Anecdote

This year was my first “real” Greenbelt experience although I did go in 2006, I was primarily there as part of a Videoschool course (see the post about it here) and only saw two bands perform (Note for a Child, and Numinous).

Before going I was quite excited at the prospect of ‘discovering’ some new music, because my music collection was getting quite limited and I certainly wasn’t disappointed. The drive down to Cheltenham Racecourse along the A5 was quite scenic and uneventful and we arrived after just over 4 hours on Friday. After getting our tickets and driving to the youth campsite (which we didn’t actually realise - no wonder it was so noisy!) we (mainly me!) managed to set up the tent quite quickly thanks to the soft ground (which got even softer after the rain!).

The first artist we went to see was on the “Mainstage” that night. Emmanuel Jal. What an absolutely awesomely amazingly brilliant experience (yeh it was good)! The energy he put into the live set was amazing - just everything about it was perfect (apart from some sound problems at the start… ). There was even one part where he got pretty much the entire crowd (and a few people from the crowd on the stage) to join him in doing a (as he called it) “devil stomper” dance! Emmanuel Jal is a former child soldier from Sudan, and through his music (mainly hip-hop/rap) he tells his story. I think this adds an unusal level of authenticity behind the words he speaks(/raps).

Seeing as one of my top tags on last.fm was singer-songwriter, I spent a lot of time in the Performance Cafe listening to all the singer-songwriters there. So who are we going to see today? Foreign Slippers. Who’s that? A singer-songwriter. Oh not another one!

One of the first singer-songwriters I saw was Kinzli - the first thing that struck me about her was how unique her voice sounded. I missed the start of her set, but from what I did hear the lyrics didn’t sound particularly groundbreaking. Good voice though!

Now Edwina Hayes played a really awesome set (I also missed the start!) complete with some hilarious stories from her past that any good set is lost without… Unfortunately most of her songs are quite sad, but I guess her humour counteracted the sadness in the songs

Jim Jones (former lead singer for Carbon-14 and current frontman of Smalltown Mentality) was quite good, especially one song had very clever lyrics (I think it was called One Step Away).

I did go and see Beth Rowley at the mainstage for a few minutes, but I must say I don’t really like her style of music much (and it was waaaaay too loud!). She reminded me of a non-druggie version of Amy Winehouse, and less dark…

I missed Miriam Jones‘ (yeah another singer-songwriter!) main set at the Performance Café (incidently I could have gone to see this set, seeing as my car tyres were slashed, so I couldn’t go home that night!), but I managed to catch her at the g-music shop. She had a great voice and her lyrics were quite clever too (as it turns out one of her songs was a finalist in the International Songwriting Competition).

That pretty much sums up my Greenbelt 2008…

Well… I’ve bought Edius Neo… and I have a new short film coming soon!!

“Project Treborth”

Me, Huw and Laurence went out to do some test/pre-production/teaser trailer filming the weekend before last and it was really quite an awesome filmage sesh. We actually managed to get quite a few really good shots, although we made the mistake of not planning them first again which has made the trailer editing a bit difficult, but still it’s ok… All in all it was a really inspiring sesh and gave me plenty ideas for the rest of the Project Treborth storyline.

I couldn’t get the trailer quite right before, so I decided to edit together a behind the scenes type of video thingy (warning: ultra cheesy music!)…

Project Treborth: Behind the Scenes from Joel Davies on Vimeo.

I’ve also uploaded The Deadly Diamond to stage6, and someone made a comment which just really made my day:

I agree with comments posted aboce, you kids got talent.

Simple, but really encouraging aye… shame about the spelling mistake!

Anyway… there should be a teaser trailer coming online soon (probably tommorow)…

Wow it’s 2008 already! Seems like I’ve neglected updating this blog for a while :P, well this should make up for all the missed posts!

During a revision-sesh (read: a revision session) I noticed what an awesome clear sky ’twas outside. So I decided I’d do a time-lapse gradually getting darker to reveal some stars. Anyway it was already pretty dark by the time I got it all set up, so it ended up being just an ace video of a constellation moving across the sky. Obviously seeing as it was only a 4 second video, I had to add some titles, and an “extra sharp” version of the video where the stars are more visible.

(more…)

Sixth-formage is ok. You would’ve thought it’d be awesome having loads of free lessons, but in reality it’s quite boring…

I’m studying four subjects: Physics, Maths, Chemistry and Art.

Art’s going pretty well and after doing several self-portraits I’m currently drawing this lithograph by M.C. Escher, called “Reptiles”, where a reptilian creature seems to crawl out of a book. It’s a pretty complex piece to draw, but I think I’m slowly getting there!

Anyway all posts REQUIRE a picture, so here’s a random sunset on the campsite we stayed on, in Pembrokeshire:

Just done yet another sketch today, based on one of the illustrations by Chris Riddell in a book called, “Muddle Earth”:

I think it turned out pretty good actually… I’ve also started reading “The Fundamentals of Drawing”, so in theory my drawings should improve more!! There are some pretty interesting exercises in there for me to practise doing, e.g. drawing straight lines (without a ruler) and circles…

The other day I also did a sketch from my imagination!!! Which is quite an achievment I think… I think I started by drawing the nose(s) and then went on from there. It’s ended up looking like a Chavlien (Chav Alien):

Anyway, you may or may not have noticed that I’ve added another page to the site, finally edited the “About” page, and updated the portfolio page with my latest editing job with the Anglesey Youth Theatre.

This brings me onto the next bit of news - the Anglesey Youth Theatre was so impressed by my editing on those 4 clips that they’ve asked me to edit a video they’re making about the dangers of over-drinking (I can’t think of the proper translation of ‘goryfed’ at the moment), called “Ffwl Gwirion” (Stupid Fool).