This is MP3Monster's blog. The blog covers music, technology, photography and anything else Monster considers worthy of blogging about.Photography published again
Posted by monster in General, Tappers
More of my photography has been published. This time as part of the support to the Basingstoke Tappers I did some photography at their Summer Show. The photos have then been used by a local paper (Basingstoke Gazette) who published an article about the show. The annoying thing is that they have assumed copyright on the photos given to them for the article and are now trying to sell them depriving a not for profit oranisation of income and failing to accredit the rights to the photos correctly.
Photos from the show - with the Gazette's copyright watermarking
March and preparations for another Tapper’s show are underway
Posted by monster in Tappers
The last weekend in July is traditionally the weekend of the Basingstoke Tappers & Jazz Dance Company’s summer show at the Anvil Theatre. Back in January the dance company’s director set the theme for the show and started developing ideas for routines. The dance classes now will start to incorporate the development of the routines now.
As the webmaster and for the last few years stage manager my involvement comes in short bursts. Currently the site is getting updated with show details, the information has to be disseminated to various (largely) community sites. This is a slow process as these sort of sites and their impact change year on year. This year I’ve been using Google Alerts to help identify when sites get updated and how quickly Google picks up the information.
Once all of that is done, it is increasingly quiet, largely because my other half is going to classes five days a week plus performances for community organisations to help with PR. Then at the start of July (a couple of weeks before the show) it all goes a little crazy. I need to attend the rehearsals so I can see how things should work and produce a set of notes for the crew. Plus contributing with some media for the dancers and last year late on I had additional video media to produce for the show.
Things don’t end after the performance. Between shows if there are any little hitches from the previous night these get worked through - which could be a technical job for the crew with the scenery, or rehearsing part of a routine for the Tappers. Then there is the get out - stripping all the staging, lighting, sound (and there is a lot of cabling for a 20 piece Jazz Orchestra plus mics for picking up the tap from the stage plus monitors for the sound around the Orchestra and dancers), band, scenery that is being ‘flown’ in from above need to be backed and shipped out of the theatre straight after the last show.
If you would like to know more about the Basingstoke Tappers - go here. To book tickets with the Anvil Theatre go here.
Beyond the Sea with the Basingstoke Tappers at Exigency In Specie
Posted by monster in Tappers
Friends - Richard & Veth, have attended this year’s Tapper’s show and again blogged about it. See what they have to say here:
Link to Beyond the Sea with the Basingstoke Tappers at Exigency In Specie
Beyond the Sea with the Basingstoke Tappers
Posted by monster in Tappers
Another July and another show - completed now. You can see a blog entry about the performance from a friend of ours at : Beyond the Sea with the Basingstoke Tappers.
For the Tappers, this was the 15th year, although only the 7th for me, and third as stage manager. Unfortunately, on the first night we experienced a technical hitch that we managed to gloss over, but it prevented us showing a short celebratory film.
There are also a couple of pictures on Flickr that can be found here.
If you would like to know more about the Tappers please visit their website - www.BasingstokeTappers.co.uk
Creating Videos for the web
Posted by monster in Tappers, Technology
As webmaster for the Basingstoke Tappers I get an excuse to play with the web in a more serious manner. Recently I was asked to create a promotional video for them. Fortunately the last couple of years the summer shows have been recorded professionally and made available on DVD - which meant with the use of Video ReDo I could easily extract clips and audio that I could use. Although deciding what would make a good clip was a lot harder.
Having gathered the images and clips I wanted to use I pieced it together with MPEG Wizard (from Womble.com), which once you’ve got a feel for the application is brilliant - sequencing and setting up some very smooth transitions, overlayed audio etc etc. for a $100 application it is very impressive. My only critism of MPEG wizard was that the codecs I tried to use didn’t seem to encode in a way that I expected(one of a fair range of output codecs) - I certainly had playback problems when I put the produced AVI on another machine. So I simply used Auto Gordian Knot to transcode to a format that I knew to be playable on anything (and tweak the compression ratio etc) .
The final step - zap it up to Google Video to host and add a link into the CMS that we use to run the site. The facility to configure the video settings for Google meant the video looks like it is actually embedded straight into the site (the only give away is the little Google logo). You can see the result at www.BasingstokeTappers.co.uk/video.
All quiet on the posting front / Basingstoke Tappers
Posted by monster in General, Tappers
I’ve been a bit slower with blog posts over the last few days. That’s because the dance company my wife performs with had their annual summer show the weekend just gone. The culmination of months of hard work by the dancers and crew.
Although my view is a touch biased. The Basingstoke Tapper’s shows look very professional (no small achievement for a community organisation); but then that is in part a reflection of the background of Tracey Kinchenton who runs the company and her husband John Deemer who handles the music side of things. Both Tracey & John have and continue to work in the entertainment business professionally.
My involvement is very much behind the scenes, acting as stage manager for the last couple of years. So it falls to me to learn the show and then on the show nights ensure that everything is where it should be and keep the rest of the crew informed of what is going and reminding them of their cues and any sudden other tasks that may need to be dealt with.
Then after the final night - there is the get out, which means helping breaking down all the staging, props, lighting which typically takes the full until 2 and 3 in the morning.
It may not sound very hard but the job is pretty physical before and after the shows. Then during the show it is noisy, hot and very stressful. You’ve got a headphone over one ear and a microphone attached to it (together know as a can) through which you’re trying to listen to questions and information being passed back and forth between the crew - over which the other microphones will be picking up the sound from the main auditorium. On top of that you’re stood a couple of feed from the stage monitors (speakers) for the entire duration of the show 2 or more hours of show. In the other ear you’re listening for the show director (Tracey Kinchenton) - just incase she needs to issue more requests or changes details of the show; plus listening out for the dancers as they prepare, enter and exit the stage beside you (and it can get very busy).
As this year the music was purely from backing tracks with live vocals rather than the usual live band or orchestra, you’re looking one way to watch the timers on the music sources so you know when things have got to end. You’re watching the stage to make sure that nothing is going wrong - straying props, children getting too close to the stage edge, pyrotechnics or lights. Not to mention keep track of all my cue notes.
To be honest - the largest sense of satisfaction comes from the release of pressure after the final night of the show. The feeling of relief is incredible once you’ve called for house lights to come up and you can ‘come off cans’ as they say and the show has run smoothly.
