A friend of mine told me about This American Life back in July/August. I’ve been working through the archive for a short while and I’ve been listening to this story about Steve Raucci on my way to work over the last couple of days. Steve was the head of School maintenance in NY, he used his power to abuse his employees. If you’ve ever had a particularly angry or horrible boss, Steve is probably 100 times worse. At one point an employee was sitting on the toilet and a burning newspaper comes flying under the door. Needless to say the employee wasn’t on the toilet any longer. This is just one of many incidents that got worse and worse.

Anyway, here is the blurb and link, you should definitely listen if you haven’t already.

In Schenectady, NY, a school maintenance man named Steve Raucci works his way up the ranks for 30 years, until finally he’s in charge of the maintenance department. That’s when he starts messing with his employees. Teasing them at meetings. Punishing them with crummy work assignments. Or worse things, like secretly slashing their tires in the middle of the night.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/419/petty-tyrant

Spotted this video on the VimeoHD channel last night. It’s a story of a desk toy longing for an escape from the dark office.. It’s a stop motion animation shot using Google Street View, and some office furniture. I had to watch it a couple of times to take in some of the details. The way the lights in the tunnels sync with the desk lights circling overhead is a particularly nice touch.

Tonaci Tran was the first person to receive a Red Scarlet after it’s launch last week. He has posted a short clip up on Vimeo. There is still a lot more to see from this camera but the footage does look very nice. I’d particularly like to see how this camera performs with some low light shots.

I guess this is the first of many as more Scarlets make their way in to the world!

Also here are some super hi-res stills…

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3236260/scarlet/A002_C135_0105AT.0000220.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3236260/scarlet/A002_C141_0105YG.0000056.jpg

Had a very busy and not so relaxing weekend in London. Went to a surprise party for a friends 30th Birthday and filmed the whole thing for the Britain in a Day project. Lots of work to do to get the footage ready for them now though.. Also stumbled across a couple of very nice videos over the weekend. Here they are:

This is some beautiful time lapse footage from the International Space Station (ISS) collected between August and October by astronauts Ron Garan and Satoshi Furukawa. There isn’t much to say about this really. It just looks fantastic and has a brilliant soundtrack to compliment it. I particularly like the flashes of lightning in the clouds as they pass over storms.

The Redneck Hippie by Phillip Bloom is a beautifully shot documentary about a Texan native called Pierce who loves his guns. I’ve never really mentioned Phillip Bloom on here but he is a very well known film maker and an early adopter in the DSLR world. He has recently purchased a RED EPIC and is putting it to good use on stories like this. He also managed to get hold of a Phantom FLEX for those ultra slow motion shots. His write up about the shoot goes in to a lot of detail about both cameras and the problems that he encounters on the way. Definitely worth a read if your in to that sort of thing.

I’m looking for some interesting characters based around the Birmingham area so that I can put together a small documentary about them. If you know someone who is unique send me an email or drop some information in the comments below.

On July 24th 2010 thousands of people captured footage of their lives and uploaded it to the youtube life in a day channel, Ridley Scott with his team of editors and researchers scoured the footage and made it in to Life in a Day. I saw the film not so long ago and was pretty gutted that I didn’t upload any footage. At the time I had the intention of submitting footage but my day just seemed too boring to film. The only thing I did film was me brushing my teeth.

However, they are doing it again this Saturday (12th November) for Britain in a Day. So i’ll be sure to film as much as I can! I’ll be travelling from Birmingham to London and going out there, so hopefully i’ll have some good stuff to film. If your thinking about taking part no matter how boring you think your day is, you should film it and submit it anyway.

If your feeling double adventurous why not do Global Video Day which is the same principal only on 11.11.11. Check them both out below.

Yesterday was a big day for videographers, both RED and Canon announced new products.

There was a lot of speculation around the web that Canon would be launching a 5dMkIII, a new film project or maybe nothing at all. Canon remained silent and I don’t think that anyone expected to see a full on Cinema camera like the C300. Considering Vincent Laforet managed to shoot a short film with and a sizeable crew, it’s amazing that they kept this under wraps until launch day. However the majority of DSLR movie shooters will probably continue using their 5d’s and 7d’s because the C300 holds a hefty $20k price tag.

The RED Scarlet however is a different story, for half the cost the Skarlet is capable of shooting at 4k but I haven’t seen any footage yet. People are saying that when using identical settings it matches up to the EPIC. This is a much more exciting announcement and units will be shipping with Canon lens mounts from the 1st December.

I look forward to seeing some footage from this camera in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile see Mobius shot on the C300 by Vincent Laforet:

Last night, myself and Steve from our band were lucky enough to get a look in at Highbury Studio just round the corner from where we live in Birmingham. Our drummer first heard about it, and word of mouth seems to be the only way anyone finds out about it. Stepping through the doors of the old cricket bat factory is like stepping back to the 1980′s. The decor is something that can’t be copied or styled, it’s just matured over the time it has been there.

The studio used to be owned by UB40 producer Bob Lamb but was brought by Birmingham music scene legend John Mostyn just over a year ago. It seems they don’t have any wild aspirations to change things, which is what keeps this place so nice. Most of the equipment is original so the recordings sound warm and full of character.

I only snapped a few pics but we will most likely be going back there to rehearse and maybe record so I’ll be sure to take a wider angle lens to capture this beautiful space.

Decided to tweak the design of the blog a little to give me a kick in to posting a bit more often. This year has been busy, my sister and I are currently preparing for the launch of The Print Rack which is quite a handful when you have to contend with a day job as well. I’ll be writing about that and the different problems we have run in to along the way as well as posting some of the video work i’ve done lately and maybe also a gear review and tutorial for something or other here or there.

I’ve also integrated disqus as a neater way to handle comments, so join the conversation below!

I went to the cinema on Sunday night to see Drive, the latest film by Nicolas Winding Refn starring Ryan Gosling as a Hollywood stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway driver. When a job goes wrong, a contract is put out and he has to do what he can to stay alive and get to the person who’s taken out the contract.

Whilst that description might sound like your standard run of the mill movie akin to The Transporter, there is quite a bit more to Drive than that, Gosling plays an introvert character with a seemingly well controlled anger problem. He is a beast that rarely rears his ugly side but when he does it erupts in a very violent fashion and the same can be said for the film in general.

Refn’s directing style is a smooth 80′s affair with soft focus complimented by an equally smooth soundtrack by Cliff Martinez. I enjoyed the soundtrack that much that I purchased it and when I listen to it I feel like I’m a part of the movie.

If you haven’t already, I strongly recommend this film. Probably the nicest looking film I’ve seen since A Single Man.

College feat. Electric Youth – A Real Hero:

Trailer:

I’ve been meaning to post this for nearly a year now but because it’s unfinished and I haven’t had the time to finish it in the detail that I would like, i’ve decided to post it in two parts. If you have any quesitons, feel free to post them in the comments and i’ll try my best to answer them. Here is Part 1…

Last year a group of us headed on a weeks holiday to Taghazout on the Moroccan coast. We travelled around the area that we stayed. I decided to write up my experience as a mini travel guide to help me to remember the time I spent there and to help others that are travelling there experience the wonderful things that we were able to.

Before we went we borrowed a couple of guides from the library and did some research, there is quite a lot to do but you have to be willing to travel. Some days we travelled for a couple of hours and although we didn’t do it, it is possible travel as far as Marrakech. Thanks to a new toll rd it is only around two and half hours away. Alternatively you can journey through the mountains which takes around 4 hours on winding roads.

We flew in to Agadir airport, it took us around one hour to get to Taghazout. Upon leaving the airport there was a man waiting to help us into a taxi with our bags, initially we thought he was a taxi driver but he was a baggage man and then asked us for money. This is quite common in Morocco, unless your willing to pay, you shouldn’t let anyone help you (the french phrase Com Bien is very useful). Taxi prices to and from the airport are non-negotiable, it was a standard 300dm (£26) per taxi to Taghazout.

Taghazout
We arrived in Taghazout on a Sunday evening in the last week of July. Normally this would be too hot for us, but as it is on the Atlantic coast, there is almost a micro-climate that keeps the coast cool. It was around 20-24 celcius in the mornings/evenings and 27-35 in the afternoons. We found the mornings to be quite hazy until around 11am, I believe this is caused by the hot air from the Atlas Mountains meeting the cool air from the Atlantic. Once the cloud burned off, the sun came through pretty hot.

In all honesty whilst Taghazout is very nicely located next to the sea, the town isn’t particularly well maintained. It is not uncommon to see bags of rubbish in the street and get whiffs of raw sewage. The beaches are mostly clean but I wouldn’t say they are up to the blue flag standards that are expected in the UK. That aside, the town is bustling with restaurants and little stalls selling the usual things you would expect in a sea-side town. The beaches were pleasant with Horse, Donkey and Camel rides all available. There was also Jet Ski hire available for 200dm per 20mins. Whilst there was no surfing going on when we were there, I heard that Taghazout gets very good waves during the winter months.

We eat at most of the places in Taghazout and everywhere was similarly priced, I would expect to pay around 70dm (£5) per head and all the food is priced on the menu, so no haggling required. The food at all the restaurants was fairly similar and as you would expect there are Tagines of all varieties, soups, skewered chicken/fish kebabs and a range of salads available. Bread and olives come as standard in every restaurant, I wasn’t a huge fan of olives when I left but came home loving them. Breakfast was a little different but consisted of bread, an omelette with a sprinkling of cumin, tea or fresh coffee, orange juice and jam or honey. Breakfast was priced at around 30 – 50dm (£2-£4.50) .
I would recommend La Paix for traditional Moroccan food in Taghazout. Panoramique and La Auberge have great breakfast right on the sea front. If you require a good fresh coffee in the morning I would avoid Restaurant Tenerife as their granulated ‘espresso’ is terrible.

Aurir
Aurir or Banana Village, is around a 10 minute drive from Taghazout. Its a small town that sells lots of Bananas, but as there is no bank in Taghazout, this is the place to come if you need to draw cash or change currency. There is also a nice restaurant opposite the bank that was very popular. We visited twice and thoroughly enjoyed our meals on both occasions. There is live traditional music and entertainment going on around you whilst you eat.

Agadir
We travelled to Agadir on the third day. We asked one of the waiters in a local restaurant how much we should pay for the taxi. He said around 8dm (50p) per person. Its not uncommon for a taxi driver to try and charge you more though, and this was for a shared taxi service. If you would like your own non-shared taxi agree a price before you travel and expect to pay around 100-120dm in the daytime and a bit more in the evening.

We walked to the very touristy area along the sea front. There are some nice little shops selling leather goods and ornaments on the walk there from the taxi rank. The sea front has lots of restaurants, they are a little more expensive than in Taghazout but also quite nice with good views. There is also a tourist attraction at the rear of the beach called ‘The Valley of the Birds’. We had read about this in the Rough Guide but upon visiting we found that compared to Zoo’s in first world countries, it all seemed a bit cruel. The birds were in fairly small cages and looked a little scraggy. There was a lovely patisserie on the walk back toward the taxi rank that served beautiful cakes and great fresh coffee.

We also went to the Big Souk (market) in Agadir and it was the best market that we visited whilst in Morocco, there was fresh herbs, fruit ornaments and many other things available. It’s definitely worth wondering around for an hour or two, make sure you put up a good fight when haggling for goods as the sellers will never want to loose business. I purchased a tagine spice mix from a spice seller, it was far cheaper than in other Souk’s we had visited and when cooked with some Argan Oil we were able to get that authentic Moroccan taste back here in England.

In Part 2, i’ll cover Imouzar and the rest of the trip…