Simon's Cat 'Vet Visit' - Half a Million Hits!

Here's the latest video I made for Simon's Cat Ltd. It was uploaded to the Simon's Cat YouTube channel just before Christmas and has clocked-up over 500,000 views already. In this video we follow Simon Tofield on a reserch visit to the UK headquarters of the Cats Protection charity in Sussex.

Further Adventures in 3D Printing: 16mm Film Scanner Parts.

So a while back I spent a lot of my 'spare' time building a DIY Film-scanner for 're-photographing' the tiny frames of Super8 film. Suffice to say that now I'm starting to dabble with a 16mm film camera, I am ultimately going to want to digitize this larger film too.

This could be a long and possibly fruitless endeavor, but I'm making a start on it. This time I'm thinking about making a film gate with a claw action to pull the film strip through one frame at a time. As before, I'll probably use my DSLR camera with some macro rings to re-photograph the frames as digital stills.

First of all I found the specifactions for 16mm movie film online, here's the dimensions I am working with.

Here's a first look at my prototype film gate mechanism. I'm designing this in Cinema 4D, outputting .stl files and sending these off to Shapeways to have them 3D printed from black 'detail' plastic.

This version of the mechanism is made of 3 parts, a film channel (shown in yellow), a moving bar with two claw teeth (grey) and a top plate (green) to apply some downward pressure to the film. This is probably the simplest kind of mechanism to go for, although more complicated (and precise) mechanisms than this tend to be used in proper film equipment.

I've already got the first couple of parts back from Shapeways (from a slightly earlier design), Here they are.

These parts do seem to fit the film quite well which is encouraging. As I've found before, getting things 3D printed is very much an iterative process, you design, you make you test; then you do it all again... it's not exactly cheap either.

I've now ordered some more parts to make the mechanism shown above, so maybe in a couple of weeks time when the parts come back I'll have a little more to show here.

First Still Frames from my 'new' 16mm film camera.

I've had my Krasnogorsk K3 camera since Summer this year, but not had a chance to shoot anything with it until now... Just before Christmas I took the camera on one of our family trips to Cornwall and shot 100 feet of Kodak 2210 'Surveillance' BW negative 16mm film of the kids larking about on the beach at Constantine Bay.

Last night I developed the first half of this roll using my DIY spiral developing tank. I mixed up some of the same Caffenol C-M developer I've used before for Super 8 film processing.
I'm happy to say I got pictures! This is always a joy and never to be taken for granted when dabbling with old Soviet-era camera equipment and DIY processing techniques.

Here are a few still images from the film...

Vet Visit: New Video for Simon's Cat

Just released online, here's the new video I made for Simon's Cat Ltd. In this film we see Simon's Cat creator Simon Tofield going on a day-trip to the UK Headquarters of the Cats Protection charity in Sussex. I wrote a short blog post about the trip here.

I shot this video using the Canon C100, Canon 24-105 f4 lens and Senheiser G3 lav radio mic. kit. For support I used my Manfrotto monopod.

You can read more about the visit on the Cats Protection blog here or at the Simon's Cat website here.

'Simon Draws' Great ASMR Video Content

The BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning covered the phenomenon of 'ASMR' video content.
The definition of 'Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response' is somewhat nebulous and pseudo scientific but seems to cover any video content that induces a 'tingly' sensation in viewers.

The BBC website article goes on to cite the Bob Ross painting tutorials as an example of ASMR-rich video content. Here in the UK, I don't remember seeing Bob Ross, but we did have Tony Hart. As a child of the 70s/80s I lapped-up Tony Hart's art shows and yes, these were certainly something of an inspiration for the Simon Draws format.

In the Simon Draws videos, Simon Tofield draws various characters from his popular Simon's Cat cartoons whilst simultaneously dispensing his drawing tips and wildlife wisdom along the way.

Over the last few years for I have recorded twelve episodes of the  Simon Draws for Simon's Cat Ltd. I had no idea these would score highly as ASMR video content but they were intended to provide an informative and relaxing viewing experience. If these videos appeal to a new audience seeking an ASMR video experience (whatever that really is) then ... welcome aboard ; )

Out Shooting With the Canon C100

Vet Emily Billings, Simon Tofield and me (Chris Gavin) with the C100 camera. Photo by Emma Burch.

Last week I was out for the day shooting for Simon's Cat Ltd. The plan was to follow Simon's Cat creator Simon Tofield on a visit to the Cats Protection Headquarters in Sussex. The visit has been documented already on the official Simon's Cat website.

I travelled with Simon and producer Emma Burch by train to Haywards Heath, and we spent a good day being shown around the site and meeting the very dedicated staff there.

My role was to shoot documentary material there which will appear shortly as an online video. I knew we would need to be pretty nimble at the location and we would be shooting some interviews too, so I took along a rented Canon C100 camera and not too much other gear. I needed a very portable system for one-man shooting and capturing usable audio too.

This was my first time out with the C100 and I really enjoyed using it, especially compared to using DSLRs like my Canon 600D. We hired the C100, the 24-105/2.8L Canon zoom lens and a Senheiser lav radio mic kit from Cameraworks.

I ended up shooting everything with my Manfrotto 561BHDV-1 monopod. I find this one (with its tiny fold-out feet) gives pretty good stability while being quick to deploy and move around for this kind of rapid shot-getting. The Canon 24-105 zoom lens turned out to be a real time-saver too, so I never did use the tripod or three other lenses I brought with me 'just in case'.

The camera turned out to be a real star. It was possible to get good pictures under difficult indoors and subdued lighting conditions: having proper tools to monitor focus and audio whilst recording was such a joy too. I'll certainly be using one of these again soon.

Digitoids: A Work in Progress #004

Well, in my 'spare' time I'm continuing to find my way around Cinema 4D. Keen readers will remember I bought the full 'Studio' edition earlier in the year and that I recently upgraded to the latest r16 version too.

As for the subject matter: I was playing around with this Digitoids concept a few years back, possibly as a stop motion / After Effects hybrid, but I'm now trying out this CGI / After Effects technique instead.

Just to try something new, I decided I would post updates of this project from time to time as I go along. So once evry few days I am replacing the file on Vimeo to show a continually evolving 'Work in Progress.' For anyone that wants to see how the work is progressing, click by here again soon and hopefully you will see the clip move on a little.

New Documentary Film : Ottoman Art 1450-1600

Now online at the Hali Publishing website, here's the arts/history documentary film I have just made. This film was specially commissioned for an exhibition of fine Ottoman-era artifacts now taking place at The Palazzo Lomellino in Genoa. The film is in Italian with English subtitles.

Ottoman Art: new Arts/History Documentary Film

I'm especially pleased to have just delivered a new film to support a major exhibition of Ottoman-era artwork taking place at the Palazzo Lomellino in Genoa over the next three months. I was commissioned by Hali Publishing Ltd. (on behalf of the Bruschettini Foundation) to create the eight and a half minute film to introduce the exhibition at the prestigious gallery space in Genoa.



The film is an arts/history documentary piece taking viewers through the era 1450-1600, a time when the Ottoman empire rose to become the dominant power in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.


The cultural artifacts on display in this exhibition are particularly impressive, encompassing  a stunning collection of silk textiles, ceramics, armour and of course, fine carpets.

The film combines still imagery of such artifacts, archival illustrations and motion graphics to tell the story of the growth of the Ottoman empire and the important role that fine arts and crafts played in this era.



The script for the film was written by renowned US scholar Walter B. Denny and for this exhibition the story is narrated in Italian with English sub-titles. Currently the film is not available online, but I can thoroughly recommend a trip to Genoa to see it, here are the exhibition details.

Another Behind The Scenes film made for Simon's Cat 'Off To The Vet'

Here's another short video I've made for Simon's Cat Ltd. This is quite a simple interview video in which Simon's Cat creator Simon Tofield describes the inspiration behind his new Off To the Vet film project. As reported previously, this video was part of a month-long crowd-funding campaign by the team to raise funding for a major new film project.