Here’s a newly finished video project – the latest Just A Band music video for their single, “Ha-He”. I got a lot of help with this one (more on that later), specifically Mbithi Masya‘s help with directing and editing, and the usual chipping in of friends.

[UPDATE: 25TH March, 2010] So, wow! That didn’t go like I expected: 32,000 YouTube views in a week and the resulting “Makmende Phenomenon”, Kenya’s first viral phenomenon, articles in the Wall Street Journal and interviews for CNN – this has been overwhelming! Thanks, everyone!

It was great fun creating our vapid spoof action-hero type based on things we remember watching like Tahamaki, Chuck Norris films and Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon – in which angry men walk around beating truth out of hapless people.

The subtitled ‘dialogue’ consists of phrases lifted from various sources – particularly my favorite mind-bender: Waking Life.

Cast: Kevin “K1″ Maina, Patricia Kihoro, Mbithi Masya, Kibugi Wamae, Mugambi Nthiga, Renee Sewe, Kwame Oddenyo, PA Okaalet, Kevin “K2″ Maina, Moses Wataka, Lucille Kahara and Diana Nduba.

Additional Credits: Edited by Mbithi Masya and Jim Chuchu. Many thanks to Penya Africa, Njoki Ngumi, Lucille Kahara and Rachel Gichinga for all the help with styling/catering/transport.

I was going through my archives, and I found the original files I used to create the album cover for Just A Band‘s first album, “Scratch To Reveal”. I still meet people who ask me how the arm was done, so I thought I should post these bits and pieces up.

The arm belonged to my good friend Leni, who’s always game for random shoots, bless him. He’s very skinny, so his arm is worryingly bony. The wrist-band is an old (and very dirty) prop I bought for a shoot I did long ago.

Then I took a couple of photos of cables bunched up together – Firewire, USB, whatever…

Then I chopped the arm photo in the middle, and roughed up the ends using Adobe Photoshop’s Displace filter and lots of dodge/burning to make the ends look like they were ripped apart.

From there, it was a matter of placing the cable photos in the middle section, followed by lots of dodging, burning, cloning and scaling to make the light, shadows and placement look realistic.

Ta-da! Album cover! I’ve since been accused of being morbid, which is only half-true.

It’s been a long time since I designed anything – I’d been under pressure to make the album cover for Just A Band’s new album – 82, and match the tone of the new music (much lighter, more accessible? You’ll decide). After many ho-hum tries, this is the version that everyone in the band seemed to like at first sight. So, here we go. It’ll be out on the 17th of August (I hear), and the printing is less DIY this time, so it might look better. Fingers crossed. Feedback welcome as always.

More thumbnails follow:

Here’s the first video from Just A Band‘s coming-soon second album – 82. Shot it two weeks ago (had fun using a dolly for the first time – the Kenya Grip Company, very cool!), quickie edit and grading.

What say you?

I forgot to post this rather sketchy animation I did for TRNSMSSN. Accompanying track from an unreleased Just A Band demo – “The Light Fantastic”.

A bird? A plane? A carbon-neutral F-16 disguised as a friendly-alien-carrying UFO? Who knows?

Here’s another piece that showed at TRNSMSSN – “2012″; a piece that was inspired by the hardcore photographs that Boniface Mwangi (who makes us studio guys look like wimps) took of the violence that happened in Kenya after the 2007 General Elections.

I’m of the feeling that we haven’t learnt much from what happened (we still have internal refugees two years later), and there’s a general feeling that when we go back to the polls in 2012, it’ll start all over again because the people in charge (“Honorables” Kibaki, Raila and their friends) didn’t lose any of their family or property in the violence, they don’t see what the big deal is.

I fervently hope not. Fingers crossed?

Here’s the video I was talking about earlier – finally up on YouTube. First time working with a prime lens and available light only (who needs lights? Ha!).

I’m going crazy shooting videos back to back, all for the TRNSMSSN show next month. I’ve just finished shooting/editing the promo for another Just A Band song – If I Could. This time, I was playing around with split-screens and working with the very talented Patricia Kihoro and Kevin Maina (aka K2 – who was the “astronaut” in Fly). Fun!

Anyone who wants to see it will have to wait for the premiere on TRNSMSSN. I’ll YouTube it quickly after that.

What a year that was! And I get the feeling this year will be something else. Here’s the first image of the year – a promo pic for Just A Band‘s first concert of the year: Walkers and Workers.

I’ve been having fun with lurid lights and color. Mmmm….
The band is good, too. Check them out on the 1st of August, if you can.