And we’re off and running.  After a long summer of rain and work, where we had hoped to have shot a few of the videos already, we have finally begun the large task of creating ‘At A Kalamazoo Near You’ the Album Video.

Ciaran Hanley – The Beta Lounge

29th August 07

Ciaran’s concept is a bored lad in the back of the car looks out the window on a long journey, puts his headphones on and sees a wakeboarder and a free-runner cruising down the road behind the car, and he fantasises them doing tricks and waving at him.

We needed a trampoline, a trampolinist & a wakeboarder, all to be shot in front of a green screen.  We also needed a young lad to do shots in the back of a car, both on the open road and in front of another green screen.  And all on near-to-zero budget.

Francie Craven of the Newry Sports Centre came to the rescue and provided their facilities and trampoline.  Simon Black a member of the trampoline club stepped up to the challenge alongside Peter O’Hara a wakeboarder from Ballymoney.  And Shea Harper came with his mum to play the young lad in the back of the car.  And Conor Rotheram came on board to shoot it.

The Friday night before we shot Ciaran [the director] & Conor [our DoP] came round to Gawain’s house [the producer] to have dinner & discuss how we would get all the shots we needed, and how to work out the green screen shots.  Anna McCaughtry dug out a load of plastic toys to mock-up a wakeboarder attached to the back of a car going past fields and walls.  This is also where rhino-cam was created using a plastic toy rhinoceros attached to a square cut out from a pack of weetabix with a piece of string  – the aim of this was to get a handle on where the wakeboarder would be in relation to the camera, i.e. the kids POV.  Without this reference then we would just be shooting footage in the hope of getting something that might match.  With 4 heads, a lot of scratching, and Anna’s models we worked out what we needed for the weekend’s shoot.

Conor had a hard time with lighting the green screen because unfortunately as we were setting up the lights one of the bulbs popped and the nearest place for a replacement was 40 miles away.  But he did a mighty job and all was good.  And Dylan did a great job of cable bashing, board clapping, and tower wrangling.

Both Simon the trampolinist & Peter the wakeboarder gave 110% in everything they did for us and it will be more than apparent when it comes to seeing the final cut.

On the Sunday young Shea Harper was very good & hugely patient with us, since he had to do take after take of waving out both sides of the car windows whilst being filmed.  Big thanks to him and his mum Amanda, as well as Simon, Peter, Francie, Uncle Eoin, all the staff at Newry Sport Centre.

We’ll keep you posted as to the progress of the edit.

Photos courtesy of Anna McCaughtry.

As you can see from this video clip we didn't have the weather on our side for some parts of the Sunday shoot, but good old Mother Nature came to our rescue and brought the sun out.

Anna McCaughtry – Take Me With You

Anna’s concept is a man notices a cable and starts to follow it as it takes him from random place to random place until he ends up finding what it’s attached to.  To help to link the other videos Anna is shooting parts of her video through the sets of the other videos.

Steve Moore is the star of this video and gave us some funny moments as he followed the cable across a green screen set, and across a trampline whilst Simon the trampolinist was bouncing up and down on the other end.  Steve will be wearing a Men In Speedos t-shirt throughout his shoots.

As each shoot comes and goes we’ll add to this section.

Chris Baugh - A Moment On Your Own

Johnny Lightwing & his sister the Queen of The Alien Universe are trying to outwit each other.  Johnny makes it to the safety of his spaceship and launches it.  Unfortunately a birdman happens to pass into the spaceships launch path and is speared out of the sky.  He lands in Johnny's back graden only to explode.

Dylan & Jessie Jones were the stars of our shoot and were superb from start to finish of the day, never complaining once and making it fun for all of us.  And Anna McCaughtry made some fantastic costumes and sets for the story to be told as Chirs wanted it.

Thanks to everyone who helped out on this.

Photos courtesy of Anna McCaughtry.

Video is approx 14Mb.