For the first time in more years than I care to remember, I give you another annual installment of the 'Lights of Crapchester', my ongoing chronicle of the Christmas lights to be seen on the streets of my home town. I used to drive around the town and outlying area filming these while working. As I no longer do that awful job, this time around, all of the footage was shot within walking distance of my house, (some are even taken on my street). The wobbly camera work (unsteady cam?) is down to the fact that it all had to be shot guerilla style, as I was out walking - despite putting all this stuff outside of their houses for others to see, people can be surprisingly sensitive about having it filmed and photographed.
Anyway, here it is: the 2024 edition (although a couple of bits were actually shot in 2022 for an abortive attempt to revive this tradition). I know from experience that most people won't bother watching the video, but what the hell, I enjoyed making it, so stick that in your festive pipe and smoke it!
I still have unused footage from several years ago for at least two more films, but found myself shooting some new video yesterday. So, despite the fact that I know visitors here are extremely resistant to actually watching my videos, I decided to edit it together and put it up here. Frankly, after this week's heat wave and the disruption to my already disrupted sleep patterns that it caused, I'm too tired to come up with anything else for a post. (That said, this week traffic has been virtually non-existent, so I don't know why I'm worrying about keeping up a regular flow of posts - nobody's reading them, videos or not). Anyway, back to the video. This was shot on the 'other' part of Home Farm, a local country park I often walk around. While I've always been aware that another part of the park existed, across the road from the part I'm familiar with, it was only recently that I found it could be accessed via the gate opposite the car park I habitually use, rather than by having to park in the North car park and access it from there. The only other time I'd gone through that gate, there had simply been a field there that you could walk around, but nothing else. Consequently, for the better part of twenty years I ignored that gate and focused on the part of the park I knew, directly behind the South car park.
So, by chance, I found that the field has been 're-wilded' (a bit like my garden) and its boundaries have vanished, seamlessly merging it with a large area of heathlands verged by woods. The heat wave had subsided somewhat by the time I filmed this, but its legacy can be seen in the sun bleached grass everywhere. Cattle are also grazed on the far face of the heath and some long horned bullocks, ('no, I really saw them'), are in evidence. It really is a very beautiful landscape and very peaceful to walk through. Best of all, in contrast to the part of the park I'm more familiar with, it seems to attract far fewer dog walkers, (possibly due to the steep gradients on the hilly portions). Like I said, I know that nobody is going to bother watching this video, (they certainly didn't watch the last one), but this is my blog, so tough luck if you don't like it. I'll warn you now - there are likely to be more.
Something I haven't done in a while - a home movie. This has been a long time in the making: the footage was shot more than five years ago and, for some reason, I never got around to editing it into a film. Having finally remembered its existence and having located the thumb drive it was stored on, the challenge was to try and shape it into something vaguely coherent. When I shoot stuff, I generally have an idea of how I intend the finished product to look. The problem here was, that at a distance of five plus years, I had no clear recollection of my original intentions for the footage. So, I had to try and make sense of it all and put it together in some more or less logical order. The film captures a day I spent at Milford on Sea in early June 2015, highlighting various aspects of the seaside village. The opening sequences highlight the seafront, which, behind the extensive car parks, a mix of modern and traditional buildings. The village had been hit hard by violent storms early in the year, as evidenced by the wrecked beach huts, which had had their roofs torn off by powerful gales sweeping inshore. (They've since been torn down completely and replaced). The restaurant, which can be seen in the distance, beyond the excavator, was also seriously damaged. We then move on to the village centre, arranged around a green and featuring various tea shops and other tourist attractions, before finally moving westward, in the direction of Barton-on-Sea, to look at the more modern blocks of flats that sit back from Hordle cliff car park. (These have some pretty magnificent views out to sea).
Despite not recalling how the film was originally meant to go together, I actually well remember the day itself. It was a Friday that I'd managed to get off work. It was a stroke of luck - I'd been trying to get a day off to go to the coast for a while, but couldn't get any cover, (I was 'on call' at the time, with no back up), then, out of the blue, a colleague needed to take a weekday off and I agreed to to cover for them in exchange for them covering the Friday for me. I was feeling exhausted at the time,providing sick cover for another colleague (which is why I had no cover), dealing with an inept line manager and more senior management who, despite the fact that I had been covering for various sick colleagues for months, as well as doing my own job, were giving me a very shitty time. So, I took the day off and headed for the sea. Milford on Sea is somewhere I often wind up. Not only does it feature a beach, but it can be reached via the main roads through the New Forest and you can have a pleasant drive home by the scenic route, via Barton-on-Sea, New Milton and the Forest. It has a certain significance for me as, the first time I remember visiting it as an adult was following a family bereavement when, after the funeral, I needed to clear my head and the tranquility of the sea. So I drove south and eventually wound up in Milford. It's a great place to sit and watch the sea - I end up going there for this purpose at least once a year. Despite the fact that it is overcast, windy and practically deserted, this was the start of the summer season for Milford on Sea. By August - when I'm usually there - it is far busier, not to mention sunnier. Anyway, it was a great day off, providing a real relief from all the crap I was enduring at work.
There are a couple more of these unedited films on the thumb drive, neither quite as old as the footage that made up this one, though. At some point, I'll get around to trying to edit them into more or less coherent films and post the here.
So, here we are again: Christmas Eve and a video of some local Christmas lights here in Crapchester. Why do I do it? I really don't know. Anyway, if nothing else, this marks the end of my Christmas preparations. I can relax on the sofa now. Actually, I've already spent a large part of the day there, watching old films. When not doing that, I've been baking sausage rolls. I'll be going back to the films soon as I'm giving the pub a miss. It was packed last night, so it will undoubtedly we worse tonight. I'm just too old for all that shit. So, as I settle back onto my sofa, it only remains to wish everyone a Happy Christmas. See you on the other side.
With the media trying to scare us with speculation about a freezing 'White Easter' at the end of this week, I thought I'd take a look back at the first of the two snowy spells we've already endured this month, courtesy of the footage I shot at the time. The first shot is from about halfway down my street, but most of it was shot in the local park. A local park which, as you'll see, includes a small aviary full of budgies, parakeets and finches. Quite why it is there, I don't know, but it has been there as long as I can remember. Anyway, this video is the first I've edited on my current laptop using Movie Plus, a long discontinued film editor formerly produced by Serif, which I had on my old laptop. I finally dug out the DVD and registration key over the weekend and got it up and running on this machine. I've tried using various other video editors, all supposedly more sophisticated and up to date that Movie Plus, but found them all unusable for one reason or another.
But to get back to the video, it's surprising the extent to which a dusting of snow can transform a familiar place into something strange and beguiling. In places, my mundane local park looks like a winter wonderland under the snow. There's one bit, with a large concrete building seen distantly through the snow, (it's actually the main block of a local school), which vaguely reminded me of some of the early Helsinki sequences in Billion Dollar Brain when I watched them back. (Not that I'm trying to compare myself to Ken Russell - my shot was purely accidental, whereas his were carefully composed with artistic intent). Still, now that I've finally got a usable video editor loaded on this laptop, I can start looking at a backlog of video footage I have, with a view to producing a few more films.
Yes, it's that time of year again: our annual visit to the Christmas lights of Crapchester. You wouldn't believe the Herculean effort it took to put this one together. Thanks to Microsoft's decision to discontinue Movie Maker in any form, I had to fire up my old Lenovo laptop which still has Movie Maker Live installed on it, and load all the elements I wanted to edit together on to a thumb drive and edit it together there. (I've tried other video editors - they were all crap).
Anyway, it's all finished and uploaded now. I've eschewed my usual music choices, (I've used 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas' multiple times on these videos), in favour of a piece of my own composition. Well, I put it together using something called Music Maker Jam which came pre-installed on this laptop. It's repetitive and very irritating. Perfect really for this sort of video. As ever, not everything was actually filmed in Crapchester itself. Some bits were shot in nearby Turdley and other locations. So, there you have it, another of this blog's seasonal traditions maintained for another year.
Another slideshow made up of stuff from my photo archives. The main part concerns a ruined farm building I sometimes walk past. These used to be hugely obscured by impenetrable foliage, but when I visited them last year, most of this had been cleared away. Now that I can see them more clearly, I'm guessing that they were once used to store farm equipment and possibly temporarily hold livestock. Whatever their original purpose, they haven't been used for that, or anything else, for at least two decades now. The latter half of the slideshow is some footage taken in the New Forest in Spring a few years ago. The bleak, leafless scrub land constitutes another sort of ruin, whilst the bridge (which has featured in an earlier film) if not ruined, is certainly of some vintage.
I'm afraid that I resorted to another slideshow of vintage material for today's post for reasons of speed. I ended up wasting a lot of my evening trying to get my digital TV recorder to work after it unexpectedly died in the middle of a playback. Unfortunately, it appears irreparable, meaning that I've lost several movies I'd recorded but not yet had time to watch. It also means that I'm going to have to buy a replacement tomorrow, which means that my plans to replace this wheezing old laptop will have to be put off yet again. To say I'm annoyed is an understatement - the bloody recorder was only a couple of years old (but conveniently out of warranty). Modern manufacturing standards really are shit.
I haven't made a home movie in a while, so I decided to cobble together some footage I shot a couple of weeks ago with some last Spring which I'd never used. I say footage, in truth it's really a slideshow of a collection of stills, with a video sequence in the middle. Anyway, it all chronicles some country walks I've made during Spring over the past couple of years. Sheep feature quite prominently in the latter half.
As it turns out, I've got quite a few collections of stills and even footage for a film shot three years ago which I never got around to editing together. So, I'll probably be putting together a few more of these home movies over the next few weeks. You have been warned.
I decided that the highlight of my holiday activities yesterday was watching some bees buzzing around wild flowers. It's not a great film - the bees weren't terribly co-operative subjects, refusing to stay put on flowers and flying around willy nilly. Nevertheless, they are quite fascinating, busy and industrious as they flit from flower to flower, spreading pollen and collecting nectar. Their single-minded dedication to their task is, in many ways, quite admirable.
I can't help but feel that, over the years, I've neglected the insect world in my various summer holiday wanderings. Their activities have provided a background to a lot of my travels, yet I rarely acknowledge their existence. Hopefully, this summer, I might be able to commit a few more of their activities to film, along with some of the other wildlife I encounter. We'll see.
Every year I say that I won't do this again - but nevertheless, here we are with this year's look at some of the fabulous Christmas lights of Crapchester. As usual, the weather intervened to ruin some of the planned footage. Also, some of the best displays were effectively inaccessible, as parking close to them was just about impossible. Despite these problems, I've still managed to recotrd for prosperity a handful of my favourites from this Christmas.
As ever, I'm now going to vow never to engage in this sort of exercise again. Until next Christmas, that is...
Second part of this year's summer holiday slideshow. Part Two focuses on the coast and encompasses images and video from five different beaches: Calshot, Lepe, Keyhaven, Milford-on-Sea and Barton-on-Sea. There is also a sequence shot on the cliff top path between the latter two beaches. They photos and video were taken over all three weeks of this year's Summer break and, as you can see, the weather seemed to mostly be overcast.
The liner which turns up off of Calshot is the 'Anthem of the Seas' - the second of Royal Caribbean's 'Quantum' class liners, only delivered in April of this year. These cruise liners always seem to turn up when I visit Calshot beach - last time two of the Cunard liners and a smaller Fred Olsen Lines ship turned up. Actually, there was a second liner thee this time, but I wasn't able to get any rally satisfactory pictures or video of it. Or, indeed, manage to identify it. Next up on the home movie front should be a starring role for Milford-on-Sea in a film all to itself. After that, I should have enough left over material for a 'Part Three' to this series.
Well, here's the first of those threatened slideshows of this year's summer travels. This one focuses on the inland bits of my wanderings - some of the locations are familiar from previous years, some not. There's a brief bit of video in the middle, my attempts at wildlife documentary making, you might say. I'm planning another of these focusing on the coastal parts of this year's holiday - this might be delayed as I shot some more, quite interesting beach footage today and I'll have to incorporate that. In fact, I did a fair bit of filming and photography today at several different locations, which might well result in a 'Part Three' to this series. Plus, there's still that footage I shot on my day off back in June to be edited.
At the end of a cold wintry week, here's a reminder of Summer. Another fragment of film from last year's holiday, this takes us to the 'other' end of my favourite beach. Whilst the opposite end, the road end - which has featured in previous films - borders onto a section of private beach, this end come to an abrupt halt, with a wire fence and 'keep out' signs preventing anyone from progressing further. Apparently, the fenced off section is a nature reserve of sorts, intended to protect various flora and fauna from us holiday makers. Of course, if this section wasn't fenced off, it would be possible to walk all the way round to the neighbouring beach, (featured in films such as 'Scenes From the Shore').
The only part of my Christmas programme to survive the ravages of last weekend's cold, here's our traditional look at Crapchester's seasonal lights. It was touch and go whether I would be able to salvage sufficient material from the footage I shot last week to put to together more than a few seconds but, somehow, I managed it.
I've also decided to count this as December's 'Monthly Movie', thereby bringing that project to a rather muted close. The fact is that, apart from the fact that nobody bothers watching these films - they visit the posts, but apparently can't be arsed to watch the film - the way I feel now, I just don't think I'll have the time or energy to put together the December entry I'd planned before the end of the month. Quite apart from the fact that I'm still tired from fighting that cold (the cough is still fighting a valiant rear guard action to try and ruin my Christmas), the supposed fix of my telephone service by BT has failed again (at least the third time they've 'fixed' it, only for the fault to reoccur within less than two weeks - just after they've marked the fault as 'resolved' thereby improving their figures, coincidentally), leaving me with the prospect of having to waste large chunks of my Christmas break chasing BT again.
Speaking of said break - I finally finished at work today, but not before one last act of pettiness directed my way by what passes for a 'manager' in the office, designed, doubtless, to sour the time off I've had the nerve to take. It never ceases to amaze me the way in which some people just can't see how badly it reflects on them, when they try to assert their non-existent 'authority' through such acts of petty vindictiveness. But fuck 'em. I don't have to put up with the bastards again until next year!
The penultimate entry in the 'Monthly Movie' project, November's movie utilises some beach footage I shot back in September to experiment with some new video editing software I've acquired. As you can see, the main feature I've played with is split screen, allowing me to simultaneously present several alternate takes of the same scene. I wasn't sure exactly how well this would come over in a smaller viewing window, but I think it looks OK.
Although it doesn't look it, the original footage was shot on one the sunniest days of my holiday, although, thanks to the strong wind, people were wrapped up as if it were winter. As a point of interest, the actual walk part of the film is at the same location as the very first film - 'A Walk on the Beach' - that I ever posted here, several years ago. So, there you have it, another 'Monthly Movie'. Incredibly, we only have one more to go before the project is completed. I know that nobody actually watches these (go fuck yourselves, see if I care) but I've found it an interesting experiment. So there.
October's 'Monthly Movie' entry inevitably has a Halloween theme. I have to say that this is one ripe for remaking - I was pressed for time making the film and by the time I had an opportunity to film anything, I was fast losing the light. Consequently, the quality of the finished footage leaves a lot to be desired. With some adjustments, you can just about what's going on in the later scenes, but I'm still not happy with it. Still, it's all I've got, footage wise. With another project for a possible October monthly movie bogged down in technical difficulties, the only other viable alternative would have been to cobble something together from the unused footage I shot in August and September.
Anyway, not only was the shoot hurried, I was also poorly prepared and unable to use any of my preferred locations due to time constraints. I really should have had a better costume for the 'zombie' and set up more complex shots. I was going to try a reshoot today and thought I'd be able to finish work early enough to catch at least an hour of daylight on a more favourable location. However, thanks to Crapchester's poorly designed road network, I spent most of the afternoon stuck in traffic jams and missed the opportunity. Hopefully, at some point in the future, I'll return to this project and remake it - I've got a great coat which would make a better 'zombie' outfit, or maybe I could use a bedsheet, as in M R James' 'Whistle and I'll Come to You', thereby substituting a ghost for the 'zombie'. I'll also be shooting 'day for night' and adjusting the footage in post-production to add a 'night filter'.
I know I'm not really selling this film well, making it sound like a hastily assembled clunker. But, to be fair, I do think it has its merits and is worth a look.
It's the end of the week, so I thought I'd post another holiday video. Like the title says, this one was shot late on a Summer afternoon, with that golden, hazy late afternoon sunlight filtering through the trees. Consequently the whole thing has a slightly ethereal feel, particularly the opening sequence at the woodland bridge, with the sunlight reflecting from the water. However, as it turned out, the day this filmed, a murder had taken place a few miles away, although I didn't know this at the time. Consequently, watching this footage retrospectively with the knowledge of this brutal slaying, the whole Summery scene seems to have a slightly dark and sinister undertow. Hence the music, (as ever courtesy of Kevin MacLeod), which combines a deceptively upbeat and ethereal sound with hints of something darker lurking underneath.
As is often the case with these films, the location - King's Hat - looks remote but, in reality there are fairly busy country rounds nearby in three directions. This was actually one of the driest and sunniest days of my holiday - I'd spent the earlier part of the day on the coast - but as it was September by then, most of the schools had gone back, so I didn't have to put up with too many families with children in tow, making it a very pleasant day. Until the news of that murder broke, which cast something of a pall over my memories of the day. Nevertheless, it was a good day for me - relaxing and exhilarating.
It's that time again - Monthly Movie time. Once again, this is also, effectively, a holiday film, but as the footage was shot in September, I thought I'd count it as part of the 'Monthly Movie' project. This was shot at the Highland Water enclosure near Emery Down. The path actually does a complete circle and it is possible to access the other side of the ford seen in the August Monthly Movie by taking one of the many paths which branch off of it. However, I didn't get to that path. In fact, I didn't complete the circuit of the main path. I became so spooked as I walked around the enclosure that I abandoned the walk half way (hence the abrupt ending to the film) and hot footed it back to my car.
As you can see, it was broad daylight, and the only other living things I encountered were two ponies, but there was something about the atmosphere of those woods which really disturbed me as I walked through them. It didn't help that only a couple of days before I shot this, there had been a murder in another part of the New Forest, (the scene of which, coincidentally, I had unknowingly driven past several hours after the incident), and, as I rounded the bend in the path after the ponies, I noticed, deep in the trees, a tent of some kind. Clearly, someone was living rough in the enclosure. Bearing in mind that at this point no arrests had been made in the murder case, I became somewhat uneasy. My sense of uneasiness grew as, after I passed the tent, I became convinced that I could hear someone or something moving parallel to me in the tees, although I couldn't see anything. When I couldn't hear the distant crackling of fallen twigs and branches breaking as something moved over them, there was just an eerie silence. At which point my nerve broke and I hurried back to the car (as I was the only one parked in the car park, I had assumed I was alone there), and drove a few miles down the road, to an enclosure with more people in evidence.
Not surprisingly, the film reflects my sense of unease, with some dark and foreboding music (courtesy of Kevin MacCleod), heightening the sense of tension as I creep, hesitantly, through the forest.
Another quick holiday movie. This one is nothing more nor less than moving wallpaper - well, slightly moving. It's simply the view across a lake to a stately home, (not Sleaze Towers, obviously - it isn't anywhere near grand enough). There are lots of waterfowl making noises and flapping about, whilst various types of livestock wander around the far side of the lake. Nothing really happens. Which is good. Not to mention relaxing. Sit back with a mug of tea and watch it on a loop...
Both August's 'Monthly Movie' and the first of this year's holiday videos, 'A Rainy Day in The Forest' pretty much reflects the way this month has panned out: disappointing weather-wise, but still with plenty of points of interest. This one was shot on Tuesday, in between downpours of torrential rain. Eventually it eased off enough for me to take a walk along some forest paths I hadn't explored in quite a few years. The stream is usually fordable at the point it crosses the path, but the heavy rain had swollen it somewhat.
Interestingly, significant amounts of damage caused by last winter's storms, in the form of fallen trees and land slippage on the banks, can be seen along the stream. So, there you have it - eight films into the 'Monthly Movie' project. We're on the home stretch now with only four more to go!
