I have a confession to make. I once stole an elevator.

Yes, an elevator, not a lift. This was no ordinary device for conveying humans between levels.  

It was a cage style design that travelled up through the centre of a staircase. Painted black, all gloss black and in beautiful condition with polished brass controls and fitments. Each floor had a cage door that had to be pulled to to enable transit. The external cage continued up through the centre of the stairs to the top of the building. There was another cage door internally which wouldn’t allow the elevator to move until the door was shut properly. Once moving it was wise to keep fingers out of the cage gaps.

The elevator moved by manual operation of a brass lever. One direction for up, the other for down, and by returning the lever gently to the centre the elevator would stop. If the elevator was called from another floor a bell in the cab would ‘ding’ and a white enamel disk would flick into one of the holes on the floor indicator panel at the top rear of the elevator.  Multiple floors could be indicated on the horizontal panel as there was a hole for each floor, the floor number painted at the back of each hole.  There was a moving arrow on another brass plate near the top front of the elevator, this indicated where the elevator was in relation to the floors.  This machine was straight out of Raymond Chandler, exactly the thing a client of Philip Marlowe’s would travel in up to his office.

Usually an elderly man operated the elevator, but on this day the he wasn’t in his seat. The elevator was empty.  I decided to take it.  I shut the outer cage door and then the inner.  I moved the lever in the ‘up’ direction and almost silently it lurched into motion, I had no finesse.  I started and stopped a few times, and tried both directions. Up and down, and lurching less.  There’s a limit to how much touring can be done in an elevator and I had an appointment to keep, so after a short while I decided to get out.  On finding my floor I had to nudge the lever up and down to get it to settle at the right point which would allow the inner cage door to open.  I left the elevator and went in to the offices.

When I came out the elevator was gone.  I walked down the stairs and past the operator now back in his seat at the ground floor.

That was in 1979.  I went back to the building some years later, the 1930s style elevator had been replaced with a completely enclosed modern design.  A shame.  As a 15 year old those few minutes controlling the elevator were quite entertaining, and there must have been plenty of others that had fun doing it too.  I didn’t think of it as time travel but in retrospect it was the tail end of an era that had somehow clung on in a Manchester side-street, hands-on history.

The NHS orthodontist I visited has gone too.

I cannot find any pictures of such an elevator.

This is the building now:

On Google Streetview St John Chambers

Unsynchronised Elements

More dodgy film/music output.

If any of the video is in sync with the sound it is completely accidental, although the original intention was for it to be so, but that fits with the general amateur nature of the project.

Opportunities to fiddle with the music and video software recently haven't been as many as I'd have liked.  Having said that though it has been a useful experience, I am becoming more familiar with the software, getting a feel for where the sticking points are, and when to be patient.

Other things to remember are:
Use a metronome/click track - I gave up trying to synchronise after the fact.
Storyboard the idea.
Use lots of short video clips.
The built in effects are decent but quickly become clichéd.
Resolve green screen background issues before filming.
Get some interesting content.
Keep it simple.
Make sure it has humour.


Keep film of your own face to a minimum - next time...





How hard must film production and editing have been before the advent of digital, even with digital it's a lot of work, and to produce something of high quality must require huge effort and patience.

Song Credit: Eric Idle

Image Credit: NASA - for all the photographs used in the video.

Compression. Expansion. Watch your dynamics.

Use a metronome.  It'll save having to do a lot of faffing about with time stretching.  Who knew how much a performance could speed up - and also slow down in the middle of a particular speed up.  I knew it would speed up, but honestly...

Never mind all that eq, and stuff (well, do, but make sure you've sorted your dynamic range before you start).  And on that gnomic pronouncement.

So this project then...

...what’s that all about?
Ok my inquisitive friend here’s my rambling explanation.
I aim to get to grips with some bits of software, hardware and other tech I have had kicking around for a while and have only tentatively played with.  I have an old version of Cubase, an old version of Adobe Premiere Elements, a helmet camera, a sheet, some lights, and various bits and bobs of music making kit such as guitars, microphone, midi keyboard and a drum machine.

There is also the aim of gaining a clearer understanding of how to present subject matter to a wider audience.  I say ‘subject matter’ because this could be any area, music, film, a presentation on how to make the perfect cup of tea, etc.  The quality of this will inevitably be variable, the benefits may very often be hidden as they will be me gaining greater technical understanding of the aforementioned areas.  Some of the technical knowledge will be explained, as this will give me further experience of getting to grips with the technology.  So initially any ‘content’ produced may be sub-par but with luck it will improve.

How will I determine the success of the project?
Well, there is no time limit or deadline by which to make a judgement, but there should be an improvement in understanding of the technologies and an improvement in the quality of the output.

Why do this in public?
Yes it goes against the philosophy of not practising in public and only demonstrating complete, finished and well crafted performances, but it provides a motivation that wouldn’t otherwise exist.
The problems encountered may provide useful information for others, as indeed other people’s blogs, and explanations in forums will and have helped me.

Here’s my first follow up to creating some dodgy content, itself being rudimentary in style - dig the groovy graphics.



My first recording was off the cuff and sounded much more natural, even after removing hesitations, ums and ers.  This is the second recording and was completely scripted, having headings and key words would be a better way to do this in future as this version sounds much more stilted, even when I laugh due to interjection by CatB.



P.S.
Unlike in other projects changing the specification or requirements here won’t increase risk or cause project failure.
As a human I reserve the right to hold contradictory opinions, and to continue with this project in whatever form, change it, or stop at any time without warning or further comment.

Sound & Vision

My first attempt at music & video combined.

I originally thought "hey, why not do one of those project things, once a week record a music video..." as a way of getting to know various bits of software and to keep me focussed on playing regularly.  I reckon that might be tricky, I'll give it a go but suspect output may not be as frequent as once a week!

Here it is:



Top tips:
Always iron your green screen.
Try not to gurn too much.