Did I mention this was a rant? Sense really has no place in it!

 
Smeeee again (well who else would it be?? Stupid fool Andrew)

Right, well first off I have a major rant to put out about bloody crappy internet connections!!!! I wrote a blog entry the night before last that would literally have rivalled War and Peace in terms of length. For some reason I copied most of it out and stuck it in Microsoft Word just to Spell Check it (not normal practice I have to say - but for some reason I did). Anyway, I left it there and typed the rest of the entry. Closed down Word (for some reason during the course of the hour I was typing), hit Post and Publish on the Blog Page............ Well seeing as I'm having a rant here, you can guess what happened next!!! IE went completely tits up, and failed not only to post the page, but also to allow me to go back and save the stuff.

Blog Post completely lost!!!! I could have thrown the computer out of the window!! It was one of those entries (as Nathan will tell you) where I was really happy, excited and over the moon all at the same time, and not one I'm about to type up again in a hurry. Over the next few entries I may well add some of the major points just so you know, but quite frankly I can't be bothered to rival War and Peace again :-)

Anyway - enough ranting - On to the good stuff. I went and saw the Moscow State Circus at Crystal Palace this evening. What a fantastic event!!!!!!!!!! I was given the tickets free at work (the girl who had them wasn't able to go midweek when the tickets were valid) so she passed them on to me!!!!)

As I say - WOW!!! We've all seen the circus on things like Blue Peter, but I have to say there is nothing quite like sitting in the second row of the ringside seats watching people leap about, balance inhumanly on one another, juggle, jump, twirl, spin, twist, fall over, swing, fall etc etc!!!!!

Just a couple of amazing snippets. The trapese artists were perhaps one of the highlights. I mean people letting go of a swinging bar, twirling and grabbing onto someone else, say 50 feet in the air is pretty amazing. But then right at the end they all used to the safety net to come down. Leaping off their bars, spinning three of four times and landing, to strike a finish pose is amazing. But then, THEN!!!!! the last guy was hauled on a single rope, right the way to the top of the "BIG" top, hung upside down from a bar, and plummetted head first (and I mean literally head first) all the way down to the net!!!!!! He bend his neck at the last possible second to allow his shoulders to take the force of the landing - but what a finale to just one of the acts!!!!! :-)

Another one (I could be here all night telling you about it!!) You know these people that juggle barrells on their feet?, well there was this one guy who was doing all that with short stubby barrells and then long thing ones.; But then he got this bar that must have been about 30 feet long, sat two women on the end of the bar, and twirled them around like they were made of two bits of paper!!! The skill invloved to get the thing to spin using your feet alone is quite phenominal, let alone the strength to do it with two women!!! (ahem, yes!!!!)

If any one reading this gets the opportunity to see the show, then I whole heartedly recommend you take it. Even the clowns made me laugh, which is surprising - of course there is always one clown that scares people. The one that had me freaked out was simply down to his extremely dodgy mullet hair cut. He had two sons, performing with him at various times - and they too had the worse hair cuts I have ever seen. Very talented people - but by god scary!!!!

Swanny says .... "Please do not walk under the safety netting"



posted by LAMPS at 00:30

 
OH MY GOD.........

I have absolutely no idea where to begin in this entry. My last entry - which is right below this one (funnily enough), all seems so distant now!!! Such a lot has happened in the last fortnight I don't think my feet have touched the ground!!! :-)

I'm gonna try and keep this as brief as I can - cos if I don't it really will be quite a mammoth task :-) The CD's arrived from Ian about a week after I had been asked to work on the adventure, and it took me several days to sort out what he had done with them, and to try and get into his frame of mind in order to finish it off. Without going into too much detail (cos most of it's boring) I pretty much worked every hour I had free on the CD, in order to make sure that I was happy with it, and then to make sure John, the director was happy also. There are some really groovy little sound effects and sequences that I am extremely pleased with. In particular where someone throws a scalpel at someone else and it imbeds itself in the other persons arm. I remember looking at the script and thinking what the hell am I going to do for that!!!!?!!!!

But as is the case with a lot of these things, the final effect will almost certainly sound NOTHING like what it would in real life. If you imagine an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, all the fight scenes have those little "whooshes" added to the first part of throwing a punch to make it sound dramatic. But it you actually punch someone - and I can honestly say I never have) - I doubt very much it makes such a noise. So you kind of have to think about what it would sound like in a Hollywood movie, and then recreate it with three bits of stick and a hanky!!!

One thing I've learnt doing the post production work on these drama's is it doesn't matter where the sound came from, what it is, or how you use it, as long as it sounds right. I have used the same sound effect for people climbing off motorbikes, taking off their helmet - handing things over to other people. All at different levels - but no one even questions the noise because it is appropriate for the dialogue at that time. What the characters say tends to help explain the action with a small sound effect, but subtly - rather than saying "I'm going to take my helmet off now!" with no sound effect.

Anyway - enough of me telling you all my trade secrets :-)

"Get Karter" was officially put to bed about an hour ago - or it will be once I've posted the final scene on CD to Nick (the composer) so I'm pleased about that.

What else has been happening which has prevented me from making more regular updates to the Blog? Well I've just got myself a job at my local theatre as Back Stage Crew. It was (as with most things in my life) a bit of a weird occurance. I had often thought of writing to the theatre (during my quiet work periods) to see if they had any positions for technical bods such as myself - well Dad was looking through the paper a couple of weeks ago and saw an ad which said just that. I applied and a week or so later got a call from the theatre where they said "My application shone out from the rest" (I still can't get through doors properly) and would I like to come in for a chat. Went and had a chat - (no really it wasn't an interview) and they offered me work almost every day the following week.

Bloody typical says me - I mean how much work can one person do? Not that much. I ended up working two "days" in the end - one morning shifting seats about and generally setting up the theatre floor for wrestlers to come in (Bah!!!) and the other day - well what can I say about that!!!!

They asked me to help set up "Bjorn Again" - you know the Abba tribute band. I have to say I was really excited by that. Pretty much my first gig was gonna be such a well know touring production.

Thurs 9am - I arrive at the Stage Door, outside is parked a coach, and shock horror - a 44 ton articulated lorry. This was to become my best friend, seeing as once it was open it was stacked floor to ceiling with flight cases (most of them bigger than me!!) that we had to unload and transport in to the theatre. Not only did we have to do that - but then set it all up. I'll give you an idea of the size of some of the equipment (ahem!!)...

They had two sound desks - both of them labelled "The Monster", and both of them required 6 people to lift them up and position them!!!!!!!!

We unloaded the lorry - set the show up and left, all within about 4 hours. I came back that evening to watch the show - one of the perks to this job is free entry to the show itself - WAHOO!! (bloody great show BTW!) We then had to reverse everything we had done that morning - and load it all back. Except it's much harder lifting flight cases about your head and stacking them neatly than it is to pull them down and allow gravity to help!!!!

All was fine until the next morning when I realised just how much I had let myself go, and nearly didn't make it out of bed!!! :@) Still for the agony and pain, it was surprisingly good fun - and I'm looking forward to the next one. Plus it gets me out of the house..... :-)

But alas, I have no more to say. Actually that's not true. If I had a week to spare I'm sure I could think if lots more useless info to regale you with - but I'll save that for when I do indeed, have a week free, which in my game, you never can predict :-)

Swanny says .... "My my!! At Waterloo Napoleon did surrender!"
posted by LAMPS at 23:46