DIY Video Hardware For Film-like FX

depth of field diagram

Ray at Vidvox pointed out this pretty great “guerrilla movie maker tool”, a homemade way to make your video more film-like by reducing it’s depth of field. Another project for summer maybe, to be filled alongside the DIY steadicam – ( or another steadicam design with less construction involved ), making a Track Dolly and making a Lens Hood for a Camcorder. And while on the DIY tip, is worth mentioning the old photographer trick of keeping a string tripod in your pocket to help stabilise a still camera ( a bolt that fits into your camera tripod hole, with string attached which u stand on and pull taut – presto less camera movement ). And I’m not going to bother, but the DIY LCD projector system is cute too.

by Sean Healy, December 4, 2005 1 Comment

Video Theory?

Hooked up with an old friend recently, a slap bass maniac back in the day who is now busy satellite-mapping the planet. He’s been reading the Lev Manovich classic: The Language Of New Media, and various Marshall McLuhan books and asked if I could recommend any interesting contemporary writers tackling video. It made me realise I get a lot of reading from RSS feeds, websites and email lists, and that I’d like to find some more theoretical writing about video today, beyond dissecting it’s technical capacities and unfolding distribution potentials. Will add to the list below as I gather links… Drop a line if you have something to recommend… Continue Reading →

by Sean Healy, December 1, 2005 10 Comments

Freak Bikes

Whether for amplifying the fun of a carnivalesque ride like Critical Mass ( wikipedia entry ), or just for the exhilaration of cruising along on your own custom modded two wheeled monster, there’s much merit and joy to be had in freaky bike modifications. Luckily for would-be builders, these people live on the internet too.

chunk 666 bicycles

The legendary and piss-funny ( nein speaka de australiana? ) Chunk 666 collective of extra-long forked bikes, is a great starting point, offering tutorials, and plenty of photos for inspiration. Chunk 666 started when “a few geeks found that the urge to create choppers and tallbikes was too strong to resist. They didn’t know it, but they were being goaded by messages from the future, which were intended to prepare their recipients for the imminent apocalypse.” Once we began riding these devices, it was difficult to stop.

The Chunkers also now have a blog ( complete with jousting photos on bikes 2 frames high ), and seem an endless spring of events and hilarity – “Neverending war abroad provides neverending excuses to act retarded in the streets. No, YOU calm down.”

No doubt inspired by Chunk 666, are – www.mcthree.ca – another gnarly chopper collective;
& The Rat Patrol – more crazy bike makers;
the ‘ full fleet of fabricated freak’ makers at Dead Baby Bikes;
and Cyclecide who make heavy-pedal bikes out of primarily discarded bike parts, and have a bike-rodeo show. Don’t forget to see their two person pedal powered ferris wheel~!

Curious about how to make your own carboard bike cover that let’s you ride around looking like a 2 wheeled car? Wonder no more.

Vanilla style bicycle evangelism is still of course, plenty worthy in times like these.

by Sean Healy, December 1, 2005 1 Comment

Critical Massive

TV broadcasters used to believe they were the centre of the universe. Newspaper publishers used to believe the earth was flat. Radio? Got squashed by a falling video star. Moral of the story = when looking to
connect people with diseases and bicycles, that multi-headed internet beastie’s always gonna win out.

Net Bicycles
“We’re not blocking traffic… We ARE traffic!”
critical mass bikes melbourne
Back in 1992, a San Francisco cyclist encouraged other cyclists to “coincidentally meet” on the last Friday of the month to ride home together. Through word of mouth it grew into a raucous monthly two-wheeled celebration, with up to 5,000 cyclists on the ride. In 2005, with the internet behind it, there are now over 400 such ‘critical mass’ rides happening in cities all over the world. Decentralised masses swarming their pedals together on the last Friday of every month the globe over.

Although no-one claims responsibility for the rides ( “it’s an organized coincidence” ) a vast array of sites have helped popularise the monthly rides – www.critical-mass.org – www.criticalmasshub.com – http://critical-mass.info. Email lists keep people in touch and discussing the rides, and other sites show how to start a critical mass in your own city.

critical mass bikes melbourne
Sydney and Melbourne snare Australia’s largest mass rides, with Melbourne’s recent 10 year birthday ride having over 1000 grinning pedallers on it, including a cycling turntablist lizard – complete with fat speakered sound system in tow! Sound systems on bikes – surely a National Day of Celebration in waiting. Must’ve been near a dozen amplified sound systems on that bike ride ( see the group flickr photos ) , which doesn’t count the noise from a variety of horned and stringed instruments, drums, bells and accordiansaccordian on bike. There were a few scuffles between cyclists and motorists, but most drivers and pedestrians seemed to revel in the spontaneous spectacle, the unfolding carnival passing them by. The smell of summer. E-mail if you’ve come across any good sites / ideas for attaching portable sound systems to bikes, and will gather them here.

by Sean Healy, December 1, 2005 0 comments

Audio Tourism

freeform album coverA recent Kottke post talks of listening to the sounds of new places while travelling, which reminded me of the quite excellent Audiotourism album by UK artist Freeform, who recorded sounds while travelling in Vietnam and China, then manipulated these skilfully to produce an and elastic and enchanting work, one which transforms street sounds into fluid percussive stabs and haunting melody. It’s a luscious work, followed up by an album of remixes : Audio-Tourism Reinterpretations, featuring Jan Jelinek, Bill Laswell and Autechre, and includes 30 minutes of his original sound recordings for the project on this too. Gorgeous stuff.

Like many artists exploring soundscapes & instrumental music production, Freeform eventually succumbed to using his voice on the recent release of Outside In. Again the splintery sculpted music is divine, but his wandering voice kills interest in the album for me. He’s not alone in pushing the voice to the front in bad ways though – T.Raumschmiere’s Blitzkrieg Pop album was another disappointing album from a favourite artist for me this year, with it’s range of trashy rock voices thrown on top. But then again, I’ve always loved the EL-P instrumental albums rather than the Cannibal-OX albums they were made for as backing tracks….

by Sean Healy, November 24, 2005 0 comments