Stirling by Night

Stirling by Night is just about the first film I ever edited so its rough and very short, very much a practice exercise. I decided to post it now as I am about to take a big step up with a new camera, the Panasonic DVX100a which should arrive soon and it will be good to contrast.

This was done using Vegas for the first time and using TV simulation effects to get the flicker and lines. The best bit for me is the music, a track I made in 1997. Clips were shot with a Nikon 995 stills camera so this is lo-fi stuff.

Winter Skies

Winter Skies was another early film made in January 2005. It was filmed with the Sony TRV again. I like the deep blue of the sky with the dropping afternoon sun casting red shades. The dramatic clouds and vapour trails also add to the visual splendour. The film also has my new naturemysticfilms intro. The music was written and recorded by myself a few years ago.

At the moment I am contemplating my next move in filming which is the purchase of a high-end DV camera. I have been looking carefully at the Panasonic DVX100A and there is currently one on sale at Ebay. Although I could carry on using the Sony I feel reasonably committed to further film-making and it would be a good investment to have broadcast quality footage available from all the hours of filming I currently plan to do.

Moss

Moss is a film made in the middle of winter on a cloudy, bleak day in my family back yard. When you get close the structure and colours of these lower plants is amazing.

The film was made using a cheap Sony Digital8 camcorder. I bought this to practice film-making after I first started messing around with movies from my stills camera late last year. With this I am putting myself through as many of the basics of film-making as I can: depth of field, exposure, handling, composition etc. I import clips to my Vaio laptop via Firewire and edit using Vegas 5.

The music is from my Headshock album "Music From Peak Experience" which was made before I started making films. I can now put these tracks to good use, as here. The music enhances the alien feel to these bryophytes, plants which are overlooked as a nuisance at best.

New Film vlog

Cottongrass is a short film made with a Nikon 995. It depicts the Monadliath Mountains in Scotland in July 2005. I was out doing some ecological survey work and took a few clips with my stills camera. I like the colours of green, olive, purple and blue-greys in the heather, cottongrass, loch water, sky and rock. The music is a little improvised snippet from my friend Paul Nagle.

This videolog was created on the 5th of September 20005. It is intended to follow my film-life as it progresses.

I first thought about making films many years ago when, as a musician, I imagined what some of my music would be like accompanying visual images. Nowadays it is possible to capture digital video on a laptop, edit it and post it on the web and anyone can be a film-maker and publisher.