For the second music video to be made off the new Disco Ensemble album the band asked once again a bunch of directors to submit scripts and ideas. I was pretty excited to hear that they liked my script enough to go ahead and shoot it. It was gonna be a big project that would require a lot of planning and preparation.

I asked Maiju Laitinen as our production manager. I knew it would help me immensly not having to organize everything alone. Working on the Bääbs music video with her she really made herself indispensable and made me realize how a good production manager can make a huge difference to the outcome of the project. Maiju ended up doing a lot of different things from gathering the crew together, keeping the crew up to date and making sure that we were prepared for everything from the most basic things to plastic bags to cover the gear if it starts raining.

Of course Alpo Nummelin came in to do the lights. I don’t think I could work without him anymore! Anu Kopra was a huge help and worked with Alpo all the way. We had a few test shoots, first to see how the GH1 codec stands smoke and as expected there was a lot of gradient banding. So in the end we couldn’t use as much smoke as I would’ve propably used if it wasn’t an issue. On the other hand it might be that less is more in this case as the smoke on the video now looks quite realistic. We ended up renting quite a lot of lights. As main lights we used two 1.2KW HMI’s and two 575W HMI’s. Actually basically all you see in the video is from those light sources. We did have Kino Flo’s but never used them. We had a lot of gear! We had two 650W tunsgtens hovering around to give some shots lens flares if we needed and there were five 300W tungstens in the forest to give some depth to the shots. This didnt work that well on the wide shots as the dept of field wasnt as shallow as in the close ups and we should’ve really moved these lights a little further on the wides. Alpo and Anu also made forest flags to give a little shape to the light.

I really wanted to shoot this video on a camera that could handle all the intricate details like smoke and get as much latitude to get lots of shadow details as I wanted some shots to be really dark. I called a few friends of mine who had worked with Red One and 35mm film and we did some calculations and discussed what the workflow would entail. In the end we just didn’t have a budget for anything that would’ve made a significant improvement in the picture quality and still make the video in the timeframe that we were supposed to. I’m very happy with the outcome and there are only a few shots that I had trouble with in the post. It’s possible that the color correction would’ve been a little more heavy if the footage had allowed that. I tried to shoot with a tweaked picture profile on the GH1 to get as close to the end results as I could right off the bat. There’s still slightly too much saturation on the red colours although it’s the least I managed after a lot of tests.

After driving around Tampere a lot we decided to shoot the music video on the base of Pyynikin näkötorni. It’s the highest sightseeing tower in Tampere and they serve the best donuts in the world! We rented the space for one night so that we could use the Näkötorni’s facilities for the crew, use their toilets, electricity and 30 donuts were included in the deal!

We got the cars for the shoot from Valto Koivula OY. The man himself Valto was a very helpful man managing the junkyard and helped us out a great deal. He even let us shoot a few pickup shots the following week at this junkyard. There’s new wrecked cars brought to the junkyard everyday so I had to go in a few times before we found a pair that worked for us. A red Nissan and a grey Toyota, not too new but not too old either. Those junkyards are a fantastic place!

The Möhkö helmet was made by Topias Hirvonen. We were all really excited about it and Alpo got two meters of LED striplight to put inside it. It ended up looking exactly as we imagined it and that is rare! We got a really nice actor to wear the Möhkö, Teija Vaittinen. Although the role itself wasn’t that demanding we wanted to have someone who knows what being on a shoot entails and Teija was indeed great. It’s all waiting, standing still, moving an inch to the left and waiting more – especially when you can’t see at all where you’re moving you need a lot of patience.

It’s amazing the amount of work that is needed when you do things professionally. This was the first shoot I’ve ever done where we needed permits to shoot on location. It’s not very difficult to do all this but it takes a lot of research and time. After two weeks of phonecalls and trips to countless places the day of the shoot came and everything looked pretty good for the shoot to begin at 20.00… I woke up and had breakfast and checked all my gear. Around noon Alpo called me and asked me how I was doing, I replied I was feeling strangely calm actually. “Well, sit down cause that’s about to change…”, he said after a slight pause and a laugh. What had happened was that the night before another film crew had been shooting at that exact same location and they had managed to harm the power outlet that was next door to where we were going to get our electricity from. The owner of our source of electricity was of course extremely worried that we’d do something wrong as well and apparently the day after our shoot was one of the busyest days of the year for their business. He wasn’t suddenly happy about our shoot at all and was freaking out about us possibly ruining his business somehow. We were in a right pinch. We considered changing locations, we rented a generator so if we did change locations we’d at least have power. It was a situation where even if you have a contract you really can’t do much. I’m sure if it was Hollywood lawyers phones would’ve been ringing but no one really wanted anything like that to happen. After a few hours between Maiju, Alpo myself and the owner of the business we were getting the electricity from we managed to agree on the terms of the shoot and got the permit to use the electricity at the location if we needed to. It took a while to recover from the setback and many hours reserved for other preparations were wasted having to deal with this issue.

We got to the location and I was really happy to see the prop cars were there and in perfect condition. Unbeknownst to us they had stickered the rear windows with their own Valto Koivula OY stickers! It was pretty sweet and hilarious.

We started setting up lights around 20.00 and when the sun finally set at 22.00 we noticed that the generator we had rented didn’t work properly. The 1.2Kw HMI’s that it was feeding power were flickering because of it. We had to run the power from the main building and this going back and forth with the source of the power set us back an hour or so. We rolled camera around 23.00. A few first shots went great and the footage was already looking really good on the viewfinder so I began to relax a little. A little panic set in at around 1am as I realised that we had around 3 hours of darkness left and we had done only about a forth of the shots. We really needed to pick up the pace so instead of calling in the actors we tried to have everyone on hold all the time and instead of moving lights we moved props.

I really admire the Disco Ensemble guys and their work morale, it started snowing and they had to lie down on the cold street and on broken glass, Jussi had fever, Mikko got a cut from the glass and it was getting colder and colder. No-one complained, including the crew, everyone was working full on and the best they could. As we were closing in on the final shots it began snowing. This caused some major problems that we couldn’t do anything about in post so there’s some shots that really don’t cut that well together, we missed a few close up shots and it also cut down our shooting time by another hour so I knew immeadiately we needed to have another night for pick up shots. We did those the following week in front of Valto Koivula junkyard, they were extremely kind to provide us with yet another car we could destroy. We did the pick up shots with just me and Alpo. One of my favourite shots, the smoking cassette player was done on this day. For that shot we actually had to return to Pyynikki where we shot the principal shoot because the street lights at that location were a very special green colour. We couldn’t find any other place with that kind of bulbs and to shoot under a different light it would’ve looked totally out of place. We could’ve used gels maybe but best bet was just to go out and shoot at the same location. The second day of shooting was even longer then the principal shoot.

It’s really something to be able to work with dedicated people who are really making an effort. So my heartfelt thank you to the band, the crew and Timo Häkli from Tampere City Intracenter who provided us with the traffic lights and to Valto Koivula of Valto Koivula OY. Always a slight anti-climax that after you really put everything into the shoot we were all dead tired. Forget about going for drinks after! Well, at 7am I doubt we would’ve found any bars open anyways!

Hangrip sells accessories and they also sell pre-built rigs. I got the V8 rig that can be used to hold your camera with two handles on the sides or on top of the camera for low ground sweeping shots. There’s loads of parts that you can basically set up anyway you like. Its very modular and things fit together in any which way you wish to attach them. It’s like legos :) For example you can attach the handles to any part of the rails as they have holes running along all it’s length and every second hole is threaded. It’s all standard 1/4″ threads that’s found for example in all cameras bottoms. So you can even attach a handle directly to your camera if need be! This is awesome in my opinion as way too often you just have millions of pieces that require adapters of all sorts.

The build quality seems good. For the job at hand at the time I needed a shoulder support rig so we actually came up with a different use for all the V8 parts. I built a small jib out of the frame and my old boom pole! You can see it hanging right at the end of the boom pole there. I was quite surpised how well the rails of the V8 frame held up, they look slim but even when fit with my heaviest lens setup it didn’t flex at all.

Below is a video from Hangrip Vimeo page that shows a little bit of the V8 in action. You can find more info from the Hangrip website.

FedEx dropped off the Glidetrack SD a few days ago. Took less than a week from the moment I made the order online to arrive to Finland from UK, fast service! I bought it specially for a music video I’m shooting end of April where I wanted to have very slow moving shots.

The glidetrack SD has little rubber feet so it stays put easily. You can attach it to a tripod like in the pictures and for my Manfrotto tripod at least it’s no feat to keep it steady all the way from one edge to the other. There’s an ever so slight noise when you slide the camera so if you want it to be quieter and slightly smoother I was recommended to using a silicon lubricant spray.

I’m using an old tripod head that I’ve had lying around for years. It’s a little fiddly and I’m sure a better head would add a lot of ease to doing tilts and pans while gliding but it works so for the moment I’m not going to invest in a new one.

I’m quite amazed at how well the Glidetrack works. It’s really easy to get steady slow smooth glides. It’s easy to take along with you. The mood it brings to shots is vastly different from anything you can achieve with a tripod or other means. You can get those really fantastic slow moving shots that you see in movies that are just impossible without a dolly. It’s gives the shots almost an unearthly feel and it can help even mundane shots rise to new dimensions. But of course it can be overused easily. Think for example Aki Kaurismäki’s movie Tulitikkutehtaan tyttö (The Match Factory Girl) where a dolly is used in only one shot. It truly makes it powerful.

You can find more info from glidetrack.com/. It’s one of the most exciting accessories I’ve bought for a while and after trying it out the price tag doesn’t feel too much either.

All photos on this page by Gabriela González.

This is a rare one and quite hard to find. I’d never heard of it and was lucky to see it at a festival called Offscreen in Brussels, Belgium. One of the themes of the festival was apocalyptic movies. I saw about eight movies about the end of the world that week! My kinda fest! Threads was projected from an original 35mm print which added to the mood. It really takes you by surprise. Towards the end of the first half it get’s into a mood that is devastatingly sad and dark. At the end you just can’t even talk anymore. Im not sure if I can watch it again.

Stalker

This is such an amazing film. I haven’t watched it in ages. I have it on DVD though so maybe it is time. To me Tarkovsky is one of the all time greatest film makers along with Bergman and Kubrick. There are a lot of great film makers but to have such a strong body of work. A little known fact that I just learned last weekend is that Tarkovsky shot this movie twice! The first time they shot it at a desert in Russia but all of the film was ruined in a laboratory accident. So the entire film was shot again with a different cinematographer and apparently all the scenes are different from the first shoot.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

Almost all Ghibli studio movies are amazing but especially Hayao Miyazakis movies are close to my heart. This is just such a beautiful film. It ends my top three list with a hopeful ending!

Here’s a handy list from wikipedia if you’re thinking of an apocalyptic movie marathon weekend ;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_apocalyptic_and_post-apocalyptic_fiction#Film

And a quite interesting read if you want to get deeper into the academics of the subject: http://www.westga.edu/~psydept/dodson/postapoc.html

Movies that require a honorary mention for being super entertaining or otherwise quite good: 28 Days later, A Boy and His Dog, Children of Men, Day of the Dead, Escape From New York, The Happening, I am Legend, Mad Max, The Road, Terminator, Terminator 2.

Sometimes, not often by all means, people ask me what does Es mean? The letter S has been prominent in my life, hence my name :D When I first started recording on a four-track around 1991 I used to position all my equipment on a on a soft round carpet I had. I remember the best way to get into the mood was to put on my woolly socks and dim the lights. These woolly socks were knit by my grandma and they sported the initials E.S. on the side. I didn’t think about it until later I realised these must have been my grandfathers woolly socks. My grandmother had made them for him and unknowingly I had inherited them.

After some years I finally got to the moment where I realised that I needed a band name. I didn’t want to use my real name though. All those years sitting down with my legs crossed with a guitar on my lap staring down at my woolly socks I thought that maybe I’ll call myself… woolly socks! Heheh, just kiddin’! I’d call myself Es. I think for the first gig poster I wrote the title with a lower case “e” and a capital “S”. Although I quickly changed it to Es I still see it written like that sometimes. Funny how things stick. In 2002 I released some experimental loops on a compilation and those were titled Experimental Songcycles #1-5. David Keenan from the Wire understood that this was the meaning behind Es and wrote this in the Wire. Since then a lot of people have used that and so have I. It suits the music well. But the true meaning is that it’s my grandpa ;) Last christmas, my mom made me woolly socks with my initials on them. I hope my kids won’t name their band after my initials though :)

A picture of the rig I used on a recent music video shoot.

Why would I change to a less professional camera? It’s all about what kind of stuff you shoot and what kind of tools you need for that. The money I saved in exchanging from EX1 to GH1 was substantial and it allowed me to buy a lot of accessories as well as save up. I shoot DIY documentaries, art films and music videos which I deliver mainly to the web. I use Sony Vegas Pro 8 to edit and that has so far handled any format I’ve thrown at it very well. It’s one of the least frustrating programs I’ve ever used and works without much fuss with the not-so-good-for-editing AVCHD format the GH1 records.

Image Quality

The picture quality of the GH1 is amazing and in my view when delivering to web in HD it’s totally comparable to for example the EX1. Heres a few shots taken with both cams from the same situation. Left is GH1 and right is EX1 with Letus Extreme.

You can see that the EX1 with Letus there is more noise/grain in the images and that creates an illusion of more shades of color. For me this is actually preferable. I know most wouldn’t prefer it but I do. So for all the videos I’ve shot with the GH1 I have added a little (or a lot!) grain with Magic Bullet Looks plugin. To me looking at the images like these they are at least on par with each other and maybe the GH1 takes the win even. In 720p you shoot 50 frames per second so choosing a shutter speed of 1/100th second (as opposed to normal 1/50th) you can get nice slow motion as well.

The kit lens is alright but to be honest I haven’t shot one shot with it that would’ve ended up in any production. It’s f3.5 so it’s a no go in low light situations. So far I haven’t done any outdoor jobs with the GH1 yet but I am hoping that it will be a good choice for outdoor wide shots. Sample footage online seems to promise it will be great! My lenses consist of Canon FD series 24mm f1.4 L, 50 mm f1.4, 85mm 1.2 L and 135mm f2. They’re fitted with ciecio7 adapter I bought from eBay (it’s called ciecio7 because that’s the username of the person who sells the adapters on eBay). I also use the Fader ND a lot, very recommended!

The real differences are under the hood so to speak. The GH1 codec is something that you really need to watch out for. I’ve ended up mainly shooting in 1280×720 resoution instead of full HD 1920×1080 because of the issues with jello and the codec breaking down. If you shoot on a tripod, don’t do fast pans and if you aren’t shooting high detail pictures such as forests it’s not a problem. But I like to shoot handheld, run in the forest and move the camera around fast so it’s an issue for me.

You also gotta take care not to underexpose with the GH1 or you will get some banding – especially on red colors. It’s funny though, a lot of people shooting test shots at home end up with bad footage with banding. When you go out to do some real shooting with lights and you take care you’re exposure is nailed you get some pretty good results. Here’s a few shots from home tests and real world shooting situations.

It’s really difficult to portray with still images but what I see when watching the videos is that in the forest scenes the blacks are black and there is no banding to speak of as opposed to pictures with the girl which are both underexposed and there is too little light and the banding starts appearing. So in essence if you underexpose and have too dark image you will get banding. If you have very little light but you nail the exposure you get better images. So this would mean that you get better images shooting at 400 asa with exposure just right then you do with 100 asa underexposed. Yeah, Im having a hard time trying to explain this, hope I made a little sense! :D

Here’s two videos I’ve done so you can compare the picture quality for yourself. First video is done with the EX1 and the second is shot with the GH1. Both with a Canon FD 24mm 1.4 L.

Shot with the Sony EX1 and Letus Extreme.

Shot with Panasonic GH1.

GH1 for Photographs

I’ve tried to take some photos with the GH1 and to me it’s just not up to the task. Especially in low light you can’t really get decent results no matter what. Compared to the higher end DSLR’s it’s no match. Although I can heartily recommend the GH1 for video if you are looking for a camera mainly to do photography with I would stay away from it. You can get decent results with it and I’m ok to take it on a holiday with me, even do product photography when you have proper lights or you are outdoors. But other then that unfortunately it’s not quite up to the task.

Audio

Another major handicap for some is that there is no pro audio inputs. The GH1 mic is not bad at all for DIY stuff in controlled enviroments. Doing documentaries is not out of the question. With a little investment in the audio side you can get truly professional results. I got a wireless Audio-Technica Lavalier mic, a Rode shotgun and Zoom H4n recorder. This gives an excellent audio quality for interviews. The Zoom H4n is also perfect for recording live gigs. I love having all these little gadget that become multipurpose. Now when I take all this stuff with me I’m ready to record live gigs. Do documentaries or shoot music videos. And it all fits in a small bag!

So far I’ve done two short documentaries with the GH1. The short documentary on a Belgian label Kraak records was done with nothing but the GH1 microphone. I was pleasantly surprised with the quality I got. We tried to control the audio by choosing rooms that were quiet and had a nice echo. I tried to stay close the people I interviewed. I think the results are totally usable for this kind of DIY aesthetics. I had to EQ it some but you can understand the people talking which is the most important thing with these types of videos. The second documentary on Jan Anderzén is recorded to the Zoom H4n with the wireless LAV and Rode shotgun mic. I ended up using mostly the wireless LAV and added some GH1 stereo audio for ambience.

Conclusion

Some people say that they wouldn’t dare show up at a clients door with a small size camera. I’ve done paying job’s with the GH1 and so far the only thing I’ve seen is excitement that the tools are getting so affordable and small in size but the image quality is so amazing. You are selling yourself with the latest footage after all. I would be scared to work for a client that only wanted to know what equipment I use and wasn’t interested in seeing what i’ve actually done with them so far.

To me the best camera is the camera that get’s me excited about shooting and makes things less complicated and fun. In a sentence a camera that I can pick up, get up and shoot with! The small size, cheap SDHC cards, being able to use a vast choise of old cheap prime lenses and the relative ease of use are the main advantages shooting with the GH1. Overall I find myself taking the GH1 everywhere with me and using it all the time. For the price it’s an amazing camera and gives a lot of people what they have wanted for a long time.

The first single from the upcoming Disco Ensemble album.

Directed by Sami Sänpäkkilä
Actor: Tero Jartti
Script: Disco Ensemble
Light designer, gaffer: Alpo Nummelin
Editing, cinematography: Sami Sänpäkkilä
Pencil illustrations: Topias Hirvonen
Producer: Fullsteam Records

I got a call from Jussi of Disco Ensemble that they have an idea for a music video and would need someone to shoot it. Only problem was that the video would need to be shot next week. So not much time to plan it. We decided that instead of making it a huge production, renting cameras and tons of equipment we’d do it with a minimal set-up and shoot it with my Panasonic GH1 DSLR that had already proven that it can produce amazing quality video.

I really felt that this video and the idea the band had would require good lighting. So I wanted Alpo Nummelin to do the lights since we have done a lot of videos together and we know each other well. Luckily he was free and I felt confident that with him on board we could pull this off in such a short time. We started planning the lighting and constructed our own gobo that turned out amazing and we used it in almost every shot. See pictures below.

Watch a slideshow

We drove to Konala, Helsinki to Disco Ensemble’s rehearsal space for the shoot. The band had written the script and Tero Jartti was cast to play The Architect in the video. He’s been in a lot of great Finnish productions including some Aki Kaurismäki movies. I know the band since we were teens except for Lasse as we all come from the same area. I even used to play in a band called Hektix with Jussi back in the day. So the crew was looking good! Everyone was feeling really positive.

We rented our light gear from Filmfotograferna. It was my first time actually using rental lights and the feeling of walking into the warehouse with all those lights and grip equipment made me all excited! I bet we made all the jokes the first timers do: “Hey, why don’t we scrap everything else and just get that 24000W Arri Fresnel”. They treated us nice and seemed to share our enthusiams – what a geek heaven! I didn’t even realise we were actually paying for all this, such is the power of gadgets on us poor geeks… We left with 3 x Arri Junior Plus 650 W, 2 x Arri 300 W, a Dedopack, 2 x Kino Flo 4×4 Bank 120cm and loads of grip stuff. A car full of lighting equipment. All my gear was in one bag, I did help Alpo carry the stuff!

One of our original ideas was to put a large butterfly canvas on the wall and light that from behind to have this kinda glowing effect on the background. The butterfly we had was piss yellow and extremely wrinkly so that was a no go. We exprimented with a few plans we had made and ended up lighting by simply putting kino flo’s on left and right of where the player would stand and a dedo for fill shooting down from behind onto their heads. So pretty basic set-up. We added our own gobo light and this was the one light that gave the image the character we really wanted. Unfortunately it also gave us the most trouble because it was really hard to avoid shadows coming from myself and the camera cause I was standing right between the light source and the subject. We didn’t have enough space to move the gobo so I just had to be really carefull with my camera movements. You can still see a few of my shadows in the video but hey, that’s kinda tradition already, I don’t think there’s any videos I’ve done with Alpo where I’m not somewhere in the frame!

I shot the video mostly in 1080p which you can see created some yello effects on the fast pans. Theres also a few 720p shots mixed in and you really can’t tell the difference. Not even on a 1080 Full HD television. So I think from now on I’ll just keep to shooting at 720p. Gives the least headaches with movement. Although after having said that I’ve become quite fond of the way the guitar frets bend on the few shots with yello here. It creates a very special feel to those shots! The pan is like a wave instead of a horizontal quick jerk.

The Architects table looked awesome and we mostly used only the original light of the table, Alpo added a dimmer on it to create a flickrer we wanted at the end of the video. There were a few dedos used for fill here and there too. All in all I love shooting with the GH1 and the f1.4 lenses cause you can really work in such low light situations and only light for the mood and not have to worry about lighting for the aperture.

A big thank you to everyone who worked with us! Hope you all like the video :)

Funny games has been on my most hated films list ever since I saw it. I’m not gonna go into it but I really disliked it at a very deep rooted level. Later I saw Pasolini’s Saló and I gotta say I liked that better but I wasn’t surprised to read a while ago that Saló is one of Michael Haneke’s favourite films. I think I saw Hidden as well but I’ve erased that from my mind completely.

I wasn’t about to see this movie either. After all what else could it be other then pure torture. But I got a lot of recommendations from people I trust so I decided to give it a go. My weekly movie watching quota wasn’t nearly filled anyways. And boy was I surprised! From the very first minute the movie takes a hold of you and set’s a mood that is very different from the Haneke movies I’ve seen. (Or maybe I’ve just grown up?) It isn’t a waiting game at all. What struck me funny right at the beginning is that it seems to state something that I found very exciting.

“I don’t know if the story that I
want to tell you, reflects the truth in every
detail. Much of it I only know by hearsay, and a
lot of it remains obscure to me even today, and
I must leave it in darkness. Many of these
questions remain without answer. But I believe I
must tell of the strange events that occurred in
our village, because they may cast a new light
on some of the goings-on in this country…”

It proposes that it is seeking for a reason. So, a good start for me! Oh and another thing I thought of immeadiately was that the “goings-on in this country” meant Nazis. I’m not sure if the above lines are meant to imply that at all. I found it interesting though and it carried along with the movie and gave curious viewpoints to a lot of the scenes. Even though on one hand it’s a who-dunnit this question never overpowers the story. Nothing actually overpowers the amazing story that is played out by an unbeliavable cast.

The cinematography is extremely classic Bergman style. It seems like it’s straight out of a cinematography handbook (or rather I bet some will be written about this movie). The lighting reminds me a lot of The Winter Light film that Sven Nykvist shot, Bergman directed and which they together planned the lighting for I believe. Especially the outdoor scenes. The highlights are handled beautifully. They seem to pop out and even hurt your eyes but they never seem to clip.

Spoiler alert! Don’t read further if you haven’t seen the movie!

Although I was profoundly amazed by everything in this movie I do have a little gripe about it. Thats kinda why Im writing this, to hear what did you think about the proposed answer for the who had done it? The kids that “came to help” at the scenes of the crime gave me flashbacks from the old eighties b-movie children of the corn. Not the actual content of what was going on in the movie but the way the kids were portrayed as so blase and emotionless. This was a bit of a downer but in the end it didn’t really take much out of the exprience. As of writing this I’ve already got past it. What do you think?

I will likely buy this on blu-ray when it comes out as well!

Here’s a very interesting interview clip that answers a few of the questions I had about the movie. Again I wouldn’t suggest to watch this one if you haven’t seen the movie.

The White Ribbon on IMDB

I got this from a chinese vendor over eBay. Here is the link: GH1 Timer/Remote It’s really quite cheap. About 35 euros with international shipping included.

What you can adjust:
DE – Delay. This one is like a self timer. You can set the camera to start taking pictures after 0 seconds to 99 hours.
BU – Bulb. This one adjust the lenght of your exposure. Useful for night photography. Set anywhere between 1s and 100 hours.
INT – Interval. The time between exposures. Set between 1s to 99 hours.
N – You can set a number of exposures from 1 to 399 shots. If you set it to “–” it will expose until you turn off the Timer manually.
You can also turn the speaker on and off.

So first you set all the parameters to your wishes and of course put your camera to desired settings as well. Then you just hit the Start button and off it goes.

When you are doing animations you can leave the speaker on. It will beeb three times just before an exposure. I imagine this is handy if you are doing a clay animation, drawing etc. so you know to get your hands out of the picture.

You can select your shutter speed from the camera or if you want to expose for a very long time you can use the timer and adjust it from the BU setting. to manage this you need to put the GH1 to Bulb mode. You find the Bulb setting on GH1 after the slowest possible shutter speed of 60 seconds (60″). With the Timer you can take pictures that can be exposed up to 100 hours. Can’t really think what I’d love to expose for 100 hours! :)

For some reason the start/stop button doesn’t always stop the exposures although thats how I understand the manual says it should do. But that is not a problem, just turn the device off and it stops.

One handy thing is the Timer also has a built in light. You can turn it on/off. Makes it easier to adjust the settings on those nightly timelapse adventures.

When you turn the device off all the parameters are reset. So you need to set all parameters everytime you turn it on again.

Jan Anderzén is a visual artist, a musician and he runs a record label Vauva. His solo outift is called Tomutonttu and he is the leader of an avant-garde sound group Kemialliset Ystävät. Tomutonttu and Kemialliset Ystävät discographies are vast and include CDs, vinyl records, cassettes and lathe cuts released on Fonal, Fusetron, Beta-Lactam Ring, Lal Lal Lal, Jewelled Antler, Celebrate Psi Phenomenom and other underground labels around the world. Jan’s music utilizes a wide spectrum of instruments and electronics to create their joyful blasts but the recording studio in itself might be their single most important instrument. Jan has collaborated with hundreds of people through his art. Recently Jan held workshops and played a series of concerts for school kids at the planetarium of his home town Tampere.

kemiallisetystavat.com

“A Day in the Mouth” is a series where I visit an organisation, a person or a place and have a little chat with the people involved and see what they’re up to.

Directed, edited and filmed by Sami Sänpäkkilä

KRAAK is a grass-roots organisation that offers presentation and development possibilities in left field music. A quality platform, a promotor for young artists who are working within uncommon genres as avant-rock, psych, experimental electronica, free-jazz, new folk, improdrones,… We organise small ‘lab-evenings’, bigger presentation moments and creation possibilities. With a monthly mini-magazine Ruis we also try to support the experimental scene with documentation and promotion.

kraak.net

“A Day in the Mouth” is a series where I visit an organisation, a person or a place and have a little chat with the people involved and see what they’re up to. This is part 1 featuring Kraak Records from Belgium. They have an office in Gent where I interviewed a few of the main culprits.

Directed, edited and filmed by Sami Sänpäkkilä

Bääbs, alias Päivi Kankaro from Tv-resistori is participating in the Finnish Eurovision Song Contest semifinals with You Don’t Know Tomorrow. Vote for Bääbs on January 8th, 2010!

Directed by Sami Sänpäkkilä

Produced by Päivi Kankaro and Tommi Forsström
Script, editing, cinematography: Sami Sänpäkkilä
Production manager: Maiju Laitinen
Bääbs’ costumes: Illusion Costumes
Costume designer, props, art direction: Anne-Mari Pahkala / Illusion Costumes
Costumer assistant: Ida Tuomisto
Light design: Alpo Nummelin, Sami Sänpäkkilä
Gaffer: Alpo Nummelin, Best boy: Anu Kopra

Hair: Elina Viitanen / Salon Scissor Sister, Minna Väisänen / Parturikampaamo Minna Väisänen, Annakaisa Aaltonen, Make-up: Anna Vuoristo, Maija Ruohonen
Catering: Johanna Kankaro, Location: Hotelli Tammer, Tampere

Actors: Bääbs, Aija Ronkainen, Atte Rytkönen, Dina Doré, Eija Uusitarkka, Hanna Uusi-Tarkka, Heidi Horila, Juho Eerola, Mimi de Froufrou, Pepper Sparkles, Riina Rinkinen, Riku Kärkkäinen, Rosa Meriläinen, Sara Floman, Titania Hill, Tommi Forsström

Thank you: Hotelli Tammer staff and customers 6.12.2009, all who voted for Bääbs in the Eurovision, TAMK / Art and Media, Henna Riikonen, Milla Suomalainen, Suki Kulmala, Pinkki Paplari, Minna Parikka, all dear friends and family

Song ISRC: FIIFS0900001, Video ISRC: FI4SP0900003
Download video for your iPhone: baabs.fi/video/Baabs.mp4

baabs.fi
baabs.fi/facebook

Dead Moon is one of my favourite bands and I was happy to do a little live shoot to test out my new Panasonic GH1. Graded with Magic Bullet. Sound is recorded with the GH1 as well. All in all it’s a pretty amazing tool for the price!

Shot with Panasonic GH1, Canon FD 24mm 1.4L with Vari ND.

Video by Sami “Godfather” Sänpäkkilä. Music by Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers “Egyptian Reggae”

The Seventh Pentagram
Installation
undefined lenght
16:9
stereo sound
Shooting format: HD
Presentation format: Blu-Ray on 42″ Full HD television
2009 and onwards, evolving piece

From the album Better Then Wages (Johanna Kustannus, 2009)

Director: Sami Sänpäkkilä
Gaffer: Alpo Nummelin
Crew: Gabriela González, Nick Triani

Music: Astrid Swan & The Drunk Lovers
Outdoor dancer: Arttu Hasu

Astrid Swan online:
astridswan.blogspot.com/
myspace.com/astridswan

Sami Sänpäkkilä online:
vimeo.com/essami

“This is my fifth solo release as Es. Kesämaan lapset was recorded during a three year period. It is a mix of soundscapes and pop tunes. You can hear influences varying from contemporary indie to ancient classical music. It’s a summer album and a childhood photo album. The name translates as “The Children Of The Summerland”. It an homage to the Pekka Streng album “Kesämaa” (Summerland) which is one of my favourite Finnish albums ever made. It also refers to Finland of course. I’ve been travelling a lot these past three years and every time I return here it feels more and more like home.

I’ve used lots of instruments, from high-end analogue synthesizers and upright pianos to cheap flea market Casios. I’ve recorded parts of this abroad and at home in my studio and in my bedroom. There are a few special guests: Laura Laurila plays violin, Tuomas Eriksson (Risto) plays trombone and Elissa Määttänen who has sung on most of my albums is present again to give her special voice to the tracks.

I hope you enjoy the album. It is not as ambitious a work as my previous double album Sateenkaarisuudelma. But this one is meant to be listened to in many more situations and it might just fit as music for a house party too…” -Sami Sänpäkkilä

Format: CD
Total lenght: 44 minutes
Catalogue Number: FR-64
Released: 27.5.2009

ScythES was built by Tomas Regan / Haamuaudio http://haamu.com/

It’s basically a four channel tremolo. What makes it different from a tremolo is that each channel is independent. You can run a stereo audio through it and it will slice the audio. You can control all the intervals of audio and silence independent from each other.

For those looking for the ultimate psychedelic experience, the new Shogun Kunitoki album Vinonaamakasio is available as a Picture vinyl LP featuring two animation loops that can be viewed using this magical Shogun Kunitoki Strobe Light. The effect is impossible to capture on video and can only be thoroughly enjoyed in real life. In addition to the kit you will need a 9V battery which is not included in the package.

To operate the strobe light attach a 9V battery and switch it on. Aim light on the surface of the LP rotating at 33 1/3 rpm. The space you are in should be completely dark. Please note that using the owl strobe light can be dangerous for persons with epilepsy or tendency to it.

You can order now from fonal.com/shop

Music by Risto
Actors: Risto Ylihärsilä, Tuomas Eriksson, Minna Kortepuro, Alina Toivanen
Make up: Kati Kivijärvi

From the album Sähköhäiriöön (FR-63 CD/LP/Download)
fonal.com / myspace.com/ristoristo