Monday 13 August 2012

Life is the fruit aisle.

Well, that's that over and done (over and DOME) with then, isn't it? Nothing to look forward to now except the cold hand of death upon our shoulders. Pack away the ICCI dome, extinguish the stars, etc.

Those 360 videos were like a horror villain hell-bent on dragging Jeb through a sewer of mental strife. He thought they were finished. He thought they dead and long calcified at the bottom of the lake in that small town. But wait...what's this? An electrical storm... The lightning strikes the rippling waters...and...NOOOOOO!

I've seen him through two resubmissions and infinite technical glitches that required his reworking of the whole 40 minute, 5 screen epic. I've had conversations (read: counselling sessions) with him that consisted of nothing but his exhausted grunting about rendering times and screen resolutions that left him sounding like a Spielbergian Rain Man.
And so it crushed me that, upon arrival, Jeb's work had been thrown into disarray by a simple organisational oversight (i.e. the projection team had brought the wrong, unfinished, film).
He was forced to co-ordinate with the projection team and work on it there and then.

The bright beast, long thought buried but tonight reanimated, crawls from its watery tomb to resume its reign of audio-visual terror.

BUT WAIT...

Out of the darkness on galliant steed...THE EDITOR returns to slay the foul .avi file once more.

SLICE!
'Yeah can you remap projector 3 to projector 5?'
The creature recoils in horror!
DICE!
'No, that's OK - but it needs rejigging at about 3:45. Hang on a sec, let me take a look. Yeah...Dave? DAVE?! That should be fine if you leave it there. No...no, Dave? That's OK. Yeah. What? No.'
The beast returns to the soiled crypt from whence it arose, The Editor triumphant for what will, hopefully, be the last time. I mean we were already running late.
THEN the BBC (and they've treated us so well in the past?) requested that we postpone our soundcheck for 30mins while they do their live broadcast from right outside the dome. At this point we were running about an hour behind schedule. It was also very, very hot and I had a little stone in my shoe.

Whinge whinge whinge.

But it was stressful, and also an exciting adventure. That's the long and short. Of it.

Everyone involved played well (ourselves, Nordic giants, and Cate Ferris) and were wonderfully professional (except Seryn 'Fire hazard' Burden).

Thanks to Rory, now our sound engineer (welcome and...good luck), and Ciara and Claire of Beatitudes management fame for doing pretty much everything that wasn't plucking or hitting or strumming or shouting or screaming.

So there we are. Weymouth Olympics 360 mission: complete. Since the gig I've been glugging my time in various seafront flats, killing various parts of myself, allowing them to escape the horror of a life without a future.

I mean, what good is a new EP and forthcoming south-west tour if you don't have a 360 dome gig to look forward to?

Maybe I'll ask Jeb...

Tim

Thursday 9 August 2012

On our Wey(mouth).

It's here! The 9th of August is here! Hurrah! Yes! Time for parties and celebrations, children playing, having fun, it's time for a little love and understanding.

We're in the van, singing. Well, Trewin's not singing, because he has a sore throat. Oh yeah, and Seryn's not singing because he ate some gone off food last night and now feels sick.

I'm singing, though.

Singing to my reflection in the wing mirror.

She looks happy.

WEYMOUTH ICCI 360 CULTURAL OLYMPIAD EVENT TONIGHT ON WEYMOUTH SEAFRONT!

Achieve.

All milky and lava-lamp-ish the street-lights reflecting on my big red car bonnet as I curl it round at night all sound and echoing engine...