So…last year melted into this one in a very strange way. I’ve been working with Johnny Gogan of Bandit Films on most of his things lately. Last years projects were mainly the production of the short art film Astray. This was made for Sligo Arts under the per cent for art scheme, a very clever initiative for funding the arts. The film itself is Johnny’s clever concept of a play within a play based on the old legend of The Mad Sweeney, a legendary Gaelic Chief who went mad in battle and the subject of a text found in Sligo in the seventeenth century and translated by Seamus Heaney. As he appears in the play Swim at Two Birds it referenced the idea nicely from the theatre. From there the Mad Sweeney is cursed by St.Ronan to live his life amongst the birds pursued by Lynchahaun. In this case the Sweeney was played by the one and only Killian Rogers, a local performance artist who is already a legend in his own field. Cinematography was by the talented up and coming Peter Martin with music by No Crows arranged by Steve Wickham (Waterboys). Directed by Johnny and edited by yours truly it takes you on a very surreal trip using all the landscapes available in Co.Sligo. The film will be up soon on the Studio North West TV website after its launch.

The subject of Studio North West I’ll leave to another post, suffice I had the head down building the website helped by Chloe James from the CNW office in  Dromahair. I won’t turn this into a rant on the whole screwed up state of the new web standard html5 for delivering video online here, suffice to say they have a lot of work to do before it all gets anywhere near the versatility, user experience and security of Flash web video. Watch this space…

OK..so it took a good while longer than anticipated, we got there eventually. The first edit for a preview was completed within three weeks of finishing shooting. That was a story in itself though. The cut was due for screening on the 11th of March in the mobile cinema in Dromahair. I’m no good with dates but that one remains with me for more than one reason. That afternoon I was under serious pressure to get the cut out and onto DVD for projection that night. I was nearly at the point when I could hit the button to encode for disc, when I get a phone call to say my wife’s waters had just broken and had to leg it (after hitting the button). Our new wee son Eóghan was due on the 11th but we hardly expected him to show up bang on time. Must be the military genes or something. So instead of getting to see the film on the big screen I headed off with Serita to maternity for a long night. It seems that the Gods were with us as both outcomes worked well. We got a 10lb healthy boy and Leitrim got a film. The screening got very positive reports from the feedback sheets that were filled in. Of course you can’t please everyone all the time but we weren’t too far off anyway.

After that it was a question of refining the edit and pulling it into broadcast timings. Then it was down to colour correction, audio and all the usual technical screwdriver stuff that broadcast mastering demands to get it to transfer to Digibeta tape for delivery to TG4 (don’t get me going on the subject of broadcasters and digital file delivery). That process means I have to watch it during the process on every tape late at night as we can’t afford any glitches whatsoever. Then we wave goodbye to tape boxes and wait to hear all is good.

Of course you could randomly round up any ten people or so in Leitrim and you would get ten different films from many different stories. This film is really just one slice of life of an eclectic mix of blow-ins and blow-outs and what makes Leitrim a different place to live. From gun-running in South Africa to Kurdish refugees, the cultural mix of children at the Gaelscoil to farmers who challenged the State..it’s all there. Johnny Gogan had a unique vision of what he wanted to make and we hope you like it.

So..the broadcast date is September 28th at 9.30pm.

Working to a pretty tight deadline for this type of production we seem to have got to the point today where the first cut is due for preview tonight in the mobile cinema in Dromahair.

The shoot was actually good craic, although pretty hectic. The crew consisted of Johnny Gogan as Director, yours truly on tech direction, second cam and audio etc..with Jim King as researcher, the masterfully talented Nuria Roldos on lead cam, Daniel and Niall as production assistants and grip. We were working out of Connor McDermottroes’s house in Dromahair as a crew base and for once we got to shoot fairly locally with subjects that make for a pretty eclectic bag of targets. It ranged from Germans, to Brits, to locals that had returned home to the Kurdish community in Carrick-on-Shannon. It’s also a good sample of what makes the “New Irish” (not non-nationals or foreigners any more thank God). I have to say that we ended up with threads that had an undercurrent of war somehow. We have Mike and Jo smuggling arms to the ANC in Africa and the Kurds suffering Jihad under Khomeini, bombs under Bush and all ending up in Leitrim. I have to say that they are inspiring people to meet for their resilience, hospitality and friendliness after horror we can not imagine…lovely people.

Once all that was done it was head down for the edit. This time I worked in Johnny’s studio for lack of distraction and making sure of the content focus. At least this time Johnny has invested in a data recorder to alleviate to pain of logging tapes for the main cam. As we did a lot of the interviews in the Irish language it meant subtitling..not my favourite job I can tell you.
Oh..our very own Jim King features in the film too. His parents were fairly typical of the Leitrim folk who headed for England and where Jim was born. They returned after not too long and settled into farming. We’ve even used footage from an old B/W doc made on the water scheme in the 60s where Jim shows up as a four year old in the kitchen. I’m not sure how he’ll cope with the fame..lol.
After 3-4 weeks (will work it out soon) we’re ready for the preview cut to be screened in the mobile cinema. I don’t know how it will go down as it’s difficult to know what people might expect.
Once again it was a pleasure to work with the powerhouse hurricane that is Johnny Gogan. He even managed to fight the general election as a Green Party candidate while production and post was happening. That and working on ongoing future project production planning, he took it all in his stride as only he can. He must have worn his mobile phone out…a well as the crew.

Also…Serita my wife is expecting our second child any day now..and probably tonight knowing our trait for strange timing. Watch this space.

This project was also shot by Johnny Gogan in parallel with Padraig Meehan’s own documentary “Uplands”. As having been reared in this environment this is his own guide to the megaliths of Sligo that he has known all his life and a very unique interpretation of their origins and myths. As Padraig is an official OPW guide to the sites he has his own presentation style which is unique and not to be missed. Maybe it comes with a liberal dose of a rock’n roll past (Those Nervous Animals..80s) but I find him compulsive watching and I know him..and that’s rare enough. I personally think that the future for Padraig as a presenter could be bright. When it comes to the Megaliths of the North West then he’s the man. Watch this space.

I got a weird feeling I was looking at something extremely familiar. This was explained today when I was raking around in the big old shed beside the house at home here in Dromahair. The end part of the building lost it’s roof back about ten years ago and I haven’t had the time or need to put it back on yet. What did I see in front of me? A clutch of about eight Orchids..the same ones we had been shooting at Rosses Point. All quite strange. I then went on a hunt around the garden (2 acre jungle) in the wild grass areas and couldn’t find any more anywhere. It seems that the conditions in my shed might have been ideal for them.

I have to point out that I’m not the most educated person on this earth when it comes to wild flowers. I know most of what grows around here in the hedgerows though as I’ve always had a keen interest in in monitoring the environment. I keep an online diary of all seasonal factors and changes as well as details of what is flowering when and the weather at the time so I can compare year to year. It helps to have an accurate record of what’s happening to the stuff I plant..fruit and veg etc. To have Orchids pop up like this to me seems amazing. All I have to do now is research how to seed them out.

There you go. I hear the Orchid people are a kinda fundamentalist cult. That itself fascinates me as I was already looking at cutting a broadcast piece just on the basis of what we got at Rosses Point. The people who are obsessed with Orchids would be as interesting to me as the Orchids themselves.

More later methinks..
Here’s the pics..

You may have heard of the online discount supplier globalmediapro.com who sell everything for professional video. They stock a battery..which appears to be made for them which solves the whole problem. It’s a 8.8Ah 65Wh battery that has not only a level meter inbuilt but also has power output for lights etc. It lists at about €70 and if you order just one carriage brings it up to €93 or so to Ireland..and then you get stung another €26 in VAT and charges when it arrives. However..I would consider that €125 for a battery gives me 3-4 hours shooting time is great value. I bought one to test the system and now we are going back for more as Johnny Gogan of Bandit Films is also running the JVC Gy-HD111e as well and we tend to pool gear.

Information on globalmediapro was hard to find online. I had read in a forum that they deliver pretty quickly but don’t fare so well on the customer service. I can’t vouch for the last point but can for the first. Seeing as they don’t take credit cards or PayPal etc it has to be bank transfer. Here in the EU we can use IBAN. This is how it went. They seem to be based in New Zealand. I faxed my bank the details..they transferred it to them into their bank in Denmark and within 3 days the battery turned up by DHL courier from China! That’s mind-blowing. It came complete with a rake of Customs/Import paperwork too. Once you reclaim the VAT (Which I should have sorted not to pay) €93 is cheap. On that basis I can’t recommend Globalmediapro highly enough.

For anyone who needs one of these..and if you own one of these cameras then boy do you need a few..here’s the link.
Globalmediapro DC488 Battery

Time flies past so quickly. I never even got to finish the blog about shooting last years series and now we’re into the start of shooting TurfNet Goes to Ireland 2010. We’ve started with the Rush course and will be down to Porthmarnock soon as well as the local one at Rosses Point. We had to hold off a bit due to the Arctic air over Ireland causing not only slow grass growth to make the courses look good but also for the benefit of the cameraman’s fingers(mine). It looks now as if the cold snap has moved on and we can get on with a bit of summer..touchwood.

Here’s a pic of the main Award. I know it’s not a great pic considering what the award is for but I like the irony. Might drill some holes in it and hang it around Jim’s neck to go with his Afro wig, tie-dyed T-Shirt and flares..lol.

It’s all been the brainchild of Prin Duignan and Mary Morris who wanted to provide not only a brilliant study aid for Leaving Cert students but also to archive this valuable material. This project is an example of what Prin has done for the Irish language in Co.Leitrim and nationally and why he was recently awarded The Leitrim Guardian’s Person of the Year…see here. and read the complete article here It was certainly a pleasure to work with Prin and Mary and to see Prin’s dedication to, and love for the language in action is quite something.

I have to say that myself and Johnny of Bandit Films had a great time shooting the series. Notable days out included filming Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh well known musician/vocalist/presenter from the band Altan , Cathal O’Searcaigh, Johnny Spillane and Eoin Coughlan, Áine Ní Ghlinn, Louis de Paor, Deirdre Brennan, Máire Mhac an tSaoi, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and more. Post production was difficult due to the vast amount of quality material to be edited and produced.
You can access the web site and watch all of the videos here at Filí na Gaeilge TV

Here’s the Gongs and plaques etc.

From