The Cost of Music Doc is Public

The short documentary I made in collaboration with Matt Brennan, ‘The Cost of Music’, is now live on this site (and Vimeo): for a while it was screened only at music events, shown at conferences in Canada, the USA and Australia, but it’s now available for everyone.

The project was a great success - Glasgow University awarded it Best Collaboration in Arts and Culture for 2020, while the Arts and Humanities Research Council shortlisted one of the other films I made, ‘How Much Should We Pay Artists For Listening to Their Music’ as Best Research Film of the Year at the 2020 Research in Film Awards.

New Year (at last!)

2020 was a rough one but hopefully ‘21 will be an improvement.

As was the case for so many people, last year was very slow work-wise… a few interesting projects, in particular shooting a five episode pantomime for The Gaiety Theatre in Ayr in November, but mostly it was quiet.

It’s good to kick January off with a shiny new music video though, ‘Moment Passed’ by Randolph’s Leap. Their new album ‘Spirit Level’, released on Fika Records, isn’t far behind. Happy New Year!

Ivor Cutler @ Celtic Connections

Wednesday January 29th saw the official launch of the album ‘Return to Y’Hup - The World of Ivor Cutler’. Held at the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow as part of Celtic Connections, it was an incredible success. I created onscreen animations/graphics for the show and have also produced two music videos to accompany the album (the first, ‘Here’s a Health for Simon’ can be found in the last blog post, the second, released in early January is for the flagship track ‘Women of the World’).

It’s been an amazing project to be a part of, working with some enormously talented people!

Return To Y'Hup

Released on Halloween, this music video is designed to support the launch of a new music project: ‘Return to Y’Hup - The World of Ivor Cutler’. Centred around the work of Scottish poet and musician Ivor Cutler, Citizen Bravo, along with Raymond Cutler and a slew of other musicians has created a brand new album. It’ll be released in January 2020 on Chemikal Underground Records, at which time there will also be a live orchestral performance as part of Celtic Connections. It’s a beautiful project and well worth checking out. You can click HERE to pre-order the album, or HERE INSTEAD to find out about tickets for January.

McArthur

This little film follows the work of Brighton based artist Patsy McArthur, as she works on her largest ever commission inside an enormous warehouse on lone from Scottish Canals. At the time the parameters of the project shifted though, so the film was shelved. Just recently we decided to complete the edit and release this version - you can find it on the home page or our Vimeo channel. It’s well worth watching to familiarise yourself with Patsy’s incredible work!

Sister Buddha

Released July 1st on Matador, this is the new video from Belle and Sebastian, for the single ‘Sister Buddha’. The video was directed by Stuart Murdoch who enlisted me as cinematographer. It was a terrific shoot - demanding but a lot of fun and the result is brilliant! The single is part of the soundtrack B&S have created for the forthcoming film ‘Days of the Bagnold Summer’.

Puppets

I recently filmed a Puppetry Scratch Night at Assembly Roxy. Curated by theatre producer Nikki Kalkman, it was a fantastic event, showcasing tasters of shows that are in development from a group of hugely talented artists.

More on The Cost of Music

The Cost of Music project is complete at last and has been a resounding success! Matt Brennan’s Citizen Bravo album ‘Build a Thing of Beauty’ is available to buy as a download, or on Bandcamp and Spotify. Matt and Kyle Devine, Matt’s colleague and a professor at The University of Oslo, have been doing loads of work to promote The Cost of Music project on radio and in print - a couple of notables are Matt’s interview with The Skinny and Kyle’s interview with Rolling Stone.

The short documentary has been (and will continue to be) submitted to film festivals but all of the other video content - a music video for the song ‘Limbs and Bones’, an animation exploring the economic cost of music and an animation exploring the environmental cost of music (featuring illustrations by Anna Miles) - is available over on our Vimeo page and all three are well worth checking out.

The Cost of Music

Things are busy after a (very) long blog break.

After more than two years working with musician and academic Matt Brennan, things are finally coming to fruition. Matt’s project, ‘The Cost of Music’ has involved a lot of research but will culminate in three different releases. Firstly there’s Matt’s album ‘Build a Thing of Beauty’ which he is releasing under his musical nom de plume, Citizen Bravo in conjunction with Chemikal Underground Records. Secondly there is an interactive musical sculpture called ’The Sci Fi Hi Fi’ that will be appearing at various live events as the year progresses. And thirdly (with most relevance to this blog) there is a series of short films primed for release.

All three have been made by Bob’s Trainset: two of these films are animated and will be released online, the third is a short documentary covering the project. It will be submitted to film festivals over the next year but will eventually debut on the net. We also took charge of all promotional photography (such as the example above).

The official launch is on April 11th but there’s a trailer and website and other goodies en route before then.

It’s been a long process but an exciting one and we’re looking forward to the results going public!

BSL Films

I spent last week as cinematographer, working alongside Edinburgh based Media Education, to create some videos for NHS Scotland about British Sign Language. The shoot days were fantastic, collaborating with exceptionally gifted actors, learning to communicate with them both through basic signs and interpreters.