sky' at a monumental time in recent months with certain events of India being in the spotlight globally. I have wanted to write about this issue for a long while but its difficult to know where to begin. The overwhelming news and stories of female suffrage in modern India has been just that: overwhelming. Time and time again I find myself brought to tears with each article, report and interview on the shocking behaviour of individuals from India. There is a serious problem if a women in India cannot even go about her day, do her job or walk down a street without the fear of being ambushed, maybe kidnapped but perhaps almost undoubtedly raped. I never thought this would get to the point where woman in India are not safe and Indian news reports consisted of urging women to take up some form of self defence. Why not a re-education of equality to the Indian public? A social conduct and understanding of decency? or perhaps something as simple as reinforcing the law and its consequences of committing such a monstrous crime?

It's most baffling as to why after the heartbreaking events of the Delhi rape case have seen a surge of trend and almost 'coolness' to gang rapes. 8 months later - very little has moved on. Is this the proof which confirms India is capable of no more change? or maybe its just not worth improving the lives of women? and most shockingly why is it that when this issue is raised in Indian common house for debate, it is passed off and 'not to be confused with politics?'

As you can see I have many questions along with the rest of the world out there, but I continue to grow frustrated and impatient of shedding tears.

So as I sign out, I leave in hope of earlier nights, more travels and prevailed justice!