Steelso V6.0

It’s the 2002 World Cup, sitting in The Lab and we’re commenting on how fed up we’re going to be listening to “A Little More Conversation” in 4 weeks time. I was drunk. Very drunk. During the night I dropped my glasses and stood on them.

Today I replaced them. 5 years of squinting, getting closer to the telly to play games (my sense of logic was that obviously what I really needed was a 50″ plasma), having to be 2 meters to read a train notice board, waving at shapes in the distance if I think they maybe waving at me. The list is endless.

Not that my eyesight is that bad. Jude, the very nice optometrist at Vision Express, told me that I have slightly above average eyesight. I have dealt with the fuzzy well and enjoyed it. But today….

It was like moving from analog to HD. Everything was perfect. Looking down Buchanan Street and putting the glasses on for the first time was simply amazing. Instead of seeing a mass of shifting colour I saw people. Hundreds, thousands of them bobbing along. It was glorious. Back to work and I could see the view from our office for the first time. It’s beautiful and inspiring. I’ve seen it but I’ve not looked at it until today. Paul asked if I was having “a moment”, I told him that I’d had at least 6 in the hour since I put them on.

The walk from office into town took twice as long as I kept stopping to look at the view. And the canal. And to take pictures of things I hadn’t looked at before.

I amazes me that you can do something as simple as put two bits of glass held together by metal and it can literarily change your view of the world. Thanks to Jude and Paul at Vision Express in Buchanan Galleries for making it also so easy. I had a hair cut too while I waited for my specs. I’m having a great day.

steelso :: Jul.27.2007 :: Big on Small, Everyday Stuff :: 9 Comments »

Today marks the 10th anniversary of me leaving the Tron after working there for 7 years. I remembered.

The Tron was a great time for me. I was technician on a part time basis then became permanent finally becoming Chief Tech and lighting designer for Tron productions. It was a great time. I worked with the best people in all fields, from production managers, my boss, the director I lit most shows for, admin staff and, thankfully, bar staff.

Recently I’ve been reading Rob’s (feels odd being so colloquial, I’ve never met the guy but he has a great blog) great mini series of posts on Enough is Enough. He raised some points that resonated with me on why I left theatre and why I loved it.

When Michael left and the new director came in there were “artistic differences” to say the least. I lit her first show, which was all right (though I have never seen so many people leave during a show, it has the highlight of our night to hear the sounds of seats being put upright and people storming out), but she was just so different from what I was used to and what I expected artistic directors to be like that after that show I had to leave. I was scared of being the guy at the end of the bar being bitter and looking back to the good old days. It was pretty obvious that either I left or would be fired. Both myself and my deputy, the hirsute Mr Shea, left at the same time. It was a great leaving party. But when I actually handed in my notice I went into the big shell of a theatre and cried my eyes out. I didn’t want to leave but knew I had to. Enough was enough.

I didn’t fare to well in the world of freelance lighting design. The Tron had given me a great comfort zone of creativity. For example a technical rehearsal in most theatres in about two days. For “The Trick is to Keep Breathing”, adapted from the Janice Galloway novel we had two weeks. It is unheard of in a production of that size. It felt like we were creating art rather than making it. Does that make sense? Anyway, after the Tron I found it really tricky to the tight deadlines of ‘real’ theatre and after about two years decided that, well, enough was enough.

I loved lighting. Loved it. I loved having wanky, arty chats with Michael about how a light should go up or down, what colour or what angle. I loved the collaborative approach to creation, bouncing ideas about and making them better. On the “The Trick….” we couldn’t turn off the theatre sometimes 30 minutes after the show ended because people were crying and not ready to leave the space that we created. I loved manually operating a lighting board to get the light to match the mood in timing and intensity rather than being just a cold, computer controlled affair. I could, and sometimes do, go on about how much I loved doing a plan then getting to see it come together and helping make something that can only live in the memory. Loved it.

But I was lucky to get involved with something that I love just as much, if not even more. I’m so lucky for that. I wrote about how similar I find my process of lighting and web development almost 2 years ago. hmmmm. Same old, same old…

Happy Tin Anniversary!

steelso :: Jul.25.2007 :: Thoughts :: 1 Comment »

I’m thinking about doing a wee project but it may impact on my holiday. In case I do decide to do it I’d be interested in your sofa, what it means to you and why you choose the one you have. If you have any pictures of it that’s be useful too. Thanks. I’ll let you know if I decide to move on the project…

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steelso :: Jul.23.2007 :: Learning :: 9 Comments »

• Is Facebook Worth the Hype?
  Is it? Fight, fight, fight!!!!!
  (tags: myspace trends social web2.0 facebook)

steelso :: Jul.22.2007 :: Everyday Stuff :: 5 Comments »

We recently launched The Whisky Coast website which supports a host of distilleries that are on the west coast of Scotland. The site has been in a holding phase for a couple of months but we launched the final site yesterday. Sweeet.

steelso :: Jul.13.2007 :: Web Launches :: 13 Comments »

Well we won a couple of silvers in last night’s award thing. The one I was most happy about was that we won a silver for BE Books sex education website which, given the competition, I was really quite surprised about. This was my first proper advertising award do and some of it seemed a bit strange. The odd thing is that no one won a gold. So while we won a silver it was odd as it seemed, to me, like there was no winner. But, hey, aren’t we all winners, hmmm, aren’t we?

So, a bit of a treat. I was Govanhill’s Next Top Model as I strutted on to collect my bit of paper. Blue Steeled like daft.

It was a good night all in. Well done to my team for creating the website and thank to the NHS for letting us do the project. Well done all.

steelso :: Jul.05.2007 :: Awards :: 6 Comments »

Martin and I off to London for the ever-so-fancy-pants IPA Health Awards. I’m kilted up, they’ll never know what hit them. We’re up for a few awards with the Bebooks website but I’m not sure we’ll win. We’ll see. Free bar though, either way I can drown my sorrows or celebrate our win. I’ll let you knowhow it goes, probably through Twitter. And possible Flikr too. Ooooooo, look at me, aren’t I all oh-so Web2.0!!!!

steelso :: Jul.04.2007 :: Awards, Creative, Team, Travel :: 1 Comment »

When going to watch 7 year olds behave like pint sized ninjas at my son’s karate grading I noticed the logo for the Kelvin Hall, a big sports arena in Glasgow. The logo is truly an icon of 80’s style and razzamatazz. It reminded me of the London 2012 logo. I love that. What goes around.

steelso :: Jul.03.2007 :: Cool :: 1 Comment »