So me, Rod, Hoppo and Richie managed to pull off our performance at BEEF and Brunswick Club Saturday just gone.
I thought I’d write up a breakdown report of all the techniques, projectors and processes we devised and used. This is is aimed at myself as documentation but also, as I believe in the spirit of open source and sharing, at anyone who is interested.
Picture 1. Shows the basic rig with following projectors from the left.
Hand cranked 16mm Elf (customised by ‘Carter’). Used for melting black film during a section with the ‘eclipse’.
Two Epidiascopes prepared with lamps. Used during the ‘Blue Soup’ section. The shadow was provided by a blown lamp the same type used in the epi-scopes. Each lamp is on a switch and dimmer controller that is effectively a primitive ‘instrument’ that can be “played”. The lamps are held in place by stands that also allow fine focus of the part of the lamp being projected. Lamp types were Sylvania Halogen spots 10 degrees to 30.
Xenon OHP. The light source for the opening ‘Stars’ section (pin pricks in black foil over the OHP) and the ‘Blue Soup’ part. The blown lamp is placed in the water tray on the OHP to create a shadow that the epi-scope lamp images then fill.
Solar 250. Provided the moving blobs of murky light in black. Oil wheels that have been filled with car sump oil.
Two 35mm Mignons. The lighting, earth, clouds and burning earth loop was a 35mm ‘Greenpeace’ short film/advert.
Two Rank Tutors with prepared gate/object assemblies. An iris effect and a ping pong ball ‘eclipse’ effect.
Later we added a couple of Kodaks (carousels) and a hand held Super 8mm Eumig that was operated from the front during the ‘Eclipse’ set.
I’ll also post picture of the audio set up I was using. Basically I had a small mixer and several sources including two 1/4 tape recorders, a Nagra 4:2 and a Tandberg, A Volca Bass Drum, a Waldorf 2Pole filer, a Bug Brand ‘CUBE WEOVIL’, a outboard effects unit (Beringer Virtual Composer) a mic source from the cymbals played by Richie Smith and a couple of sources used by Hopkinson, a portable turntable with a 12″ locked groove record and a little noise box unit.
On tape I’d recorded earlier in the week a session of Richie on a particular cymbal at full speed which I played slowed down. I also recorded a bread knife being twanged on a table which was also slowed down. On the Tandberg I had a reel of a rising shepard Tone.
