So I was up at six this morning and into Crystal Palace Park to shoot the first segment of a new music video.  This is to accompany the title track of my brothers steampunk album Spinning the Compass.

Luckily the weather behaved itself and we spent several hours with Tom wandering around wearing the steampunk goggles I recently made.  Didn’t get too many odd looks, so maybe all the joggers are used to such things.

Crystal Palace Park is great for steampunk as it features a victorian dinosaur theme park (which we took full advantage of) and loads of cool victorian architecture left over where the palace once stood.  The statue pictured above looked very nice partially silhouetted against the morning sky.

It’s kind of par for the course to do this kind of video in a mock sepia effect with a film grain filter with scratches and noise added.    I’m trying to avoid doing that this time, instead I’m going to desaturate the whole thing, not to make it black and white but to give it a slight monotone feel.  I may leave the above shot untouched though as it does look quite nice ;0)

The monotone look will be balanced with a ‘lamp-lit’ orange hued sequence shot inside which will feature shadow puppets. This is kind of narrative driven so I won’t give much more away than that.

We were trying to keep the reveal of Tom in his getup til abit later on, so alot of the initial sequence has been shot focussed on foreground objects and keeping tom out of focus moving about in the background til ‘the reveal’ pictured below.

We’ve got some nice shots so far – I’m just assembling an initial edit.  Seem to have shot tons of footage though – there’s over twenty minutes and it’s only a five minute song!  With a load of additional stuff to shoot think we might have to make some harsh cuts…….!

I’ve had another go at taking some pics of the new steampunk get-up. I’ve added a bracket that holds the top hat in place. I figured that even if this guy is trapped in an electro-shock gizmo, he still wouldn’t want to be seen without his hat ;0)

Here’s a pic:

And here’s a Flickr photoset too.

Had a quick try with this one.  I’ve got some magnets holding the mask in place at the mo, they’re not strong enough though so I’ll have to figure out another way of holding it in place.

Not easy taking decent photos of yourself.  I’ll do some better ones later.

With hat? Not sure.

A few more pics.  The apparatus is made from various pieces including pieces from old cameras.

To accompany the mask I’m also making a skull cap which I’ve sculpted in chavant oil clay. The idea is that this is either an electro shock skull cap or maybe from an electric chair. The circles will each have cables dangling down as though the skull cap had been wrenched from equipment that it was previously attached to. I’m hoping they’ll look like dreadlocks.

The idea is that the character has been disfigured by the electro shock therapy he’s received and that’s why he’s wearing the mask. The whole thing will be topped off with a jauntily angled top hat ;0)

The silver mechanical piece is the heads from a VHS player.

Here’s a quick shot of the plaster mould I’ve made of the chavant skull piece. I’ll be laminating this with more fibre glass.

I’ve done a little more work on this.  As well as the mask the idea is that it comprises a skkull cap perhaps like those used in electric chairs or shock therapy.  There’s be loads of cables hanging down from it like dreadlocks.

Here’re the beginnings of that idea.  I’ve incorporated the heads from an old VHS player into the piece.

Started working on a new Steampunk costume.

I’ve finished off the steampunk goggles now.   I’ve added a light in the goggles and (not pictured) the fan on the power plant now moves.

Today was spent taking pics of my brother in full steampunk get-up.

There will also be a vid so I’m not quite done with this one, but the build is all finished at least.

Update: having thunk about it for abit I reckon these could be called ‘Geist Goggles’, for spotting specters, spooks and spirits ;0)

Here’s a photoset on Flickr.

Been experimenting with adding some more textures to pics with varying degrees of success……

Quick update on the steampunk gear.  I’ve finished off the power plant with a plaque and a battery to make the fan rotate.  I’ve also added a light to the goggles.  I’ll have some proper pictures this weekend, but for now here’s some pics of the power plant: