Going Live: Revisiting Sound Design

We have completed an initial draft of the film (which is still under wraps for now...) but I wasn't 100% happy with the audio balance and narration. Some of the levels were a tiny bit off, and the narration felt a little cramped in the middle. I'm really happy we revisited this, as I think the new audio track is a vast improvement over the old one. Thanks to John and Tom for their stellar work on the audio, I think it sounds ace :D

Art School Location Scout

We've been looking at different locations around the art school to try and find some interesting shots for the film. As it stands at the moment, we've got 3 locations in the building, 4 locations which will require travel, and 1 green screen shoot. 

Hopefully with the editing and choice of angles, these interior ones will still be interesting to people who're familiar with the building. 

Tentsmuir beach location scout.

Made the most of the stunning winter weather today with a trip to the beach to scope out some potential shots. I'll just dump the photos here, some are better than others. It was really great, I'll need to head back with the rest of the team and do some more thorough planning... but I think these definitely get across the feel of the place.

PhD filming assistance & location scout.

Kieran II was kind enough to drag me along on another adventure assisting his PhD fieldwork at White Caterthun for some live action film shooting. 

It was a good opportunity to practice using the (very heavy) equipment, which we'll probably be lugging into difficult places for our own filming next year.

This location had some really stunning light, and although we'd be unlikely to use the site itself the nearby Cairngorms could offer some impressive vistas. I took some snaps throughout the process for reference and documentary purposes. 

Location scouting.

Went for a wander along the sea cliffs at Arbroath today and found some possible shooting locations for the film.

The idea we're running with at the moment has a montage-esque sequence which can accommodate a lot of changes in location with practically no limitations in terms of story, so it's a good chance to get some epic landscapes... which I really love.

Managed to snap a couple of moody shots, and only nearly died twice (left a decent chunk of palm skin scraped onto a sharp rock though).

ISO in love with photography again.

I've recently rekindled my love for photography.

I'm still continuing my photograph a day project, which is currently at around 3.5 years and 1,300 images, but the last year has been predominantly boring "diary shots", randomly interspersed with the occasional adventure and/or climbing photograph.

Since coming back to Dundee I've had the chance to do a lot more photography for the sake of photography... and I love it. It's good to get the creative juices flowing again, and I've always found the surrounding area pretty inspiring. The stunningly unique Tay light certainly helps.

Here's a handful of highlights from the past couple of weeks. 

Summertastic.

Salutations! It's been a shamefully long time since my last blog post, I'd like to say it's because I've been too busy partying with salty wenches and copious quantities of alcohol, but alas... my summer girl has been the ever-angsty heartbreaker that is Autodesk Maya. 

In an effort to make a super-badass degree film, the motley crew that is Team Ticked Off have spent the entire summer locked away in the animation studio to get a head start on production. We've paid for it with some loss of sanity and considerable weight gain. The good news is, we've made a lot of progress and are well into the swing of things! We've got our first peer review on Monday, so expect to see a production blog complete with our work so far coming next week. 

That said, it's been a summer of two extremes. There were a couple of small but epic adventures to be had, primarily blindly heading out on a 212 mile trek across Scotland in aid of Teenage Cancer Trust. Myself and 5 other equally unprepared but determined comrades (including fellow animigo and Heavy Sprinkle Tom Paxton) raised something around the £3,500 mark in donations. I genuinely can't really explain the hardships and do them justice, but suffice to say it was fucking difficult. There was blood, blisters and broken feet (seriously...) beyond belief, but we all made it to the finish line fashionably late. There are a couple of snaps below, but you can view the entire set here.

The other big adventure was cycling up the French Alps and seeing Le Tour De France with my old man, which was fantastic. I've never been to the Alps before and I was absolutely blown away, my definition of mountains was promptly rewritten. We spent the week hanging with half a million other cyclists powering up some colossal peaks and then cruising along velvet roads at 45mph during the sweeping downhill descents. Check out the relatively small set here.

In other news, I'm still continuing my Picture A Day Project and I'm somewhere around photo number 600. I doubt this year will be as exciting as the last, purely due to the amount of time I'm going to be locked away in the studio, but I'll keep going with it regardless. It'll be great to document my slow descent into complete and utter madness, maybe they'll show it as some sort of PSA about the dangers of studying animation. I don't think I ever posted the finished video of last year on here, check it out below. 

The amount of history captured in a single year boggles my mind, it's interesting to see how much my life has changed in different ways. I still watch it all the time.  

So that's pretty much my long overdue update, like I said earlier... there'll be a lot more project related posts to come so stay tuned. 

Sláinte,

Kieran. 

A picture says a thousand words - P365

Which puts me at 365,000 words...

As I'm sure most of you know, for the past year I've been taking a photograph a day. A documentary of my day to day life , a diary, an exercise in photography, but most importantly it was a motivation to really live. Well, as of the 5th of Febuary my year is officially finished. 

I'm pretty proud of myself for finishing it. Not long after I started it caught on with a number of people, but the vast majority of people lasted a month or two before giving up. (Thankfully there's a couple of dedicated snappers still going strong!) There were so many times when I couldn't be bothered myself, but then you think about how amazing it's going to be when you look back in 20 years time... to see every single day captured for eternity in a picture. I can see how my relationships with people have grown and changed, as well as all the new people I've had the pleasure of meeting, and the experiences we've shared.

I've had so many people tell me how cool an idea it is, and I can see other P365 albums cropping up on Facebook. To clarify, I'm by no means the first person to do it, but inspiring other people to start taking photographs and go on cool adventures of their own gives me such a sense of purpose, I really can't even begin explain how happy that makes me. It's something that I think everybody should do because not only does it document each day, but it gives you a completely fresh outlook at your own life. I wouldn't have done half the things I got up to this year if it wasn't for this project, I wanted to make each day as interesting as I could which resulted in the genuinely happy young lad I am today. 

Alas, I'm really sad that it's finished. It's had such a positive impact on the past year, and I'm not sure if I'm ready to let that go. I'm genuinely toying with the idea of doing it for the rest of my days. Would it get stale? Probably... but maybe that staleness would just inspire me to change something. I think it'd be quite interesting to have a hard copy of my life in a photo album after I've kicked the bucket, but I might just be being overly self centred by assuming anybody would actually care.

At the very least I've decided to keep going until the end of uni, these are probably the most eventful years of my life. It'll be cool to see my steady financial decline and slowly increasing stress levels captured :D

I hate to sound like a big fairy, but it wouldn't have been the same without you. Sure it's had it's ups and downs... but you inspire me, and make me who I am.

Finally, here are a few of my favourites from the past year which sum it up relatively well. I'm in the process of getting them all printed, and compiling them into a video... but I'm a lazy prick so who knows when that'll get done. I spend most of my time trying to pick music for it. Expect that soonish.

Keep being awesome,

Kieran x

Inspiring quote du jour:

"Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile." - Albert Einstein