Arnocorps

Last month I was honoured to be given the chance to shoot the Ballsy Heroic Studs of Arnocorps during their London leg of their recent UK tour.

To describe what Arnocorps are all about is a tough task... only because they do it so much better than anybody else ever could.
So I'll let them explain themselves.

Initially, one might perceive ArnoCorps as merely a group of six highly trained militant Austrian action-rock heroes. Big mistake. The motivation behind the band is far too complex to be defined by such superficial characteristics. Inspired by the ancient heroic lore and mythology of the Austrian Alpine communities, the content of ArnoCorps music carries on their homeland's sacred tradition of tel

ling stories of great deeds and fantastic adventures through song. As such, the band has been singularly responsible for restoring integrity to the many Austrian tales that have been bastardized for cinematic exploitation throughout their lifetimes. 

Thats right, we're in Ahnoldt Schwarzenegger territory now. And these guys Live It.
Their accents and mannerisms never drop. Theyt have great tunes. Great memory for classic one liners and even encourage body building to go on while they play.

These guys are legendary.

I shot the entire show, but due to a few mistakes made during the set, the band asked me to keep it under wraps and just put together a promo instead, which I have happily done.
Its a shame though, as the full show was incredible and my edit for it was pretty impressive too, clocking in at just under an hour with lots of cuts and different shots, all in sync and with good clear sound.

Anyway, it was still good work, even if it stays in the vault.

Hope you enjoy the promo.

Arnocorps, Live in London

Seriously, these guys are an amazing live band, check them out.

Supernormal 2012

Its been a very busy couple of months here in the ugli.film universe.
As well as shooting numerous music promo's, and my continuing work with Nick Hudson, I was also invited to shoot Supernormal Festival, in Oxfordshire.

Supernormal is based at a lovely destiniation called Braziers Park, and is run almost completely voluntarily. Unlike many other music festivals, Supernormal focusses less on showcasing commercial acts, and more on bands and artists that devide the line between music, performance and art.
The result is a very intimate affair where all artists and musicians mingle freely with the audience.

I applied to play at the festival earlier this year, as my band takes on this exact same approach by creating narrative films to play live while I perform. I applied too late sadly, so I was stoked when I was invited to shoot the event instead.

I was interested, not only in shooting the live music acts that were performing, but also the art installations, shows and demonstrations that took play over the weekend. I also wanted to splice all of this footage into the shots I took of the bands that were playing.
The idea was to paint a picture of what the festival stands for and to re-create the feel of the event in a way that isn't force feeding you information, like an average documentary would.

I tried this approach once before when I filmed my friends in the band Code500 last year at the Northampton Umbrella Fair. That was very much an experiment though, despite being quite successful. I really wanted to push this approach more this time around.

Unfortunately, three days was a little too much for my camera to handle and I started running out of space on my memory stick's, so I had to cull certain footage, and in some cases had to just not film certain events. This was frustrating and will definitely be taken on board as something to improve upon next time.

And there will be a next time, as they've kindly invited me back next year :)

Anyway, here are the films that were created during the three days.

I will probably be putting together a final cut comprising all of these films soon, including the other footage I haven't used yet. But as stand alone films, I think you get a good idea of how it feels to be at the festival.

It was tremendous fun, and hopefully I'll be allowed back next year to push this style of filming even more.