Videalism: septembre 2010

Director/Editor/Post Production: Bison
Producer: James Bretton
Production Company: Blinkink
Additional Camera: Chris Nunn

How the video was made:

We approached Jon with the idea for arm-mounted cameras a few weeks before the show, and luckily he was up for it, so we broke out the power tools and set about making some mounts: After dissecting a couple of tripods and orthapaedic elbow supports, we had a solid platform for the miniature cameras.

We covered the gig with 5 cameras in total: 2 roving cameras, 1 static, and the 2 'lipstick' arm cameras that were wired into tape recorders at the back of the stage. The trickiest part was getting the cameras on and off Jon's arms whilst he continued to play as his set is more or less continuous..

The 'post production' on this video was unorthodox: All analogue and all in-camera.

We were really keen on making a gritty, abstract performance video. So we set to work with magnets, screwdrivers, VHS tapes and a host of other techniques: We made an initial edit and played this back through a £3 TV we picked up at the local market, and 'manipulating' it with a screwdriver allowed us to flutter and flicker the image on screen. We'd also bought an industrial strength magnet and used that to distort and twist the picture on itself. We made several runs through the track in this way before playing everything out to VHS (with obligatory stomping and scrunching).

This effectively gave us a new set of footage to make a tailored, grunged-up edit of the original piece.