Alchemy 101

Showreel 2010

2010-09-06T03:18:00.000-07:00

New showreel, edited on the plane over to Australia. I'd like to thank Apple for making me pay 15,000 yen for a new battery for my Macbook. A battery that in no way, shape or form was going to last even close to long enough. Also would like to thank Jetstar for providing me with elbow space that had me doing an impression of a T-Rex.

Showreel 2010 from Michael Condon on Vimeo.

Guerillas in the midst

2010-08-01T03:17:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm sure that headline has been used before but I'm claiming it.

I shot another video recently and as my brilliant title suggests it was undertaken as a guerilla shoot. Due to one mind-numblingly low budget and an overly-ambitious idea, I did some location scouting at some haikyo (derelict buildings) spots around Tokyo and came up with a plan to shoot a video in two days at three locations.

Armed with a Canon 7D, some money for trains and food, the artist and with a little help from some generous friends we got the thing done.

The video was for LA-based artist, MYSELF. A rock guy from New Orleans via NY and LA.
He recorded his new album "Punk Floyd" with the drummer from Fishbone and one of the members of Big Audio Dynamite and was in Tokyo for the launch of the album.

I actually ended up shooting two low-budget videos for him, the second of which I'll detail in another post.

The first and probably main location was at a spot, I'm not going to actually name due to fear of reprisal - possibly something including death. Anyway, we had to jump barbwire fence and dodge some security patrols and keep an eye out for Buddhist cultists but we escaped without getting caught. And it was well worth it too.

Originally I was planning to shoot on a RED ONE camera but due to budgetary constraints this idea was scrapped. I ended up renting the Canon 7D and, in the end,
this was the only way we could have shot in the main location.

The second day was a bit less illegal but a hell of a lot longer. We shot around the business district around Marunouchi from first train to get a feeling of a deserted city before heading out to Chiba to shoot the car scene. The ever-generous Darrell Nelson lent us his car, let us use his room for the make up and even cooked us sausage sandwiches for lunch. Brilliant. He also drove us right across Tokyo so that we could make it to the last location (almost) on time. Oh yeah, he's an extra in the video as well. Nothing the man can't do.

Make-up artist Mayu Ozaki did a great job at short notice (as usual - sorry Mayu).

Then, the last location, an old abandoned amusement park. We were racing to get everything shot and then finally got busted by security. Luckily, after a bit of persuasion (and a bribe in the form of a couple of CDs), he gave us 30 minutes to finish up.

This video was a pretty straight-forward narrative based video. A sci-fi "Last-Man-on-Earth" concept. I managed to get some good shots from the 7D and took full advantage of the 60fps that it can do. Used a lot of that in the end.

The video is out now, and now I'm on to editing the second video, but more about that later.

Oh yeah, and thanks to the flying Frenchman, Robin Rossigneux, for his X-treme 4-hour storyboard session.

Here's the video:

MYSELF - Do The Zombiewalk from Michael Condon on Vimeo.

Trailer prep

2010-02-19T07:19:00.000-08:00

It's been a long time... we shouldn't have left you...

Over the past couple of months preproduction for Walton has been moving along. Writing of the short film/promo trailer script is almost complete. Now casting will get underway as we begin in earnest. A lot of the image testing is still to be done but I thought I'd throw up a couple of quick night shots that our cinematographer Paul from Visceral Psyche took. He was really just showing off what his 50mm Canon lense on his RED ONE could do with a bit of natural lighting. Also Paul did a couple of quick grades to show a bit of the variation you can get.

Raw file

Grade 1

Grade 2

Trailer for new Yokohama Coyote Short

2009-12-07T19:17:00.000-08:00

Here's the latest trailer for Yokohama Coyote's new short - it's a kind of music video I guess. Shot in Kimihiro Shida's particular style up on the north side of Tokyo (I think) where the horrible things happen (ie. where Hiro and I both live). If you're watching on Facebook check it out here.

Walton teaser trailer animatic

2009-11-27T18:11:00.000-08:00

We started prepartion for the promotional trailer for Walton a while back and part of this work included a teaser animatic created by pre-vis artist Morgan Denton. The promotional trailer will be longer, probably 3 or 4 scenes plus a kind of money-shot teaser at the end. If you're reading this on Facebook click here to see the trailer.

Walton teaser animatic from Michael Condon on Vimeo.

Looking for a beginning

2009-11-26T06:28:00.000-08:00

Headed up into the mountains with Darrell Nelson recently to scout out some potential locations for the first scene from Walton. This scene will also be the first scene of the promo trailer that we're going to shoot in February.

The day was characterized by a total lack of prepartion that was only matched by a ridiculous amount of luck in being able to find exactly what we were looking for.

Check out the Sound of Music pics followed by the ones with adjusted colour, probably a bit closer to the look we'll be going for...

「樹齢」予告編

2009-08-31T06:33:00.000-07:00

Here's the trailer for Yokohama Coyote's latest short film. Can't wait to see the film.
Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/user/YokohamaCoyote or watch the trailer embedded below...

Walton

2009-07-18T20:29:00.000-07:00

Just finished off the latest draft of the synopsis for a feature script, entitled "Walton" (at least for now). Been researching and writing it on and off (mostly off) for a year. It's a gothic science fiction story influenced a lot by Edgar Allan Poe's writing and the late 19th century romanticists as well as by movies like Bladerunner and the Exorcist. I've teamed up with a couple of veteran writers to help finish it off and am shopping it around at the moment...

新し名刺

2009-07-14T06:51:00.000-07:00

Got a few things on the go at the moment but can't really talk about them yet. Less mysterious than it sounds. I have to make sure things are going to happen before I talk about them. One involves a script I've been working on on and off for the last year.

But anyway, done up some new business cards in the meantime. Holy craps! look at that - business cards!!!

Only problem was I just ordered them without checking how much they would actually cost. The bastards are so expensive I don't think I can actually give them out to anyone.

Made in Glitch promo video

2009-05-29T23:10:00.000-07:00

While I'm at it, here's a promo video I put together for Made in Glitch it features some images from the upcoming video I'm editing for edIT from the Glitch Mob. The music for the promo video is by Betamaxnomates from MIG. It was shot on an Sony EX1 with Alfie Goodrich working as director of photography. The full video with music by edIT will be released soon by Made in Glitch.

Check out the bottom of the page for a bigger version.

Made in Glitch 2009 promo video from Michael Condon on Vimeo.

Made in Glitch @ La Fabrique vid

2009-05-29T22:48:00.000-07:00

Here's a cut up I did for multimedia glitch hop collecive Made in Glitch video was shot using a Canon HV20 and was then edited to a Megasoid track played live by one half of the Montreal duo, Speakerbruiser Rob. Also featured are Mochipet out of San Francisco and Mattb, Betamaxnomates and LUCCA from Made in Glitch. The event took place at La Fabrique in Shibuya in February. Also credit for the opening image goes to photographer Alfie Goodrich - check out more of his great images here.

Check out the bottom of the page for a bigger version of the video.

Made in Glitch at La Fabrique in Shibuya from Michael Condon on Vimeo.

McG is a dumbass

2009-05-29T22:24:00.000-07:00

Well, Terminator Salvation has been getting absolutely slaughtered by reviewers everywhere. It had 33% on rottentomatoes.com last time I checked. As mentioned previously, I don't pay too much attention to reviews these days but I have to say that one thing has lead me to conclude that they are probably right - and that one thing was an interview with director "McG" that I saw at the Terminator exhibition at the Miraikan in Odaiba, Tokyo. McG was attempting to explain the complexities of the movie and it quickly became apparently that he is, well, a dumbass. He was attempting to use "big" words like "humanity" and other big words like... "humanity".

"We have robots in the water - the 'hydrobots' and robots on the road... the 'moto-terminators' and then there are the 'harvesters' which go around picking up the 'humanity'."

McG - shut up, please just shut up - for the sake of humanity... and could you please go back to making music videos.

Well anyway, the exhibition was cool.

Here are some pics shot by Sarah Noorbakhsh. See if you can spot the "humanity".

Michael Bay homage

2009-05-29T21:13:00.000-07:00

There's one constant that makes Hollywood great - big f@#king explosions. And no other director does big f@#king explosions better than Michael Bay, director of such hits as "Playboy Video Centerfold: Kerry Kandell" and "Meatloaf Bat Outta Hell II: Picture Show". Bay has proven time and time again that in a town full of swinging dicks, his is the swingingest. Most recently, Bay was challenged to a dick measuring contest by Terminator Salvation director McG which he later won by forfeit.

But one contest he lost was the chance to direct his vision of the Dark Knight. A shame really. Okay, this is pretty old now but for those who haven't seen it, here's the rejected script "found" by Spill.com.

And of course, here are some big f@#king explosions:

Terminator Salvation footage (10min)

2009-05-17T01:25:00.000-07:00

Credit for this post has to go to www.geektyrant.com who have put up 10 mins of footage from the new Terminator film. It shows a lot of the story so if you don't want to know too much about the movie I would suggest you don't watch it. If, on the other hand you want to geek out on a chunk of footage before you get the chance to check out the movie itself, go for it.

FOOTNOTE: Terminator Salvation ended up being a huge disappointment.

Thirst

2009-05-16T21:32:00.000-07:00

Tarantino's "Inglorious Basterds" might be soaking up a lot of the limelight in Cannes at the moment but another film that's screening that should be taken note of is "Bakjwi" ir "Thirst" by Oldboy director Chan-wook Park. The vampire movie is his follow-up to 2006's comedy/drama "I'm a Cyborg, But That's Okay" and looks to be taking the Korean director back to his revenge trilogy roots, in terms of style, anyway. After "Let The Right One In" I'm defitely in the mood for any vampire movie that threatens to break from the norm and "Thirst" looks to do that. It's gotten mixed reviews but then again, I don't really read reviews anymore. Check out the trailer below:

Radiohead 15 Step music video

2009-05-05T21:05:00.000-07:00

Very cool anime video for 15 Step by Radiohead. Directored by Mizuki Totori who is based in Shibuya. I don't know too much about him at this point but I intend to change that. He's a graphic designer by the looks of it. There's an article in Ping Mag about him here. As far as I can work out the Radiohead video is based on or maybe uses some of the animation from a 3-minute anime called Drop. Totori was one of the winners of a competition that Radiohead held with independent animation netowrk Aniboom. You can find more videos here. (Too be honest I haven't looked at them all yet so I might be posting a few more soon.)

Here's Mizuki Totori's website: http://muzika.jp/fla/index.html

Moon

2009-05-03T00:35:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to see somewhat of a pattern developing with my posts here. I suppose I am a sucker for good sci-fi stories. Moon, which is the debut feature film for commercial director Duncan Jones (aka Zowie Bowie - David Bowie's son), will premiere around Septemb er this year. The film stars Sam Rockwell, probably one of my favorite actors alive today. The film is about a miner (Rockwell) who after 3 years working in isolation on the moon is about to return to Earth. His only companion is his ship's computer (voiced by Kevin Spacey). Things start getting a bit hairy towards the end of his stay...

Check out the trailer:

District 9 trailer

2009-05-02T23:59:00.000-07:00

Something I didn't expect to see when I went to check the Apple Trailers website today was this film - District 9. I had no idea that this was even in production. I have to say that I'm pretty excited. The film is directed by Neil Blomkamp, a young director that I have been a big fan of for some time. Blomkamp is probably best known for his work in advertising (You might have seen his dancing Citroen C4 transformer) but it's his short films that caught my attention a while back. District 9 is a feature length version of his Alive in Joburg short, mini fake doco about aliens living as second-class citizens in Johannesburg, South Africa. It mixed camcorder footage with photo-realistic 3D effects way before JJ Abrams' Cloverfield was conceptualised. This was a technique that went on to become a signature of his work. It's one of the best examples of how the limitations of your equipment can be turned around to be an advantage.

Check out Distict 9 trailer below:

And "Alive in Joburg":

Yellow:

And the Halo shorts:

Breaking Bad opening scene

2009-04-28T21:07:00.000-07:00

Okay so I guess we get onto things a bit slower over here but, anyway...

Best opening scene to a TV show (or movie for that matter) that I've scene in ages. From the pilot for the series "Breaking Bad." Great series starring Bryan Cranston who I didn't recognize for the entire first episode. He's the dad in Malcolm in the Middle, which is another show I love. Cranston is totally unrecognizable as the main character Walt White, a chemistry teacher who runs into a few problems. Anyway, won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't read anything about it. I would just recommend you to watch it whenever you get the chance.

Ruben Frosali

2009-04-25T08:40:00.000-07:00

These pics are by Tokyo-based photographer/graphic designer Ruben Frosali from ReallyJapan (you can check out his blog here too. An absolute natural. Ruben is able to capture the grittier side of Tokyo - and Hong Kong for that matter. He's recently been sharpening his photoshop skills adding bits and pieces to make some cyberpunk-esk shots.

Yokohama Coyote

2009-04-22T08:05:00.000-07:00

While I'm in the mood for plugging people...

My mate, Hiro, aka Yokohama Coyote is a music video director doing cool stuff with his Canon XL that he runs around Tokyo shooting clips, guerilla-style, with. He was asked by a video company to come onboard as an AD. He promptly said goodbye. He's now working on a short film project, the result of which I'm very keen to see.

Here's one of his videos:

Mattb remixes

2009-04-21T21:21:00.000-07:00

Right this is my last one for the day.

Matt's got some awesome new remixes of some tracks including a Mochipet song.
I might some more about them later when I have some time.

Anyway you can download them here.

Made in Glitch @ Legato Vid

2009-04-21T21:14:00.000-07:00

Here's the live cut up video I did for the Made in Glitch party at Legato last year. Edit from the Glitch Mob, Mattb and Betamaxnomates from Made in Glitch, Broken Haze and OQTO Teevza...

F&%king fantastic party. Nuff said - well maybe a bit more - check out the video.

Made in Glitch @ Legato, Shibuya, Tokyo from Michael Condon on Vimeo.

Mad Smack

2009-04-21T21:03:00.000-07:00

Some very cool stuff coming out of Tokyo at the moment...

These two artists Broken Haze and Joga coming out of the IDM scene have teamed up to form Mad Smack, a glitch hop outfit, remixing their own tracks and some more well-known RnB and hip hop tracks. Check out their MySpace page here.

Insector.07

Bust-a-capacitor shot list

2009-04-21T21:00:00.001-07:00

Well, it was one of the more painful episodes... The Bust-a-capacitor clip that put me in debt for a year and then was almost completed... before my lead 3D animator bailed. That was after maybe 13 artists bailing during the course of the post production. We still managed to get some nice shots out of it. But it's not a completed clip is it...

BAC shot montage from Michael Condon on Vimeo.

Back to it.

2009-04-21T06:07:00.000-07:00

I really am resurrecting it this time. I promise. And to prove it I'm going to be realistic by writing two lines and then posting a pic. Everybody check out this piece created by Phil Couzens at FreeSoulDesign

... it's good.

Lazerbabies video

2009-01-14T07:17:00.000-08:00

Hey, I'm resurrecting this blog. I think at the moment I'm writing this to myself. Oh well, anyway. Shot a new video. It's for edIT from the Glitch Mob out of LA. The song's called Lazerbabies and it's for a Multimedia DVD for Made in Glitch. I'm going to write more I promise... but in the meantime - here are some screenshots...

Composition by Ruben Frosali at ReallyJapan.com

Shot by Alfie Goodrich

Shot by Alfie Goodrich

Shot by Alfie Goodrich

Shot by Alfie Goodrich

Busting Capacitors

2008-06-15T06:48:00.000-07:00

At the moment, I`m working to finish the post production on a clip for Electronica artist Mr Hayday.

We`ve got a fairly international team working on it all. We`re spread out across the northern hemisphere from Liverpool to Spain, Vancouver to various parts of the U.S. I had one guy in Mexico too. Me in Tokyo of course as well.

You can check out their websites after the jump.

Compositors

Ryan Boyle, Marcelo Daniel Savio, Cliff Berry

CG

Lars Gerht, Jason Rugge, Jas Gidda, Stephen Murphy

Matte painting

Milan Schere, James Pavitt

You can also check out the concept art here.

Dave the DVD

2008-06-15T06:39:00.000-07:00

The final cut of my camcord-o-vision zombie opera Dave the English Teacher is almost complete. Hopefully DVDs will be available to buy on the Net within two weeks. All the artwork has been done and I`ve just put out the trailer.

Here`s a little sneak preview of the actual DVDs...

Agarui

2008-06-09T02:20:00.000-07:00

I remember the first time when Michael Bay and I crossed paths. It was in Ipswich (Australia not England - Michael Bay has never been to that Ipswich as far as I know). It was a balmy summer`s evening, the perfect night for the regional Queensland premiere of "Pearl Harbor" (notice the American spelling, as I recall there was some debate at The Queensland Times as to whether a "u" should be added when the film was being written about). Anyway, I was running late and managed to miss all the free wine. A plastic Hawaiian lei was shoved into my hand as I was ushered into the cinema and taken down to the very front row. As I watched the almost 3 hours of mind-numbing shite-awfulness that was thrust upon me, all the while my head looking like a PEZ dispenser, I remember thinking "Goddamn you Michael Bay, damn you to HELL!"

Well, 7 years later here I am, one zombie movie down. What`s Michael Bay done? He did get to play with Transformers... and Scarlett Johansson... hmmm, I`ll give you that Michael Bay. This time. What else... ah yeah, he`s got a blog.

Which brings me to my point, now so have I. It`ll be about music videos, random movie stuff, probably the occasional zombie will make it`s way in. So keep posted. For those of you who knew Stand Alone Productions, it became Alchemist Pictures when I teamed up with Aussie director Rob Paterson.

Here`s my first video under the Alchemist banner. It`s for Tokyo hip-hop mc Agarui from the 3000 Worlds crew. Check it out:

Agarui music video from Michael Condon on Vimeo.