Back in time for the blog tonight to last October (we're a bit busy at the moment preparing some bits for a couple of exhibitions, after the traditional Tax Self Assessment break from being arty to briefly become accountants).
Anyway, October 2018 saw the last visit to Wales; we needed to produce some work for an upcoming open call in Jan '19, so we both planned a ton of ideas we could shoot whilst we were there... and then for me (Ben) it all fell apart in the weeks before the hol, as various health and work concerns got in the way, and none of the planned models got built.
Needing to shoot something, anything, I took the opportunity to try and nail the least-successful shoot from Observe to Preserve, and the Rail Studio shots (which had to be rushed on a single, very wet day up in the Dales back in July in order to hit a tight deadline).
On top of that, I thought I'd shoot some more pics/redo a couple of shots with the road studio too.
Digging the models out of the loft however revealed some problems; being kept wrapped up in a sealed box up in the roof during the heatwave hadn't done the models any favours. Plastic had warped, adhesives had melted or come unstuck, damage had occurred, and so a whole evening was spent in Wales re-gluing and re-painting a lot of the models.
With a fair bit of work though, the Rail Studio was restored ready to shoot.
The main shoot was planned to be done on the beach, but I'll put that in a separate post.
The first shoot of all though was on the sea wall at Criccieth using the Road Studio model, which had fared better (being stored in a cupboard), where a drainage channel created as close to a scale concrete-lined canal as I was likely to find. I'd stumbled on it last time and improvised a shoot, but felt with a few more models, it could make a more satisfying pic with the Road Studio miniature.
On our first night in Wales we popped down there for a recce, but the light wasn't terrific, and I wanted a sunset to backlight the pics... so we abandoned the shoot and headed to pick up a curry.
Of course within minutes of ordering the curry, the sun popped out most dramatically, but there was therefore no time to do the shoot before the food. Never mind, we thought, we have another 6 evenings, there's bound to be another dramatic sunset.
Sooner or later, we're going to stop saying things like that...
Returning to the location on the last day of the holiday we found a dull sky, but there wouldn't be time for a reshoot, and so we pressed on.
The props were quickly set up; last time (practise shoot in the spring) I'd thought a few bits of set dressing including some bridges would be good, and so the ruined girder bridge from the original Rail Studio shoot, and the ancient Britannia Model Village bridge sides, were used this time.
The first shoot had the figure on the right-hand side, but I didn't like the composition (nor the logic that the artist got out of the road studio, walked all the way down to the far bridge, and walked back up to that location)… something I only realised after a couple of minutes.
Moving the figure improved matters a bit.
All in all I was pretty satisfied with the way the shots came out.
Needing another shot with the Road Studio, I chucked the models in one evening towards the end of the holiday for a shoot; we ended up going out a little later than planned though and the light was a bit poor.
A further problem was the intended original location at Tanybwlch, which we'd done a recce on a month before, but the Forestry Commission had in the meantime cut down a ton of trees rendering it unsuitable... so we ended up in the hills above Beddgelert. The background was near enough what I wanted -a woodland setting, but in such a way that the models could be distanced a bit from the trees to help scale them a bit- though the lighting wasn't great. We cracked on anyway.
I had planned to create a weathered road surface on the railway trackbed with fine wet and dry paper, but ended up needing to shoot with the Rail Studio later, and couldn't afford to damage the set gluing the wet and dry down, somewhat ruining the desired effect.
This is more obviously post-apocalypse than most of the other shots, and in hindsight rather over does it with so much set dressing. Too many wrecked vehicles and things... less is more. I think having the hints of catastrophe more subtly sprinkled into the pics works better, though it does link it a bit more strongly into the earlier Britannia Model Village series.
Nothing says sci-fi like Dutch Angles... though there wasn't too much room to tilt the camera on the large rock it was all set up on. I could have done with a lamp or reflector too I reckon.
Meh, lesson learnt.
With light fading, we drove west (in the general direction of the takeaway in Criccieth, always nice to have a destination to look forward to) and tried to find a spot for a shoot with the Rail Studio. We revisited the mountain lake we'd shot at for "The Home Is..." (chair project) but were put off by the gloomy lighting and mass of "HIDDEN CAMERA" signs.
Snow on the mountains.
Down the road into the Nantle Valley, which looked glorious.
Trying to find a location was problematic; the best spot for a shoot down the valley towards the light was behind a tall fence, and we didn't feel like trespassing (especially with several boxes of models). Down at the bottom of the valley though there was a handy layby with a flat wall, perfect for setting up the track and embankment models...
Pity about the telegraph wires, and a quick shot proved it would need to be low angle to keep the road out of shot...
… tough I was very happy with how it came out in the end, and indeed a modified version of the above shot is being entered for at least one open call in the first half of 2019, perhaps two...
In the next post, the main shoot on the beach, done earlier in the week than most of the above...
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