ceven's blog

11.02.2012

I got the privilege last Sunday to attend the 30^th year anniversary party of Touch Music label in Berlin as part of the CTM Festival. It was a wonderful event with a very impressive lineup. The setting was so perfect and the sound was so extraordinary, which made it difficult to concentrate on making actual photography without being intrusive thus disrupting the mood (no flash – no tripod).

I'm a bit annoyed with myself and this particular camera work. The location was gorgeous and gave the opportunity to work with shadows and massive forms to improvise with alongside sensationally beautiful sound pieces, yet there I was fighting with how to handle the camera without an annoying AF-assist illuminator breaking the darkness or the sound of the lens-reflex caught in a moment of silence or the guesswork of aperture versus manual focusing (without AF-illuminator one must use manual focus in order to take a photo in a very dark room, or perhaps I'm missing something?) or trying to hold still as to not make too much blur. In such situations one wants to use their camera for what it was made for rather than a little thinking and measuring computer. 

I'm turning off these little helpful devices and reducing back down to the original completely manual way of photography for a while.

As far as the line up went Touch has some of the most quality artfull music and sound artists on one label. It was at times breathtaking to be in such a live installation. Here are some links to the performers that were there:

Hildur Guðnadóttir (played her new album for us - it's an amazing work!)

The Eternal Chord (recording of what played at the location: Passionskirche, Berlin) 

Jana Winderen (one of the most incredible sound sculptures I've ever witnessed - it transformed the entire church into someplace else)

Marcus Davidson (brilliant)

Charles Matthews (filled every millilitre of air with beautiful organ)

Eleh (captivating pianist)

Organology (ensemble including Marcus Davidson)

07.02.2012

04.02.2012

The following video was made on a Nikon D7000 with a sigma dc ex macro hsm lens in a single 5 minute long recording of dust flying around a lamp in the studio and fluctating between aperture settings and focal points. 

The first thing I did was convert the footage to ProRes 422 for importing into FCP 7 then desaturate 100%, adjust the Brightness to 38 and the contrast to 18 before inverting the RGB channels. The speed was slowed down to lengthen the duration to 6 minutes 36 seconds. The video track got copied and put over itself upside down. The desaturation was taken away and the V2 track was then composited with the screen setting and took down the opacity to 44% then rendered.

I wanted to bring the flying of dust particles into a more watery place to see how the movements could possibly mimic schools of fish.

German with English subtitles | deutsch mit englischen Untertiteln

DIE VERRÜCKTE TEESTUNDE frei nach dem Kapital A Mad Tea Party aus Alice in Wonderland von L. Carroll
mit Claudia Frickemeier (Alice), Thorsten Hergasz (der Hutmacher), Helga Jäckel (März Hase) und Han van
Acoleyen (Haselmaus), Regie: Ceven Knowles, Kamera: Daniel Borden und Jon Stambaugh, Schnitt: Ceven
Knowles, Musik: Ceven Knowles, Drehbuch Thorsten Hergasz und Ceven Knowles | © 2008 Unbekanntes
Sektorformat, Hi8 Video, ca. 13 Min.


In 2007 I set out to do an original German language translation of "A Mad Tea Party" chapter of the Alice in Wonderland story. At the time there was no such version and as my gateway into making German language film it seemed like a nice idea to try, also with the intention to initiate a new series of shorts made after each chapter of the book. I asked Thorsten to help with the translation work and in about 2 sittings we had the script finished. We had 4-5 practices made over a period of 3 months and set a date to shoot in January 2008.

The shoot went very well and everyone got cranked up on sugar and black tea throughout the day. The locations were all rooms in the apartment I shared with Helga with exception of the first outside shot of Alice walking in, which belonged to my new apartment. I wrote the soundtrack while editing. The premiere was at my birthday party the following May.

General reception was rather negative mostly due to the sound being sub-par and the video quality was *only* Hi8. People who didn't know the story didn't understand the context. I always liked this work and still feel it was undeservingly undervalued regardless of low-end video format. There are many hidden things that only those well acquainted with the story and are bilingual can appreciate. 

The film short was a catalyst in that I'd just come out of doing Anderecast and wanted to go in a more classical direction in video and filmmaking, the rejection of this piece and outright condescension toward me was disappointing and demotivating. I spent most of 2008 not making anything as a result, during that time new ideas had begun gestating, some not yet ready to come out and others blooming into projects like Nevec Red, Hinausgehen, and CERUSmedia. It's nice to revisit this piece and open it up again to the world. 

-Ceven Knowles
Berlin 29.01.2012

25.01.2012

22.01.2012

25.12.2011

14.12.2011

5 musicians improvising for an hour and a half around dinosaurs in a private happening one evening after closing. It was a brilliant experience that I look forward to repeating. The Naturkundemuseum is one of my most favourite places in Berlin, I should have a year-round pass and be invited to all their events. There will be more to come under this theme.