Category Dance

Transition Video, Festivals and Concerts

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I have freelanced with Transition since 2017. The first job they sent me out on was at Hammersmith Apollo to set-up a pair of projectors and screens for an Erykah Badu concert.
They have employed me as VJ for the main stage at Beat Herder Festival in 2017 and 2018, LED technician and Camera Operator for multiple stages at Parklife Festival and Manchester Pride among many other events.
Highlights shows with them have been at Wembley Arena and La Seine Musicale in Paris for a Korean boy band. While I was VJ at Beat Herder I had the pleasure to perform alongside many musical greats including one of my all time favourites Lee Scratch Perry.

Images courtesy of Beat Herder Festival

Cock and Bull Festival

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The lovely Henry Trew whom I had got to know while he was running Dalston Roof Park had a big hand in organising this small but beautifully formed festival which raises vital funds for Jamie’s Farm to host outdoor education trips for inner-city children.

I helped out for a few years and really enjoyed adding some projections to an experimental space with a collection of artists from the studios where I worked the first year. In 2016 I designed the ‘main stage’ in the barn for the first time. I found some materials on site and constructed some organic shaped screens which hung above the stage to be mapped with projections.

In 2018 I was joined for the fun by Brendan from Insight Lighting, Gary Deepvisual and Hanzo of http://initstudio.net/ and we filled the barn and yard with lighting and projections for the whole weekend.

Splice Festival

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In 2015 I was sacked from a job, dumped by my girlfriend and also given notice to leave where I was living, all within a week. Pretty bleak. I decided to turn all of that negativity into something positive, distracting and useful!

I wanted to realise a long held dream of organising an audiovisual festival. Initial plans were conconcted and emails went out to the people whom I wanted to help make it a reality. After a year of hard work and commitment from a small team of directors with huge contributions from the community of artists and volunteers Splice Festival was first staged from the 3rd to the 5th June 2016: http://2016.splicefestival.com/

and one year later: http://2017.splicefestival.com/

The final year of my involvement: http://2018.splicefestival.com/

I remain very proud of what we created together and hope to see something rise from the ashes post covid.

Derelicht Ipswich

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Jim Horsfield of As Described lives in Ipswich, he was contacted by a local promoter who was planning something big. He had a warehouse to use and permission from the local authorities to hold a big music and art event otherwise known as a ‘rave’. It was a huge space and it needed a full treatment with projections and lighting.
I worked with Insight Lighting to put together a cost effective package of Solar 250’s, Kodak Carousels using some simple minimal designs. Jim supplied two 10k lumen video projectors with wide angle lenses which I used to projection map the roof and walls of the space. Madmapper line plugin was heavily used as were a lot of my sound reactive Quartz Composer patches.

White Beirut

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Anna Boberg of https://bopa.tv/ got in touch with an interesting and unexpected offer. Would I like to VJ at a club in Beirut?!? She and her studio would be supplying all of the content including some backdrops for the stage shows with a dance troupe. I went along for a six week contract and worked alongside a local VJ Moses Magharian (Eye See Experience).

I had a brilliant time working and making friends in Lebanon which gave me an insight into the culture and politics of the region. We were accommodated in a superb out of town apartment complex with a lovely outdoor pool and we were really well looked after.

One morning while relaxing by the pool I received a phone call from a colleague in London, she had one question: ‘Was it possible to projection map a rotating car?’ I said yes but it was difficult and I was busy in the sunshine. More about that later.

Hospitality at Brixton Academy

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Justin at meno.tv had been working with Hospitality Drum and Bass events for a while and he had built them some huge logo lighting and projection mapping features. For this show in Brixton he had created a cylindrical LED stage set for one of the headline artists which was an all consuming task so he asked me to come along and VJ for the rest of the night. I always loved Drum and Bass and to work in Brixton Academy for the first time was a pleasure.

Projection Mapping in Mongolia

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My friend Gary (Deepvisual) had uploaded some projection mapping tutorials to Youtube and someone in Mongolia was watching them. Ulziibayar Nergui an Ulan Bator based DJ, budding projection mapper and dance music promoter soon got in touch with him. He was looking for a Projection Mapping artist to help him create a show. Gary was busy again on another job so he suggested me. Wow, Mongolia I had only dreamed of the chance to visit such a place!

This was the first big 3D projection mapping that I was technically and artistically producing. The pressure was on. I had been closely following and studying the techniques of projection mapping and had created some of my own tools with Quartz Composer to achieve many of the effects which were being used.

We used five projectors to cover three objects with projection, 2 cubist structures and an eye above the DJ booth. It was quite a push for our MacBook Pro’s but it worked smoothly using two Matrox Dual Head to Go devices to feed the outputs.

Mongolia was an amazing experience even though I was only there for 10 days, working with the local crew was fun and challenging due to the language barrier, our interpreter Zolboo was not always around. It turns out Zolboo was also ‘the only drone musician’ in Mongolia’ and some damn fine sounds he does make: https://soundcloud.com/crepusculo

The Orb at Balaton Sound Hungary

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The long term visuals supplier to The Orb, Deepvisual was busy on another job so he asked me to fill in for him on this show out in Hungary. I only stepped out from behind my computer for a few seconds to get a clip of the show:

This was not the first nor would it be the last show with the Orb. In 2009 I VJ’d alongside Michael Coles of Malicious Damage for the Baghdad Batteries album launch show. It was an interesting set-up in an arched venue and the audience all wore white paper suits to become a giant projection screen.

I also accompanied them on a handful of UK tour dates in 2013. It was an honour to be passed the baton and work with the Orb who have always incorporated visuals into their shows and were a huge influence in my musical youth.

Beware the terrible sound quality from the on camera microphone:

Kabal NYE Sheffield

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Kabal parties are legendary for those in the Sheffield scene and I was more than happy to return to my home town for this big rave and VJ onto the walls of a gigantic railway arch.
I really enjoyed working with the graphic content created by DJ Pipes and recorded this mix shortly after to the booming beat of a great track by my old mate Tomski.

The Big Chill Festival

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The Big Chill festival had been an important part of the cultural calendar for more than a decade, it was the only festival I had once bought a ticket to attend.

The company in charge of video tech was As Described, Adam and Jim had been providing VJ and video services to the Big Chill for many years. It was the music festival that most supported the VJ and AV performance scene, booking whole rosters of visual artists each year, they even had a stage devoted to AV performance ‘The Media Mix tent’. I was really happy to be invited along as a video technician to help install VJ kits and projections for the stages.

The day before heading to the site at Eastnor Castle I also read a post on the VJ Forums (which was the central site for the international VJ and AV community). It was a message from a DJ’s manager looking for someone to help out with a show at the Big Chill, the artist in question was Sampology, he was coming all the way from Australia and needed someone to help mix live cameras into his Turntablist Audiovisual performance and supply a laptop to run some sound reactive Quartz Composer patches.
Just to add a little extra twist the show was in a dome with 360º projections. I swiftly got in touch and happily helped out on this show and then one other in Bristol with DJ Cheeba while Sam was still in the UK.

Sadly 2010 was the year when the ownership of the festival changed hands and the new team had overlooked the booking of VJ’s. A few artists brought their own visual content but most did not. I knew a couple of the musicians and DJ’s on the line-up so plugged in and gave them my visuals but mostly the Roland V8 video mixers sat idle.

Gatecrasher Boxing Day at Magna

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Booked again to film the massive White Party at Magna, it was a full on production.
I brought in a second camera operator with High Definition kit and used a stills camera to shoot timelapse. We captured the whole multi-room event from build to teardown.

The show included a performance from John ‘OO’ Fleming’s live act 00DB. John asked me to edit a short promo for him from this show:

This was the last job I did for Gatecrasher as they claimed insolvency (as they seemed to do every few years) and screwed me for a chunk of my invoice.

The Birth of ‘Jammin Crew’

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One of the greatest friends I met at university is Sam Daniel, once upon a time Sam had an idea….

Photo by Chris Peake

Sam’s birthday falls between Christmas and New Years eve so for once he wanted to have a big party.
27th Dec 2005 and the idea comes together, a crew of us head down from Sheffield to meet up with Sam and his friends at a basement venue close to the end of Oxford st.

What followed is legendary amongst the friends who were there…and became a labour of love for a small group of us for the next few years. We created events at a huge range of pubs, clubs and venues around London and in Sheffield. We really should have a standalone website and archive!

Subrosa at Sheffield City Hall Ballroom

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The biggest show to date with Jamie Wilkins of Scuba at the helm. We filled the three rooms of the ballroom with music and visuals for two very special events. I pulled in studio mate Anthony for main room VJ duties while I supplied visuals with Justin Randell for live performances by The Lovers, Jody Wildgoose and Mu in room 2.

The footage was shot by my friend and collaborator Mark Cohen who had invested in a Canon XL1s DV camera upon my advice. He gave me ready access to use it in many of my productions at the time and I will be forever grateful for his generosity.

Scuba

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Another housemate at this point was Chris Smith whom I’d met while studying for my art foundation course in Chesterfield. He was a budding DJ and had landed his first club residency at an event called Scuba. It was organised by Jamie Wilkins and Chris passed the word that Jamie was looking for someone to provide some visuals….
So it began, every Saturday night for nearly five years in the small venue of the Fez Club. Sheffield’s best DJ’s were on a monthly roster and we hosted many touring and international guests.

For the visuals I started with a pair of Eumig Super 8 film projectors and a Kodak carousel with a lunchbox full of home made loops and slides. The venue had a few moving mirror lights and I enjoyed flashing them along with the music.

I was given a budget to create content which varied from 8mm film loops and 35mm slides, some digital animations and an occasional VJ set using my first Apple G4 computer. At some point we bought a set of old Black and White TV’s which we sometimes hung precariously from the ceiling with chains.