20×20 2014 at Access Space, Sheffield UK
After several months at Access Space, the 20×20 open art exhibition moved to 35 Chapel Walk for a few days in a different location. I helped to re-hang the show, and here are a couple of quick timelapse videos of staff and volunteers taking down the show at Access Space and re-installing it. 35 Chapel Walk is a for-hire ex-shop unit in Sheffield city centre.
Now you see it…
Now you see it again.
I was commissioned by Seven Hills PR consultants to shoot a single-shot timelapse video of people arriving for the MADE Entrepreneur Festival in Sheffield on 20th September 2012. The example I was asked to emulate is an existing video of large window graphics being applied to the outside of a building.
However, there was not going to be anything similar at Sheffield City Hall and, because of other events happening in Barkers’ Pool, a similar shot of the main entrance was obscured. So, the brief I had was to create something impressive to communicate the size and energy of the event, and shoot and edit it in a single day so that it could be shown online the following day.
This kind of open brief is both good and bad. I prefer to be given creative freedom, but with great power comes great responsibility, and I had to come up with something.
My solution was to capture the size of the event in terms of the number of delegates, and to end with a bit of a tease as the Oval Hall fills up, the lights go down and the event starts. Instead of a single shot, I used five cameras around the building but only used four in the final edit.
I’ve over-achieved a bit on this one, and it was a lot to get done in one day, but the client was delighted and it was shown to the audience during the last day of the festival.
hospitality.sheffieldcityhall.co.uk
wearesevenhills.com
madefestival.com
Under The Stars is a night club for people with learning disabilities. It is organised and run by Sheffield-based social enterprise Reach 4 The Stars, and provides a safe and friendly environment for people of all ages (over 18) to enjoy a bit of Sheffield’s nightlife.
underthestars.org.uk
reach4thestars.org.uk
Here is a timelapse video I shot at their 5th birthday celebration event at The Hallam Union Building of Students (HUBS), Sheffield, UK, on 19th April 2012.
This week, Reach 4 The Stars / Under The Stars will be presenting at Sheffield’s regular Culture Club event, which is a platform for cultural organisations to publicise their activities and services. On Wednesday (19th September) the fifth Culture Club event will take place as part of the University of Sheffield’s Festival of the Mind. The theme is “Diversity” and is organised by Sheffield City Council and The North Marketing Agency. The event is free and you can still book via Eventbrite.
nrth.co.uk
Hosted by the University of Sheffield, the “Festival of the Mind is a celebration of ideas, culture and collaboration. It’s open to everyone and it’s FREE“.
festivalofthemind.group.shef.ac.uk
Me with my mum and dad at The Family in British Art at the Millennium Gallery, Sheffield, UK.
Museums Sheffield is the umbrella organisation that runs the Millennium Gallery, Graves Gallery, Weston Park museum and Bishops’ House museum. You may or may not be aware of the significant loss of funding that they have suffered. They have already had to reduce staff numbers and the opening hours of their venues.
Having installed art myself, and having spent a lot of time behind-the-scenes at many arts and event venues, I am vary aware of how much work, and how many people, are involved in organising, installing and invigilating an art show.
Here is a single-shot timelapse video of four days of installation in the Millennium Gallery, as part of Art Sheffield 2010, and shows some of what’s involved in hanging just one of the exhibits.
http://artsheffield.org
Since opening, the Millennium Gallery has had a very broad programme of exhibitions including traditional, contemporary and popular work. The gallery have hosted some of the most memorable shows I have seen in Sheffield, including a Francis Bacon retrospective, John Martin: Painting the Apocalypse, and my personal favourite, Ian Breakwell’s “The Other Side”.
http://www.museums-sheffield.org.uk/museums/millennium-gallery/exhibitions/past/ian-breakwell-the-other-side
Another factor that is easily forgotten is how many people benefit from art exhibitions. The fuzzy mobile phone phone is my family in the Millennium Galley, Sheffield, UK, during the current show, The Family in British Art. The final day of show is Sunday 29th April and I urge you to see it before it closes. It’s free and this may be your last chance.
http://www.museums-sheffield.org.uk/museums/millennium-gallery/exhibitions/current/the-family-in-british-art-1542-2003
Ironically, I have been commissioned to make a timelapse video of the installation of the next show at the Millennium Gallery. This will be payed for out of transitional funding to help Museums Sheffield become a smaller organisation. This means fewer shows, fewer staff and fewer chances to see.
http://www.museums-sheffield.org.uk/
Rain, plane and automobiles.
Here are a couple of timelapse video edits made from material I shot from in-car cameras, timelapse-enabled with the Canon Hack Development Kit (CHDK). The software is an amazing achievement and I use it regularly, although I only use a small part of its functionality. Installing it can be a bit fiddly and you need to spend some time with it, but I have found it extremely useful shooting timelapse and HDR.
Both videos were shot during car journeys that were at predetermined times so I had to accept the routes and weather conditions. One camera is on a suction mount on the inside of the windscreen on the passenger side. This position means that it is mostly in line-of-sight with the roof pillar and does not obscure the driver’s view. In the first video the other camera was mounted behind the passenger seat’s head rest, looking out of the rear passenger’s window.
Shooting through glass is always problematic, but there are ways of reducing the risks. Internal reflections can be reduced by masking internal features with blackout cloth, and/or mounting the cameras very close to the glass. Also, I use black cardboard masks to stop the camera seeing its own reflection. Cleaning the glass helps too. These two videos are just experimental and exhibit a lot of shooting faults.
I use CHDK on Canon Powershot cameras. I have several A560s and a few other models for various reasons. CHDK requires a different build of the software for each camera model so I mostly use several of the same model so that I can swap memory cards between them.
In unpredictable and and extreme conditions such as this, I mostly set the cameras to Program auto-expose and auto-ISO as it is impractical to change the settings during a shoot. This mostly works, particularly for video, as the movement hides a lot of the shooting faults.
I used the script Ultra Intervalometer and set the interval to 0 so the cameras shot as quickly as possible. This is about once a second for A560s. This depends on exposure time and they shoot slower in low light.
I performed various exhaustion tests on the batteries. I’m working on external battery boxes but running them on the two internal AA rechargeable batteries I get variable results depending on shooting period and interval.
Using fairly new Maplin 2,500 mAh rechargeable NiMH batteries (all numbers are approximate):
0 second interval – 9,000+ shots in about 4 hours.
5 second interval – 5,500+ shots in about 11 hours
10 second interval – 3,200+ shots in about 12 hours
20 second interval – 2,200+ shots in about 14 hours
To extend battery life I switch off the screen and this introduces a small problem that focus-lock is not preserved. This is not usually a problem for distant subjects but can be in some circumstances. Problems with the focus are apparent in the Jean Marc Calvet video, though not a big issue. When I’ve shot HDR timelapse, it is better to use external power so that I can lock exposure and focus in order to get higher quality results.
Canon Hack Development Kit (CHDK)
chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK
The music for both videos is by Jason Shaw.
audionautix.com
Jacqui Bellamy aka Pixelwitch JaQ has a secret obsession with shooting beautiful people in toilet cubicles.
After three series of Latrino Gals, here are some stills and behind-the-scenes video from the first series of Latrino Boyz. The good, the bad and the fabulous from the music, arts and creative scenes around Sheffield and beyond.
Contact latrinoboyz@gmail.com.
Special thanks go to The Common Room, Sheffield, UK for allowing us to use the ladies.
latrinogals.co.uk
common-room.co.uk
Here is a single-shot edit of a random bit of time-lapse I captured during an overnight stay at the Holiday Inn Birmingham City Centre on Smallbrook Queensway, Birmingham, UK. This video was shot on a Canon PowerShot A640, time-lapse-enabled with the Canon Hack Development Kit (CHDK).
holidayinn.com
chdk.wikia.com
I shot it as 1600×1200 pixels but wish I had used a higher resolution so that I could zoom in without having to scale it and, hence, losing quality. This is mastered to 1280×720 pixels and the original video zoomed to 200%.
The music is “Ooi” by Global Goon, c/o The Free Music Archive.
freemusicarchive.org/music/Global_Goon
j-hok.com/wp
New Manor Ware by Frances Priest
Here are two edits of a documentary video I have just completed for Edinburgh-based artist Frances Priest. She has just completed a residency at Yorkshire Artspace’s Manor Oaks Studios and the video was commissioned to document her work and cover an event at Sheffield Manor Lodge, UK.
The Turret House at Sheffield Manor Lodge
We originally agreed to make a subtle documentary edit with primarily timelapse video and sound design. However, the event was such a success, and the live video so good, I decided to make more of a promo edit that attempts to represent the event and all the organisations involved.
However, we agreed that an alternative edit, closer to the original brief, would be more in keeping with Frances’ existing online presence. “More cake and less movement” was my direction.
Both versions were made with the same material but edited very differently.
francespriest.co.uk
artspace.org.uk
manorlodge.org.uk
New Manor Ware is an artwork by Frances Priest, commissioned by Yorkshire Artspace, UK. The designs are based on elements from the ceiling in the banqueting room of The Turret House (1574) at Sheffield Manor Lodge.
The time-lapse was captured using the Canon Hack Development Kit (CHDK) using Canon PowerShot A560 compact cameras. The still photography was shot on a Canon EOS SLR and post-processed with Photomatix Pro from 3 exposures.
Camera and edit by Richard Bolam.
richardbolam.net
Sunrise at The Quadrant, Sheffield, UK
I am both a commercial media producer and a fine artist. As an artist, my ambition is to make beautiful, meaningful and lasting work for a general audience. I make my work for the world-at-large and I see no conflict of interests in being a commercial artist and also a fine artist. In fact, this is a very traditional approach, and I see myself as a traditionalist, although I use very modern technology and techniques.
This week has seen success for me in both worlds with my work being acknowledged as a commercial success and also being selected for an international film festival.
Still from The Quadrant video promo
Recently, I completed a job for The Quadrant, a managed workspace in Sheffield, UK, and this is a good example of how the two worlds of art and commerce can benefit from each other. I was commissioned to make a commercial promotional video and was given 24-hour access to their building. I saw an opportunity to make something of my own at the same time. Not instead of, but as well as.
I have been experimenting with techniques to capture high dynamic range (HDR) time-lapse video since 2008 and I saw an opportunity to test my workflow. I shot a number of views of the building as the sun moved during the day, and used the open-source Canon Hack Development Kit (CHDK) to enable Canon PowerShot compact cameras to shoot multiple-exposure time-lapse. For the promo I mixed these shots with other timelapse shots of activity within the building. The Quadrant are very happy with the promo I made for them, particularly as it is markedly different from the usual commercial promo, and this is what an artist can bring to a project, a high degree of innovation and a different way of looking at the world. Here is the finished video, music by Laurence Alexander:
I used the clips of HDR time-lapse to make a completely separate piece of work that is an artwork rather than a promo. This is part of an ongoing body of work called “The Secret Life of Buildings” and is a collection of video works that attempt to capture the essence of the building, rather than to simply document it.
Still from The Secret Life of Buildings #6
This work has been selected to be shown at the Chronos 2011 Film Festival of time-lapse, slow-motion and stop-motion in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and here is The Secret Life of Buildings #6 with music by Erik Satie, played by BL Underwood:
I am currently artist-in-residence at Banks Street Arts in Sheffield, UK.
You can follow my progress on the blog here.
And I have a Facebook page here.
http://bankstreetarts.com/
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Richard Bolam Digital Media 