2+4x4 finally completed

Patience is the ability to endure waiting, delay, or provocation without becoming annoyed or upset, or to persevere calmly when faced with difficulties.

Last night I spent a few hours after work with Richard Slater and we manged to get the music for the 2+4x4 project finished, which was a relief.
Then came the small matter of rendering the 4 films to my computer. This is a bit of a worrying time as I'm never sure whether my PC is just going to refuse to do it and shut down, as it infamously did for me with GIRL ALONE. But, there was no such drama this time around and all 4 films saved beautifully.

rendering on moviemaker

TPJ has a profile and contact information on the Kemps website. Its a very useful way of getting contacts if you are working in the media industry. I've had a few contacts since setting it up but unfortunately non of them have been suitable so far.

My Kemps page

The Cast of Bloodshot

Tonight I added a new page to my website with profiles of the Bloodshot cast. Look out for Mr. ??. If anyone knows who this old fellow is then I'll buy you a drink!

Check it out : Bloodshot Cast.

The Colder It Gets The More Miserable I Am

I feel almost ready for DF, almost...but I've still got to get the finished 2+4x4 music off Richard Slater and it'll be all smiles from here on in. I hope to see plenty of familiar faces at my booth or meet plenty of new people too. So this is one more reminder of where to find me...

Design Festa. Vol.24
Dec 2nd (Sat) & 3rd (Sun) 2006 11:00 - 19:00
At Tokyo Big Sight (Odaiba, Kokusai-tenjijo Seimon Sta).
East Hall 1,2,3.
You can find Tribal Pictures Japan at booth E-49. This is in the darkened hall (hall E)

Stay warm.

Design Festa gets closer

When I was about 17 years old I was in a rock band, we were called...erm, actually I don't want to say, but we wrote songs together and it was pretty cool. Now, 20 years or so later, I find myself writing music with another person again. Tonight (Sunday) I went over to see Richard Slater and we worked on the tracks for 2+4x4. I had already come up with the basic melody on my guitar, so we put drums, percussion and bass under each track, as well as a host of other bits and pieces.

I will be showing the videos for the first time at DF so if you come along you'll be able to hear the music we've composed, and of course enjoy the videos.

Richard Slater will be accompanying me on the 3rd, perhaps both days, and Elizabeth Sison Takagi will be with me on the 2nd.

I still have 1 pass available so drop me a line or send me a mail if you want to come.

Richard Slater and Richard Loffman.

1hour 24minutes & 45 seconds

I spent a few hours this afternoon thinking about my play-list for Design Festa. I already had a basic idea of the order but I just wanted to set it up and see how it all fits together the total running time will be 1:24:45. Much longer than I was expecting I must say. The play-list will be;

TPJ Ad
Tengu
2+4x4 Butterfly/Endymion
Interiors : Redux
Bloodshot
2+4x4 Dreams/Solo
Girl Alone Trailer
Girl Alone
2+4x4 Goddess/The Unholy Temple Of The Accused
Girl Alone In Full Colour
Gloom
2+4x4 Snakes & Ropes/Family Viewing

Design Festa Introduction

There's a very brief introduction to TPJ on the Design Festa website; write Tribal into the search box to find my profile. Then, if you click on the Tengu pic then it reveals some information about me.

Design Festa TPJ introduction.

Just to remind you that I still have 2 FREE tickets for Design Festa. So get in touch in you want to come along.

Music by Loffman/Slater (2+4x4)

I spoke with Richard Slater this week about the music for 2+4x4 and we have come up with a nice idea. I had already written a few guitar only tracks for each of the videos so Richard is going to sample these tracks in incorporate them into some nice sexy electronic music he's writing right now. That way we both get some input into the music and I still get to influence the feeling of each track. So here is an image of Richard's sampler/studio, very kindly borrowed from his website. Along with an older image of my electric acoustic guitar.

The case of the empty case

An empty video camera box sits before me this morning as my camera has once more decided that it doesn't want to work properly, so it's been taken to the Yodabashi Camera repair centre. This time, there have been other times, the problem is that it keeps chewing the tapes (mini DV), in particularly when I'm in the middle of recording which is most annoying. So the case is empty for now, which unfortunately means that I may not be able to record anything at Design Festa. Aaaaah!!!

1. I'm never buying Canon again.
2. Tape sucks, roll on HDD.

2+4x4 : Snakes & Ropes

One of the things that attracted me to Elle Sison Takagi's works was the 'darkness' of some of her paintings. She shares a similar attraction to me with some of the darker aspects of life. These are some images from the short-film we are calling 2+4x4 : Snakes & Ropes/Family Viewing. This is a discussion of torture and pornography. The physical torture of a woman juxtaposed with the mental torture of a man who is watching but knows that her shouldn't be. I think it comes together well. In the meantime, Richard Slater is now working on the music so the films will be finished by the time of Design Festa. So be sure to come along and see them.

Not achieving sound after all....

Sometimes you win and sometimes, well, you just plain old lose. I lost the battle to make the music for the 2+4x4 videos. I've just run out of ideas for now...so I've asked my mate Richard Slater to help me out again. He made some of the music for BLOODSHOT and all the tracks used in TENGU. He should have them finished fairly soon (hopefully before Design Festa, right???)
To help him out I sent him the videos tonight with my music on them to give him some inspiration or an outline of the kind of atmosphere I'm looking for.

Dark...passionate...sexy...moody...romantic...uplifting...atmospheric.

Design Festa

I'm hoping that you will be able to attend this years Design Festa and hopefully come and visit my (mini) booth. I will have finished the 2+4x4 videos so I will be showing them for the first time at DF. But, at the moment I'm having a bit of a music crisis because I'm not happy the music I've produced so far. Not sure what I'm going to do about it yet, but the inspiration to write new music has escaped me for now.

Anyway, music crisis aside, these are the details of where you can find me.
Design Festa. Vol.24
Dec 2nd (Sat) & 3rd (Sun) 2006 11:00 - 19:00
At Tokyo Big Sight (Odaiba, Kokusai-tenjijo Seimon Sta).
East Hall 1,2,3.
You can find Tribal Pictures Japan at booth E-49. This is in the darkened hall (hall E)

No Ordinary Joe

Those of you who have watched my two short drama films, BLOODSHOT and GIRL ALONE, may have noticed that both lead characters, played by Ali Jaffer and myself respectively, are called Joe. A friend recently asked why? Why did I choose to use the same name twice and why that name?

Well, to answer the first question, I think I wanted some kind of synergy between the two characters. They are both really bad guys and they share a similar destructive character trait. Secondly, I think the name Joe is often associated with the expression 'ordinary Joe', as in in an everybody or ordinary, average person. As these guys are far from ordinary I thought it was kind of ironic to name them this way.

I'm sure the name Joe will pop up in my drama films again in the future, that is until someone tells me to "stop with the whole Joe name thing Rich!"

Achieving Sound

In order to achieve my Post-UK Goth sound I use the guitar effects pedals below. From L-R, A Guyatone Analog Delay PS-109, Boss Chorus CE-3, Buskers Chorus BCH-4, Boss Heavy Metal HM-2 and Boss Noise Suppressor NS-2. All this goes through a VOX Pathfinder 10 amplifier (not shown).

2+4x4 : Music

I always think A-minor is a great chord to start with when I write music (see photo below). After that chord everything just seems to fall into place for me... I met with Elle Sison Takagi again this weekend and she approved the videos. Actually she was quite surprised to see how well my poetry - which was written 8 years ago - fitted so well with her images. So now that she has said yes to each project I must now go about writing the music. This will be in my usual electric-acoustic effects driven style, each piece having it's own flavour or texture. I should have the music completed over the next 2 weeks.

New look TPJ logo

Some of you may have noticed that for my last short film, Gloom, I used a negative (reversed colour) version of the TPJ logo at the start of the film. That one was a black (grey) dancing man on a white background. It looked nice and bright and fresh, in fact a lot of people commented that they preferred it to the original white dancing man on black background. Well, I'm going to continue to use both versions, black and white, depending on the feel of the project. Also I will be using a 'sepia' version for one of the 2+4x4 projects; as seen below.