What The Floyd - Castleford

What a show!
What a band.

The Orb - BlueDot Festival

PTZ Heaven

The Stasi

I've recently upgraded my onstage PTZ system.
Now as well as the tried and tested PAL Sony cameras used on the last two Duran Duran world tours, I have half a dozen Panasonic AW- HE60SE robocams and a wonderful HD-SDI switcher and matrix control system.

The Orb - Buenos Aires

deepvisual provide a scaled down video system driven by VDMX for the Orb's show at Mutek in Argentina...

Chilly Gonzales

Big time deja vu as we re-enact 'Pianovision' with Chilly Gonzales - just like we did 5 years ago at the same venue - Cadogan Hall in Chelsea.
Yet again another brilliant performance by Mr Gonzales in a camo smoking jacket and slippers..

Blackpool Pleasure Beach

I'm woken by a phone call. Can you just drive the 500 or so miles to Blackpool and back and fix their projection system?
No problem.
Sadly I wasn't there long enough to get a stick of rock or a kiss me quick hat.

RNIB EYEPOD

Some time back I made an Award Winning eye disease simulator for the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) based around an Xbox driving game and an interactive VDMX interface.
It has been used successfully by the RNIB for the last 6 years and was recently updated and reborn as the self contained Eyepod.

Back In Dublin

It must have been sometime in the early 1990s when I did this projection onto the Odlums grain store in Dublin Harbour.

We got on the local radio - someone phoned in and said they had seen a flying saucer..
Back here some 28 years later for a meeting about projections in Africa..

A Cock & Bull story

Normally I wince at the very idea of camping/working at a festival, but this small and perfectly formed gig on a farm in Wiltshire put a real smile on my face. Once more on the lighting desk.

As Promised - Pillow Fight @ Shag Mountain

That girls looks strangely familiar?

Blue Dot Festival

Comedy gold backstage after the show, when a lady 'artist' complained to me about one of The Orb's visual clips saying it "Made her feel uncomfortable as it was too sleazy".
She described the footage to me and I replied, "Oh yes, that's my daughter."
Needless to say she was a little lost for words.

Pillow Fight @ Shag Mountain

As well as charity shops and car boot sales, I occasionally do some work stuff too..
A new Orb video, this time featuring the band. Set for release sometime soon

The Orb - Doune The Rabbit Hole

What a splendid wonderful festival.
We all had a superb time and it looked like the audience did too!

Roger's Trumpet Tree

You come across the strangest things when you go outside London.

Orb Tour 2018

What The Floyd - Mini Tour

Another gig behind the MQ80
What an astonishing band.

Orbfest Roundhouse

First Time back on the lighting desk in 25 years for The Orb & Friends at the Roundhouse.
What a banging gig.
Chris from the Light Surgeons guesting on visuals

Primordial Ooze

Sometimes, you just have to get in the water and do it yourself.

Being an advanced open water diver comes in handy occasionally. So when there were problems with the pump system, as well as designing and operating the show, I spent two days in the estuary mud in chin deep water putting in the water screen. Plus I made some new friends. Pity they were all crabs.
Client EMF

Background life

That's me, twenty feet behind what you can see in this Artic Monkeys video

How The Light Gets In

A very relaxed and laid back gig on the riverside in Hay On Wye, with The Orb showcasing material from their latest album, No Sounds Are Out Of Bounds.
I got to do the lights, all eight of them...lol

Circle Sky

A full day of lip sync DOP in the studio with Circle Sky

Rush Hill Road

New vid from the Orb
All the nice shots were by Chris Allen from The Light Surgeons. I did all the clicky stuff in Davinci Resolve.

The Queen's Commonwealth Canopy

Back at the Palace for another very successful projection by EMF

No Sounds Are Out Of Bounds - The Orb

New band, new sounds, new album, new show.

What's not to like.

I'm all over it.

Behold

York - more promo

a mega 23 hour day, driving to York and back to do projections for yet another Promo.
It was a day of cold fast fold screens and my fingers still hurt.

3 legs good

Hard to believe, but it is actually possible to have too many tripods.
I've managed to keep it down to 5 these days, a studio column stand, a pro video tripod, two photo tripods and a travel tripod. So imagine my distress when my beloved photo 055 pro Manfrotto somehow mysteriously got damaged  a while back- two of the leg locks sheared off by persons unknown???

Anyway, after two years of pondering which model of tripod I should replace it with, I finally came to my senses, ordered the replacement parts online and 3 days later it's as good as new.

It's the little things that count.

Fashion

Something something London Fashion Week

Yet another day in the studio

another fun day of filming and projections, yet again NDA keeps details vague,
Next time I'll be using a Hyperdeck

back in the black hole

fun day in Black Island Studios with someone super famous, who I can't mention, but my dad would have been very impressed.. As famous people go, he was quite lovely and took the trouble to shake hands with every single person in the room..
an event that has happened so many times that I can count them on the fingers of one thumb

The Orb - Butlins

My family were too poor to visit Butlins for a holiday. I remember being aged 6 in a caravan on the wrong side of the fence, peaking over it at the swish monorail that snaked around the camp.
FFWD 50 odd years and it's time for The Orb to premiere their new line up and album at the Rockaway Beach festival.
Having the flu didn't help but I made it to the end of what I thought was a wonderful gig..

Sunrise 2018

Delighted to see Duran Duran loving my new onstage video for "Reach up for the Sunrise"

pic stolen from  bbamok... x

Westfield London - Xmas Lights

Gwen Stefani sings in the Xmas lights.

Fenwick Colchester - Xmas Projections

A 4 projector blend RP on the store front being a major upgrade on the previous year's Xmas decor which featured a shop dummy and some plastic pigeons..
client EMF

xmas 2016

Rosewood Hotel - Xmas Projections

Now this was one of the most difficult jobs I have done in a while.
But in the end it all lined up and overlaid just how it should.
If there is one thing I know, it's how to get those projectors to do as they are told.
As for the content, well 3/10 must try harder ....lol

Client EMF

Kempton Park

Fireworks at Kempton Park, which for once went smoothly.
I worked on one of the worst ever jobs of my life at Kempton back in the early 90s for LCI who managed to totally destroy the Kempton Balloon Festival by concentrating more on the guest list than the project management. The only thing that worked on that fateful night long ago, were my four follow spots.. Not much of a show for the 15k in the crowd

Ahh those were the days..

Hungary vs Wales

The fist fight outside the chip shop took me back to my teens in Nottingham..
Ahh those were the days...

as for the show
projection mapping experts Glowing Bulbs made newbie mistakes, but nothing is new under the sun. It looked fine in the end. Of course.

More foolishness

Seven Hours in a van checking out who has the shortest miniskirt..

Diwali - Trafalgar Square

Had to get the Marigolds flown in from Africa for this one..

Duran Duran - Budokan

Here we are again 14 years later,  Japan's No 1 venue..
I offered Dom Brown a fiver to play Deep Purple's 'space truckin' during girls on film, but he bottled it.. we both had Purple's seminal 'Made in Japan' album when we were kids - much of it being recorded at Budokan.
And then it was over. Two years of Paper Gods and now it's back to some semblance of Reality.

SW4 - 2017

Back after a 4 year hiatus for two days of average music and lots of EDID issues in Tent 5.
It was fun to VJ again after such a long break and no surprise that the visiting VJs had a bad dose of monkey see monkey do.

Heavy Music Awards - House of Vans

Coolest venue ever and I am totally in love with the  lead singer of Venom Poison

The Graduans

A truly odd few days in darkest Cornwall babysitting projections for the Graduation Ceremony.

Feel Korea - Olympia

a very silly evening doing camera at a Korean boy/girl band event..
Throw in a Taekwondo display and some traditional Korean drummers and we have ourselves quite a show..

DP

Infrastructure fixer for long term visual comrades Insight Lighting who did a spanking job for some well heeled clients.. image blatantly stolen from Insight's instagram..

Foolish

Day of the Dead projections for a Mexican bar in London for EMF.

Aphex Twin - Dublin

Another trip out for Aphex Twin to prepare the video infrastructure for the 'late in the day' arrival of Mr Weirdcore, who remains at the core of all things Weird.
Shame I caught the flu while I was there.

4GB festival Tbilisi

Another outing with The Orb, this time to country No57 Georgia and a spectacular weekend at the 4GB festival, held in an abandoned Satellite Factory.

The Light Van Gang

The Orb & friends electric - Royal Festival Hall

Review of the 'Mind Bending Visuals'  here

Keeping busy

Company car

Behold the new wheels...

By Royal Appointment..

I said I would only do it if I could wear a Busby.
Didn't come to pass.. the weather was too bad.
Against all the odds, it looked superb -

Client: EMF
Event: UK India Year of Culture 2017