Its May, Its Lockdown
Local Pal, Surf Videographer & all round Legend Mike Guest started heading down to the shore at Portobello every morning to film the sunrise from the water. When I saw the first clip, I called him up to tell him I had been getting up & recording bird sounds & the ocean sounds at 3am & 4am. We realised we had a similar sort of madness.
His wee Dawn Days of may project has developed octopus arms & legs, involving all sorts of little collaborations. Its also about mental health & there is a meditational element to some of the music, films & spoken words. Living in Portobello I find the sea to be a really important element for happiness as with all natural spaces
He used my first tune on the following days film, then we started bouncing vibes off each other. For some days where I'd been to busy to make tunes or trying to build a diy hydrophone (underwater microphone) he had been digging up half finished forgotten tunes from my hard drive.
There are other bits & pieces that being used from lock-down collabs with friends Hendo Tanuki, Gabor, Brian Branford, music from Julie Fowlis, meditative spoken elements by Stuart Lee @ beingconcious and a great reactive piece from Chris Hall aka BBurg
Mike has been an absolute trooper heading into the sea every morning, mostly alone but sometimes with me or Stu @ being concious for company. He has been capturing some truly amazing footage, then heading home to edit it straight away and post a short 1 min video.
Ive been capturing the sound of the surf from above and below the water with stereo mics & a diy hydrophone as well as ambience & bird songs at dawn. The best thing about lockdown for me is the lack of background noise & traffic and marine traffic so this is an opportunity to capture local sounds of nature while I can. These sounds have also been warped & used in some of the music as well.
Currently Mike is uploading 1 minute videos online & some longer meditational videos on vimeo. The plan is edit longer versions of films at the end. And hopefully an album of sorts:
It has been truly amazing so far.
Barry Jackson - Freelance Sound Engineer
I provide recording studio services & on location recording services for Podcast Production, Documentary Film, Audio Description Production, Voiceover, Dubbing, Music & Live Sound Recording. Based in Edinburgh but work all over
I can also help with audio editing, mixing, sound design, audio restoration & mastering
Experienced in live broadcast for TV, Film, Radio, Live Streaming & live events