Working with other artists has always intrigued and excited me, appealing to my desires of sharing my passion and craft with other creative individuals. I have often worked with other jugglers, acrobats, clowns and actors; with whom I share a similar attitude or understanding; but working with web developers and videographers was a whole new ball game. The essence of creation starts in the imagination, something lucid and intangible, trying to coax it in to get a hold of its tail and pull it out of our brains and into something… NEW!
Jem LeLievre has made many websites over the last decade (jaijiel.net), and I had personally seen his work on the websites of some of my colleagues, and was confident in his capabilities and artistic eye. It was for this reason that I approached him with the idea for Will Be Juggling. He was enthusiastic and knowledgeable, and was all ears when I was describing my vision of how it might look, not knowing anything about what was possible or not. He turned the outline I had provided into pages and pages of code which translated into what you see now?! Well not immediately, there are always going to be problems that need solving and that’s where the creativity comes in. The perfectionist can always find more little bits and pieces to keep changing, spiralling down an endless rabbit hole, but after a month we were both extremely happy with the result. I was mesmerised that pages of (highly intelligent) jargon consisting of CSS, java script, wordpress, genesis, all kinds of things I knew nothing about could unite together to show this masterpiece! I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do.
The other crucial aspect of the website, for me, was some promotional material; the video. Enter Paul Anthony Sayers, a friend of mine studying film at Napier University. He has a background in parkour, is also a juggler with some mad skills in Kendama (check out his page SoundKendama), and was involved with our second ArtCore Circus project. I knew he had worked on videos with a parkour friend of mine and I always enjoyed watching them. From the minute I spoke to Paul about the idea, he came right back at me with a hundred more; we went to look at a few potential venues to shoot the film, set up a whole black room only to have some camera issues halt our progress. This however enabled us to get a really good understanding of how we both work within our different fields, and how to get the best out of each other. The process at first was a lot of trial and error, discussing all kinds of different ideas, that changed as the project went on.
We were so lucky that on the day we had decided to film, we were graced with incredible blue skies, and a glorious sunset. We did an outdoor film shoot in Edinburgh, Scotland in the middle of February basking in a warm sunny glow! The shoot itself was fun, we had a beautiful little alleyway behind a kebab shop kitchen, which was taking deliveries at the time, and chefs coming out for regular cigarette breaks, not paying Paul or I any attention at all… We filmed for a couple of hours, had to do a lot of takes to get to a point where I was happy with the juggling, and Paul was happy with his filming, it was a fine line, lots of things to go wrong! And then before I knew it, it was over, and we had everything we needed, it was quite surreal. A couple of weeks later we watched the 1st draft, and again I was blown away; how could something that was only a though a couple of weeks prior now looked like this awesome, professional, smooth video with great tricks, filming, editing, and lighting have come together so seamlessly! Nevertheless, we talked at great length about the bits we liked and the bits we didn’t, other bits we wanted to include, whether to speed up or slow down the footage, whether to edit out the drops or not?! 😉 After a couple more drafts, tweaking and tinkering with all the fine details in the timing, we were again both really happy with the result, we added a few final touches and VOILA! HEY PRESTO! Don’t Drop Teaser ready for the public!
The final piece that tied it all together was the artistry of Donald Dalziel , who just happened to be sitting in Starbucks when Paul and I had our first meeting to look at the footage. Donald was also on the ArtCore Circus team, and unbeknown to me, studied graphic design and animation at Napier University as well! I was looking for someone to turn another idea of mine for a logo into a reality, and by pure coincidence, Donald became that man! He was patient with me, again made several drafts with slight changes to find the perfect blend and again delivered with great results. Check out his page here.
I’m so happy and grateful to have worked with such creative and talented people to turn my ideas into reality, and help launch Will Be Juggling into the plutosphere! Now I find myself again, reeling in the line on a big catch, trying to tie these 3 elements together, to make the Will Be Juggling experience seamless and professional! It has been a very interesting 6 weeks, and I appreciate all the hard work that has gone in from these artists. It has been a pleasure, and I look forward to working with these three again on future projects! Hope you all enjoy the Will Be Juggling we have created for YOU!
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