Each year the summerfestivities hit my hometown of Nijmegen like a nuclear bomb. Nearly one and a half million people descend upon our city near the river to party and enjoy music.
In 2010 I was asked by VPRO Broadcasting Company to film special acoustic sessions in the oldest stone building in the country for their music website www.3VOOR12.tv
So in the span of 5 days I shot 15 acoustic sessions with these artists:
I shot the sessions on two camera's, a Sony HVR-Z1E and a Sony HVR-Z5E, both in SD 25p mode. The sound was recorded into the HVR-Z1E from two Neumann KM-143 microphones. Lighting was primitive, but effective.
Editing was done during the nights and on two additional days afterwards. Not all sessions are online yet, but hang in there and we'll get them all up here!
published by Marcus Moonen on Sat, 13/10/2012 - 14:13
Update Time goes by so fast, when you´re busy! I can´t believe that it´s already been so long since the last update. There´s lots of news so let me just jump right in!
Black Devil Disco Club During the summer I got in contact with French electro legend Black Devil Disco Club's, Bernard Fevre. His remix album Magnetic Circus was coming out and he was looking to have videos made for the tracks, after some deliberation we agreed that I would do the video for "Magnetic Devil", a fantastic melancholy psychedelic track that sounds a bit like one of my favorite bands Boards of Canada.
Because of a strange coincidence, my original idea for the video had to be scrapped. Another filmmaker was working on a video for another track off the same album and had come up with much the same elements in his video. It was late summer before I was ready to shoot the first footage for the video. I had a beautiful actress to work with and we were very lucky to shoot on one of the last sunny days of the summer.
I did a rough edit on the video, but I felt that there was something lacking. I was not yet satisfied with the mood of the footage, I decided that the video needs a bit of a rough edge, something to make it a bit more dark. The track has this very subtle mix of sweet melancholy and something that is darker and more intense, so I wanted to reflect that in the images. In early October we shot additional footage and currently I am working on a new edit. I feel that there is just one more element missing and I'm hoping I'll be able to incorporate this and finish the video soon. Here's a screencap from the October shoot:
Distel Earlier this year I shot a promo for my friend Distel. We were both very happy with the result and decided that we would shoot a full length video for the track "hxxx" off his upcoming album. Because of the mood of the track we decided that we wanted to film the video in an abandoned building, preferably in a ruin. After some searching we found a hotel that had been abandoned since the 1970's. It stands in the middle of a forest, alone, no roads leading up to it. We spent a day filming there, risking our lives under collapsing ceilings, treacherously unstable floors and lots of debris, broken glass. I'm still working on the edit, after the video is cut, it will need quite a bit of work with regard to coloring and effects, but I'm very excited about this one. It is going to be one crazy video! Some photos of the location and a preliminary screenshot:
Heroes For Ghosts - Behind The Scenes I finally got ' round to editing and uploading the behind the scenes video for The Gathering's Heroes For Ghosts. It brought back great memories of the fun times we had shooting in Norway! The Gathering have a new album out called "Disclosure". If you haven't heard it yet, pick it up fast, because it's great! Here's the announcement and the two videos:
Upcoming Videos At the moment I'm talking to The Gathering about doing another video to promote the new album, so that is something that might happen before the end of the year, depending on scheduling and budget. I really hope we'll be able to make it happen, because the album deserves a push! Also I'm still talking to my friend Robert Rodèlle about doing a video and I'm pretty sure that before long this will happen. I love his music and I think my images would fit perfectly. With a bit of luck and persistence, we'll be able to start filming before the end of the year.
Portfolio As you may or may not know, I´m also a musician and photographer, and this summer has been quite productive on all fronts. So I decided that it would be a good idea to create a comprehensive online portfolio behind a very simple url: http://marcusonline.info. Here are two photos I took this summer and a track off my album The Oxytocin Party (free torrent download):
published by Marcus Moonen on Sun, 12/02/2012 - 17:27
Update Don't you just long for summer, when it's this cold? =)
It's been some time since I've updated the blog, that's because I've been very busy over the last months. In my regular life, I have a job and in October, that job changed. I now have to travel up to 4 hours every day back and forth from work. It's a fun job, but the traveltime kills me (and much of the things I plan to do).
I haven't yet found a good solution for mobile blogging to Drupal, so as long as that's not possible, the updates to the site will be sporadic, probably... However... That does not been that I haven't been filming. No sir. Let me tell you what's going on.
The Space Between In my last post I talk about the auditions for our new short film The Space Between. Well, after a few more rounds of auditions we've finally managed to cast all the actors for the film. We needed three male and two female actors, preferably from various countries, to make it an international cast. Well, we succeeded in that! We have actors from Ireland, the United States, the Netherlands and Brazil.
Up first is a last overhaul of the script, writing the shooting script and then rehearsals can start. I hope we'll be able to start rehearsals in March and I would love to start photography in May at the latest. Not that there's really a rush, but I'm excited to get started on this. I'll keep you posted!
Distel Promo My friend Distel asked me to shoot a promo for his upcoming Ultra performance. I loved his idea for the promo, so one Sunday afternoon we set up in my bathroom and started shooting. Strobe lights, a TV set to white noise and a part of the stagedesign used by my old band IndusTree were all packed into the tiny bathroom. Have a look at the result here:
Zeno & Rodèlle Zeno van den Broek, a soundsculptor and visual artist, for whom I've previously filmed one of his performances, has asked me to help him with a new art project, where he will present his paintings. He's asked me to film the paintings and make it an almost tangible experience. I was excited at the concept, so I told him I'd do it. Unfortunately real life got in the way a bit and we haven't yet had time to discuss details, but I'm hoping that we will soon be able to make some plans.
In the last couple of months I have been talking to another artist and sometime collaborator of Zeno's, Robert Rodèlle. Robert and I have been discussing doing a musicvideo for one of his tracks for quite some time now, but unfortunately we haven't yet had the chance. I consulted on his latest musicvideo (see below) and since we've been talking about what we want to do for his next video.
There's an idea floating around to push the boundaries of decency as we might let ourselves be inspired by one of Marquis de Sade's lesser known works. I'm really excited about the prospect of working with Robert on this. Hopefully we'll be able to find time this summer. Have a look at Robert's latest musicvideo:
Last thoughts I've been talking to my friend Marko Martens about entering a film into a national filmcompetition, mainly because I want to work with him on a project. We're not there yet, but I'll keep bugging him.
My friends from Hong Kong, Robot Entourage, are working on a Zombie film, for which they've asked me to do the soundtrack. I've asked my friend Distel to help out and one of the tracks is close to completion. I'm still waiting to see the footage (and frankly to find some time) to start on the rest of the soundtrack. I've seen stills and from what I can tell it'll look amazing. I'll see if I can show you a still sometime soon.
Last night I submitted two videos to the Vimeo Awards competition. Unfortunately I couldn't submit Heroes for Ghosts, because it was too long. I did enter these though: in the category "experimental" I entered my sci-fi short 9 and in the category "music video" I entered Distel - onde, the promo I shot which you can see above. So fingers crossed and wish me luck! =)
Well, that's it for now. I still plan to do a series of articles on the shooting of the Heroes for Ghosts musicvideo, so watch out for that. Now I'm off to enjoy my Sundayevening!
published by Marcus Moonen on Wed, 15/06/2011 - 04:43
Less than 24 hours to go... Before the video goes live!
I'm done, I've finished, I've completed it, it's a wrap! The video for the new The Gathering track Heroes For Ghosts will be released tomorrownight Wednesday 15 June at 23:58 CET on The Gathering's Youtube Channel. I hope you will check it out and let us know what you think of the video!
Keep an eye on this website, because in a few days, I'll post a story about the "making of" of this video and tell you what crazy adventures we went through to get all the shots! I'll also talk about what equipment I used, why it is sometimes better to shoot from the hand than from a stabilizer and how it feels to risk your camera hanging over the bow of a speedboat at 40 knots! ;)
Update: Above post stated that the video will be released on the 16th of June. This should of course be the 15th of June!
published by Marcus Moonen on Wed, 25/05/2011 - 06:43
Since I got back from filming the music video for The Gathering's new track Heroes For Ghosts (free download!), I've been working almost non-stop on thinking about, structuring, designing and editing the video... And I've loved every second of it! Not only because I love what I do -make films-, but also because I LOVE the track! It's hypnotic, it's got drive, it's ecstatic and it's beautiful. And I think the video will do it justice.
Editing can be a very lonely job and you have to be careful not to become too myopic. There´s a risk you run that you won´t be able to look at the work objectively anymore, after a while. I was very lucky to be able to discuss my work with two kick-ass filmmakers, one in Hollywood, the other in Hong Kong. Their feedback and perspective were invaluable, so thank you Joe and thank you John for taking the time to watch an early version and giving me feedback!
At this point I'm about 90% - 95% percent done. There's some minor adjustments I'd like to make and then it's ready to go live from my end of things. So hopefully it won't be very much longer now! Stay tuned, folks!
published by Marcus Moonen on Wed, 27/04/2011 - 07:16
Famous Dutch rockers The Gathering are releasing a new album this fall. This album is Norwegian native Silje Wergeland's second record as the band's new singer.
The Gathering have expressed a desire to get closer to their own artistic preferences, the heart and soul of their music and this can definitely be heard in the new track. An epic 10 minute journey from melancholy to ecstasy, the song is a testament to the band's creativity and musical prowess. I'm very excited to have been asked to shoot a musicvideo for this track.
I'll be flying out to Norway by the end of this week, where the video will be shot. We decided to film the video in Norway because of its' beautiful and dramatic landscape. The band's photogenic singer, Silje Wergeland, a Norwegian native, will feature in the video.
We are still looking for actors for the video. So if you are in Norway and would like to have a chance to star in The Gathering's next video, check out this page and let us know!
In collaboration with mainly Frank Boeijen en René Rutten (the band's keyboard player and guitarist respectively) I've written a script for the video and the band have given me license to experiment, so nothing is set in stone. It's an exciting and (just a bit) daunting prospect to have the freedom to shoot what looks good and fits with the music.
I'll be shooting the video on the 5D MkII, with a set of Canon primes, I'll have a DVtec shouldermount with me and a Glidecam HD 2000. I can't tell you any details yet, but I am a bit nervous about getting the shot from that speedboat... ;)
published by Marcus Moonen on Thu, 23/12/2010 - 16:27
I'm working on the videos for Hadewych and Machinist. They both performed last Saturday in Den Bosch in an old school next to the city's museum. As always the performances were haunting and beautiful!
I was there to film, hoping to create a document of the evening, but unfortunately not everything went as planned. Because of the very minimal amount of time I had to prepare and change positions during the change-over from one act to the next, I had barely time to set audiolevels and make sure everything was ready to go. The audio was not the best I've recorded. Also, someone accidentally (?) switched off one of the camera's during Hadewych's performance, so I unfortunately only have the handheld images.
Here is a screencap from both performances:
I was lucky enough that Machinist had his own recording device with him, with which he captured the audio for his performance, so I'll be able to mix that in with the ambient recording. Hadewych however was not so lucky, so I have only the low-quality on cam mic recording, which bums me out. I don't know what to do yet, but I'll discuss it with Peter J. Nijland to see what he wants to do with the footage.
I'll be working on the edits for the videos tonite in hopes of finishing them before Christmas.
published by Marcus Moonen on Thu, 02/12/2010 - 04:33
After some misadventures trying to build a Wordpress site, I decided to give Drupal a try for my new website. I needed to upgrade the old static HTML site I'd built. It was quick, it was dirty and it was obsolete. A dinosaur. I needed something spiffy, SEO-savvy (meh, sorta ;) and easily manageable.
My good friend guaka introduced me to the wonderous world of Drupal and even encouraged me to dive into the beta release of Drupal 7. He has been building websites that range from sites about dumpster diving across the globe and creating The Hitchhiking Guide to a site for his family's Teak Furniture business. The learning curve was as steep as a Himalayan mountain and the concepts were hard to grasp at times, but I made it through somehow (and I couldn't have done it without guaka's help. A big thank you!).
I've been able to build a site that more than ever suits my needs, has a place for all the content I've been creating over the past years and will allow me to update frequently and painfree. And best of all... It's modular, so there's somewhere to go if the need arises.
Please check out my new site, for which I will be adding more content in the months to come. Also I hope to find time soon to tell you more about my music, my other great passion. When Drupal 7 will see its' official release I'll probably add more functionality. I see this webspace as a living, evolving entity that will grow with me, as I hopefully will grow as a filmmaker.
