Strandbeestmovie - Weblog

Animaris umerus - New sequences from our shooting in June 2009

Animaris Umerus from Alexander Schlichter on Vimeo.

We shot Jansens new creation Animaris Umerus in June 2009 on the beaches of Scheveningen, Netherlands.

I am very happy that Chris Fawcett joined our team. He is a steadicam operator and on his segway he shot this wonderful pictures.

The beginning - STRANDBEESTEN

STRANDBEESTEN from Alexander Schlichter on Vimeo.


This is the beginning of my documentary "Strandbeesten". Strandbeesten is a portrait of the artist Theo Jansen. Jansen is occupied with the making of a new nature. Not pollen or seeds but plastic yellow tubes are used as the basic material of this new nature. He makes skeletons which are able to walk on the wind. For this film I've accompanied Theo for five years and the result is a 32 minutes documentary. It will be shown at CAMERIMAGE, International Filmfestival in Lodz, Poland.

LODZ - Camerimage

"STRANDBEESTEN" will take part in the Documentary Competition at the CAMERIMAGE International Filmfestival of the Art of Cinematography  in Lodz, Poland.
CAMERIMAGE is a festival that is dedicated to the cinematographers and it is a great honour for me to get the invitation. Nordmedia support me to make a 35mm print of the film so I could show the film in best quality.
I am really glad to get the opportunity to show the film in Poland.
I am going to Lodz from 1st, December until 5th December and I´m really looking forward to my trip to Poland. Ten years ago I went to Poland for my diploma. I love the country and now it is a great chance to come back.
This week I am going to put a new trailer on this website, so you could see the beginning of the film at the internet.

Final version

I am working on the final version of the short film, it will be finished in summer.
I hope that it will get the chance to shown on festivals around the world. And end of 2008 I am planning to publish the film on DVD.

Exhibition

From 26th until 28 th September 2007 we proudly presents Theo and his Strandbeesten on the opera place in Hannover.
Theo will show his new creature Animaris Modularis.

And on Friday, 28th, September 2007 at 6 PM Theo is giving a lecture at the Landesmuseum in Hannover.
The exhibition is supported by the dutch embassy in Germany,  BMW AG, Spedition Spangenberg and the city of Hannover.

Ypenburg

Yesterday we continued filming in the Netherlands.
We went to a beach in Scheveningen. We had brilliant weather and we got some beautiful pictures. It was hard work because Theo and i were alone - no helping hand around - but it was really worth doing it.
I continued with the Panasonic HVX-200 and I really felt in love with this camera. Now I have rent a 16 and 8 GB card, so I am able to record 48 minutes without interruption.
With my new laptop it is a great pleasure to work in field. It is not so easy to find a place on the beach where we could leave to technical stuff, but fortunately there was a bar next to the beach.
We heavily protect the camera from sand with a coat, plastic bag and gaffer tape, so it was not so easy to work with the camera.
Today we want to visit the first beach animal: Animaris Vulgaris. It is hidden somewhere in Delft and I am curious about it.

shooting in September

I am going to Ypenburg in the beginnig of September. I am really looking forward to continue the shooting.
Yesterday Marcio sent me some parts of the film music and it was really great to listen to this music for the first time.
When I am back from Ypenburg I have ten days to complete the short version, 10 days without sleep, but it will be a great pleasure. My plan is to start editing during my visit in Ypenburg. I will have a laptop with me and in during the nights I want to look at the footage and try out some sequences.

Grammy

Marcio, member of the Strandbeesten team and the composer of the film music, has recently received a Grammy Award. I am very proud to have a Grammy Award winner in my team! Marcio, composer and percussionist, played as a soloist for the Randy Brecker/Michael Brecker album "Some skunk Funk".

final countdown

I am still in the editing room working on the first version of the film.

I hope we could present the film next year in summer. Before the short version is finished, I am going to Ypenburg for filming  again in August.

editing

I started editing two weeks ago. In September the short version of the film is supposed to be finish, because there is the Nordmedia premiere of the film. So it is time to start. I have 600 GB data on two harddisks, my iMac and Final Cut. How to start this work? This was a difficult question in the beginning. I think there are 32 hours footage from London last year, ten hours from Ypenburg last October, 8 hours from March and several hours of archive footage we shot during the last four years. In December I have had a first look at some parts of the footage, but now I wanted to get a feeling for the whole data, so I started to watch every shot we made.
Final Cut has a great tool for doing this. It is called "Digital Cinema Desktop Preview". You could see the sequence fullscreen without any disturbing windows of the editing programme. In October when I started to work with the Panasonic P2 system (I had two 8 GB cards with me. With each card I was able to record 16 minutes), I decided to archive the footage chronological. After recording the 16 minutes on the card I put all the data from the full card in one bin. So there are for example 3 bins for the first day in October, because we recorded 3 cards (48 minutes).
Now I put all the videoclips from one bin in one sequence and I started to watch it in real time and added some marks.
It is always a pleasure and a pain for me to look at the footage. There all the beautiful pcitures but at the time you recognize immediately all the mistakes and problems during the shooting.
Here are some screenshots from the October footage:

Trailer

STRANDBEESTEN_TRAILER from Alexander Schlichter on Vimeo.

 

This is a trailer we made in 2003. It was filmed in Super16 and afterwards transfered to video.
I use vimeo.com to show the video in my blog.

 

back home

I am back in Doeteberg and I am happy that everything was fine.
On Wednesday evening Steffi and I were watching television and the BMW spot is on air in Germany, too.
Perhaps it will be a good promotion for my film.
I recognized a lot more traffic on my site and I think it is because of this advertisment.
It is well done, brilliant pictures, but unfortunately they overdubbed Theo with an awful German voice.

winter

I arrived on Sunday evening in The Hague. On my way to The Hague I had decided to make some shots in the evening, so I had to hurry a little bit to arrive before sunset. It was a sunny and warm day. 17 degress Celsius and it we have an early spring this year in Europe. It is a pitty because I wanted a winter shot from Ypenburg. My dream was a shot with hill and some snow. But during this warm winter there was nearly no snow in the Netherlands. So I arrived just in time at the hill, I think 15 minutes before the sunset. I made some shots from the graveyard and I recogenized that it looks like winter time, although it was very warm. The sky and the sunset looked like in winter times. I made a shot with some trees without leafes in front and that is my winter shot. I am really happy, because I want all the season in the film.

shooting in Ypenburg

Today I am going to Ypenburg to continue my shooting. I want to make some shots because of the near spring. I take a crane with me to make some shots where you are able to see the cabin on top of the hill, Ypenburg and the highway.
If you have time you could look at Theo´s website and the webcam to see me working (if I am in the cabin).
I will continue my diary tomorrow and you will find some pictures here.
The last two weeks I was in Japan for a shooting and I bought a Canon Powershot G7. It is a great small photocamera and so I am able to make some making-of photos.

new website

I am working on a new website for the film "Strandbeesten". I am sorry that you are not able to see video or photos at the moment. They will follow in the next days. Here you will find all the articles I wrote during the last seven months.

The idea of this webiste is to share my work, my ideas and the experiences with you. I am looking forward to your opinion.