Big Six Blues

I was wandering the streets of Hull (my home town) yesterday with my gorgeous girlfriend, when we decided to have a look in the window of the joke shop in Hepworth's Arcade. The window display has hardly changed since we where young enough to get excited over the stink bombs and fake dog poo so it's nice to have the occasional nostalgia inducing browse. I have always liked this joke shop because it's the best place in Hull to pick up a harmonica, they have a really varied mix although it's a gamble sometimes on whether they'l have what you want in the right key.

This time when browsing, something special caught my eye in the madness, a tiny silver harmonica with a hand written price tag of twenty five quid. At first I thought how can a mini novelty harmonica cost so much, was it not just a daft toy? By this point my nose was pressed against the glass and I realised it looked pretty good quality for a toy, perhaps it wasn't just a novelty piece. I decided to go in and find out more about the unusual item and I was greeted by the owner talking in a funny voice, luckily it wasn't his natural voice as I couldn't help letting out a little chuckle. He told me the story of how some strange man had dropped off a load of these small harmonicas along with a story about their origin. According to this strange guy the company Seydel who make the harmonica are the oldest of their kind and they are renowned for their quality. I was convinced, so I passed the shop owner my cash and to my surprise he passed me a small metal tin with a ring pull top. This thing looked like a tall tuna can ,with a picture of a blonde woman holding a harmonica and the print ' BIG SIX Big Sound' on the label. Different is often cool in my eyes and I really liked this packaging, also I guess you can be sure no one else has played it before you. Anyway, I got the thing home, popped the lid and pulled out the small harmonica by the included lanyard. I instantly recognised that this was a solid proper instrument by the weight and design of the harp. I pursed my lips, inhaled on the second hole and was overcome by joy as a beautiful bluesy sound filled my room. I played a little scale and was shocked by just how natural and comfortable the harp felt in my hand despite it's small size. I made a vow to myself right there and then that I would keep this small and extra mobile harmonica on my person at all times.

Seydel Big Six with packaging

The  'not so big' Big Six

To cut a long story short I'm excited to own this beautiful little harmonica which proves to me that size doesn't matter when it comes to the Blues Harp. Hope you enjoyed reading my rant and have realised that I can't recommend this harmonica enough. It is in my opinion the essence of cool, so go get yourself one now.

Nesting Heron

One of my favourite photographs which I have taken.

My Early Work

A compilation of some shots from some of my earlier college projects.

Perfect pygmy

Here's a rough edit of some footage I filmed a few weeks back of my Pygmy Marmosets. I really like the lighting in the conservatory where they are kept.

Uploaded

Finally have all the footage for '99 Forever' uploaded from tape and at first glance it looks good. My next step is to get it to Olivia so she can start the editing process and we can find out if we've missed anything out during the shoot, fingers crossed we haven't.

These screen shots are straight from the upload and have not been corrected in any way so expect the final results to look a whole lot better.

99 Forever

99 Forever is a short film I have been working on as the cinematographer as part of my final year in my TV and Film degree. It's a story about a young girl who doesn't want to grow older as the millennium comes to an end. The film is written and directed by my fellow classmate Olivia Young and she has created a wonderful set for me to film within. We finished all the shooting in our studio this week and today I am filming on location, it's been a slightly stressful but overall enjoyable experience and hopefully the finished piece will have been worth the effort, I will get some screenshots up shortly. Once the shoot's over it's back to boring dissertation work which I am sure I will be doing right through the night.
Take it easy,
Chris

First Post

I'm setting up this blog as a form of procrastination from my degree work, currently I'm avoiding working on my dissertation which is due to be handed in this Monday. I have a tonne of work I should be doing but as usual I'm going to leave it til the last minute and get ridiculously stressed. I know perfectly well that I am not gonna change and I make no excuses for this not so efficient time management. As a student I do alright, I never have enough research and prep work for my projects but the finished visual pieces are always well received, I know if I put more time and effort into my projects I could do a lot better however I've gone for a more relaxed route. At twenty three years old I feel that I should be enjoying this part of my life, apparently it starts going downhill pretty soon, so I give myself some time to do what I want to do. This includes as much quality time with my friends and family as possible, especially my beautiful girlfriend who I do not deserve. Through this blog I hope to keep an account of how my own film projects come to life as well as giving myself an opportunity to rant on about films I've seen. There may also be the odd rant about drunken times and the blues. In the famous words of Ferris Bueller, 'Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.' So stop back and check on my blog once in a while.