Now..how do you stick that lot together into a storyboard? Well..Elmer Kerr certainly came up with one for this enterprise of his. It involved shooting from a cherrypicker (forgot about my vertigo) above the Castle and also getting to admire the Aston Martin driven over from the UK especially for the shoot. The weather was certainly against us almost to Monsoon level, which meant that when it abated we only had about an hour’s shooting time left so really had to go for it.

By the way…James is played by Roger Barton-Smith who was actually in the running for the real job. As you can see here he has it in spades and great to work with. The long-suffering girls were great too. They took the rain with dignity and makeup intact. I might have pushed the patience of the dancers though lol. 20 slippy takes and more..and no-one lost their head apart from Anne Boleyn.

So…I’ve just finished the edit and it’s up and Elmer is delighted with it seeing it was done on a microbudget. We didn’t even get a chance to grab the car for a few minutes to do a few boyracer doughnuts in the castle carpark. There again..I don’t think you could describe myself or Jim as boyracers..being almost the antithesis.

You can see if you work it out.

It’s all about choice..lol Hit this.

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

From there we headed up to the Mt.Juliet course near Kilkenny for a posh experience. The accommodation they gave us was far too good for production crews anyway. The good bit about this trip was that all hotels seem to have HD TVs in them now..nice big ones to run through the day’s tapes. Great to get a look at everything in 720p to reference the camera settings for the next day too. Mt.Juliet is a gorgeous house with massive grounds..including a Stud Farm and river fishery as well as the Golf Course. We had a swan fly over five feet our heads and I just about managed to lock onto it to get one of the classic ambient shots. There was some serious dollars running around the fields too in the form of bloodstock. We took off after leaving Jon Kiger to play a round of Golf the next day with RTÉ’s very own Sean O’Rourke. It seems like if I throw a stone blindfolded I’ll hit an O’Rourke. Nice guy though and I reckon descended from the Ballinamore branch at a guess.

From there it was a dash back up to Leitrim for a day to touch base and log footage before going down to Limerick to meet up with all the Course Superintendents arriving from the US on their trip to play the Irish courses and compare maintenance practices. It goes without saying that we headed straight off to the nearest pub to catch some music and then a story took hold…as is usual with all things Sleeping Warrior. To cut it short…a rugby team was in the pub trying their best to drink the Guinness brewery dry and I gave our company bank card to Jim to get beer cash. being sensible..lol..I headed out early to leave Jim and Jon to soak it up. As the night progressed it wasn’t bad enough that Jim set fire to himself trying to get a photo from a table..and burned his back quite badly, but someone from the rugby club decided to gather up all their jackets..including Jim’s, Jon’s and all the musicians..and head out to the hotel. As it turned out after Jim and Jon tracked down these guys to their hotel no-one seemed to know anything. The big problem was that our bank card was in the inside pocket of Jim’s jacket..and we were kinda screwed without that particular one for exes etc. Again in the morning we tried to get these guys out of bed to get information as to what happened to the jacket..still to no avail after hours of trying. Jim decided to walk the route they took the night before..via burger bar and then..a miracle..he spotted half his jacket on the pavement..and the other half up a tree. Some drunk had obviously decided to climb the tree with railings around and got caught up. Jim got the half jacket down from the tree and hey presto..one back card in the pocket. However..it cost us half a day’s filming and I lost my sense of humour due to a lost night’s sleep too.

Next….Tralee, Dooks and Lahinch in Part 2.

It will also mean that you can get really good quality video from that €10k worth of camera sitting there looking all lonely…or as good as Skype will let you. It’s a nice freeware program that lets you share any connected camera between applications. I bumped into it from reading an account of how a broadcast crew managed to get good coverage of a plane crash onto the airwaves quickly. www.broadcastingcable.com

So..I’m going to mess with it using two cams and Arkaos to provide a mind blowing show-off of a Skype call..lol. It could turn the studio into a live news centre yet..

Edit: 14th May 2010
I can’t get it to work on Windows 7 at all. Shame that.

Let me know how you get on..