Never Mind The Molochs

https://heathenstorm.com/2026/06/08/never-mind-the-molochs/

BPM SFX Demonstration Day at the Academy of Live Technology

Music by Trismegistus Hex

Full video at:

https://video.heathenlab.net/w/3xB2FahJPDrmb2RngM1PP1

#academyoflivetechnology #bpmsfx #sfx

The Day the (SFX) Circus Came

Lancashire-based live effects wizards BPM SFX recently brought the heat to campus. With an incendiary portfolio including work with Sleep Token, Sum 41, and Oasis, they filled Studio 001 with stage-tech toys of varying lethality.

The session gave (sensibly supervised) students a chance to play with professional kit that ran the gamut from innocuous confetti and bubble machines through to lasers, flamers, pyrotechnics, and sparklers – although it was the hand-held flamethrower that demanded the most interaction.

Loving the smell of accelerants in the afternoon, I rolled up to try my hand at conflagration and take some photos and video in the process. With only my phone camera to hand, I noted a lot of shots with the default app were over-exposed, supersaturated and unusable. Switching to the Blackmagic Camera app for greater control, I was able to adjust ISO and increase shutter speed to better capture the experience – and thankfully record in landscape despite holding the phone vertically. The end result being a short little video to commemorate the day, even if YouTube’s compression fails to preserve the HDR intricacy of the original laser spread.

The soundtrack forms an early work-in-progress teaser of future Trismegistus Hex material. A cheeky, if not outright blatant homage to horror movie maestro John Carpenter, but likely to change substantially in the final cut.

We don’t normally get access to such gear during the course of our studies, so it was great to get hands-on and, for some students, spark new career possibilities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib6JsZ28_c8

Fun with flamethrowers!

#academyoflivetechnology #bpmsfx

Spoilt for Opportunity

https://heathenstorm.com/2026/04/19/spoilt-for-opportunity/

Now the rush of term-end is behind me, I can afford time to document some of the projects I’ve been up to between my Academy studies.

FLUIDITY is an experimental short film improvised one weekend in February 2026 with the Academy of Live Technology’s Postgraduate cohort, at the behest of visiting Multimedia Artist-Engineer Diana Scarborough. A Cambridge-based creative whose work blends science, art, and ecology, her Sounds of Space project is an inspirational extension of concepts I’ve used in my own work.

The film presents a meditation on water, flowing around a spoken word performance by student Dami Olagbegi. Soundscape and Foley were recorded by contact mics and hydrophone, capturing the sound of underwater instruments, percussion, and melting ice. Suitably swirly visuals were then evoked by filming a tray of water through an old-style desk projector while adding different colour pigments with a pipette.

My part was to blend these elements together, along with separately supplied stock footage and a little alchemical flavour. Layering down a simple synth soundtrack to mix the recordings into form, and editing the video against an unyielding deadline.

Using GarageBand and DaVinci Resolve on iPad to record and edit, and shooting the projections with a SmallRig-ged iPhone, the tools to hand ensured swift turnaround from idea to image. Although I could have used some extra time to polish things properly on home hardware, I’m happy with the raw honesty of the result.

It was a great pleasure to be invited to work alongside the Postgrad students, to get a feel of what awaits my own Masters journey, and to play without expectation for the joy of creating art.

https://youtu.be/UeOFbDiJMMc

Diana Scarborough: dianascarborough.co.uk
Sounds of Space: soundsofspaceproject.bandcamp.com

This is probably the first, last, and only time I’ll ever mention the former “Bad Boy” of “Pop”.

A common motif scattered around the Academy campus is the visage of Robbie Williams. Site-based stage innovators TAIT have built scenery for his prior productions, with the larger than life result donated afterwards to make an effective fire assembly point. In wintry weather I observe it’s not the first time he’s had snow on his nose.

On a smaller scale, a 3D-fabricated sculpture of his face provided a challenging projection mapped surface as my Visuals module heads toward end-of-term assessment. Indulging a desire to integrate facial projection into future projects, this was the ideal static subject to try things out over a few hours of experimental studio time.

Despite any knowledge of his career purely culled by cultural osmosis (really!), I was able to piece together a collage of clips to represent the journey. With a simian base layer invoking the Better Man biopic, I swiftly incorporated his more recent cartoon appearance on a certain cat food commercial. Going back to the KISS-inspired makeup from “Let Me Entertain You”, the montage was topped off with the skin-stripping coda to the “Rock DJ” video. Looping that segment through the projector’s tinny speaker was sufficient to get everyone’s toes tapping – whether they wanted to or not.

Sourcing the elements in short notice was a challenge within itself, necessitating some quick thinking across many resources and creating new ones on the fly. But for a dabble it did the job nicely – despite a few imperfect keystone masks and off-centre aspects.

Although my studies and assessment focus on mastering Green Hippo media servers, I took the opportunity to try something different. Cracking open the case for the first time on our prized Troikatronix Isadora server, I soon found myself a quick learner.

Green Hippo has a warm, organic user interface that sometimes seems counter-intuitive despite its obvious power. Isadora presents a more familiar building-block style of boxes and properties, allowing links to be dragged between outputs and inputs to visualise how everything is hooked up.

My familiarity with node-based workflows such as DaVinci Resolve Fusion, combined with my coding background, made getting to grips with Isadora a cinch. Although I can understand how the blank starting screen can seem intimidating to non-techies.

Although there are likely far more efficient ways to structure my little throw-together, I was able to coax the effect I wanted by combining smaller known sub-processes. This combination of nodes and lines offered mathematical means to make it work where I may have floundered with an artier interface…

… so I guess I’m loving angles instead.

On the surface, the back end of 2025 appears a curiously quiet coda to an explosive summer, with nary any evidence nor scandal to show for it. Yet the last few months have become some of the most fulfilling of my life.

Returning to the Academy for the second year of my Foundation degree, I realise how much I have changed since I first started my studies. Doubtful uncertainty has been supplanted by self-assured belonging, and I have become a familiar, welcome presence on campus. Often dropping by on the off days to see how the new cohort is settling in.

This year’s Freshers have been eager to learn and especially keen to socialise, already embracing opportunities brought by the many international crews passing through our studios. Through my twin roles as Mentor and Wellbeing Executive, I offer what support and guidance I may to help keep their heads above the craziness – sharing advice, wisdom and empathy in every act. Although Daryl’s Daily Affirmations are delivered with tongue wedged firmly in cheek, they are no less sincere in their intent to embolden the best.

For my studies, I can honestly state I have never felt as supported, encouraged, and especially challenged before. All with a will to push my academic potential further, towards deeper understanding and ability to express my intent. A credible credit to the wonderful lecturers I have engaged with so far.

Things will knuckle down to more practical endeavours as January continues, when I return to the studios to hone my skills in Live Audio mixing and Visual Production design. Subjects I’m already exploring in the time between terms, a routine I find ever-easier to sustain as I indulge my ongoing will to learn.

My course comes to an end in June, but mechanisms are in motion towards Postgraduate progression. Having already submitted a draft Masters proposal, I seek to embrace the potency of Creative Technology to explore the narrative of who we have become. How society has evolved through mass interconnection, and how best we can tell immersive stories reflective of the age.

This is an opportunity to combine my many disparate interests into an area of formal research. Looking back to my tech career, combining it with what I currently study in the live space, and sprinkling more than a little mojo from my esoteric escapades. All of which demands advance reading across multiple disciplines, if not planning how to finance it all!

This focus has taken necessary toll on my travels and external interests. Save a handful of shows, I have barely socialised off-campus this year, increasingly distant from the music and culture that sustains me. Time and money are both at a premium and I must ration my excesses carefully, with the money stashed by prior to this already funding my future. Saying that, I’ll still ring in the New Year with a sneaky trip to Hamburg and The Ruins of Beverast before term resumes.

Despite this paucity of travel, I have been no less prone to injury. From fracturing my toe in September to undergoing unrelated surgery in November, my body has sustained its fair share of scrapes and slashes amid the stress of study. Recovery continues, and although further attention may be needed in the weeks ahead, I’m at least back on my feet again – attending to an inadvertently burgeoned waistline with every step forward.

As I look ahead to 2026, I know it will be a profoundly cumulative year of great achievement and higher ambition, as lifelong plans finally fall into place. Yet I cannot help but frame the months to come within the greater concerns of the moment.

Despite a necessary detachment from most online distractions, the shrill, escalating calls to war and treachery resound, echoing in the uncertainty of my peers and the futures they strive to forge for themselves.

Lies, betrayal, and abject mockery cast down from elected officials through controlled media present little more than provocation – the final recourse of those without principle. Further amplified by pundits, embodied and programmed, in the cultivation of despair. In this Age of Illusion, perception is truth and gaslighting blatant, with no solution offered beyond futile, simmering strife.

There is no counter but to sustain authentic, human connections, and continue my work on campus and beyond. Helping others grow into themselves through compassion and integrity, building bridges between the like-minded, and nurturing alternative means of communication beyond such divisive, manufactured polemic.

And that is my challenge for the year(s) to come.

Project Caligari

As the days tolled ever onward to All Hallow’s Eve, an opportunity arose to make use of a new creative space on campus – just by our CentR Stage bar and just in time for the Academy’s Halloween party. Despite only receiving full access and equipment on the morning of festivities, a hastily scribbled tribute to the legacy of cinematic horror was set in motion.

Knowing partygoers were there to chill, chat, and indulge appropriately themed cocktails, there was no expectation they would sit down to watch a full film. Instead we planned a minimalist immersive area to relax in, with low-slung sofas encircled by rear-projected screens showing multiple silent movies. A central plinth would hold an object of focus and contrasting colour from the cold scenes on display.

Implementation demanded a different design – not least a lack of haze, incense, and human remains – with a trio of floor-sat units forward-projecting onto a curve of black drapes. The plinth then sat behind the sofas, adorned with a plastic pumpkin pilfered from the bar – ideally replacing it with the winner of the party’s carving competition.

Vintage horror sourced from archive.org provided the (cunningly Public Domain) vibe, with many films planned for each screen through the night. Technical difficulties, however, meant we had to lock each projector down to a single looping movie – controlled by a laptop behind the curtain running Resolume Media Server going into an HDMI splitter.

The chosen films presented a journey through the early years of macabre movies. An era where the steadfast rules of cinema had yet to be written, inspiring a vibrant visual imagination lost in a later generation of sedate talkies.

The vivid expressionism of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) was an essential choice. The first feature-length horror committed to celluloid, and one which many have not been aware. Director Robert Wiene’s eye delivers a pioneering dream-like ambience to a tale of grisly murder, with hand painted backdrops enhancing this unreality.

Next, F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922) – another German Expressionist classic. Despite drawing the ire of the Stoker estate for obvious plagiarism, this film offers its own interpretation. Max Shreck‘s Count Orlak presents an iconic image of vampyric horror as a monstrous being, a presence revisited in subsequent remakes.

Completing the triptych with another tale retold through the generations, James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931) was filmed with spoken dialogue. However, the rich gothic design still offers strong visual storytelling, with Boris Karloff‘s taciturn performance as the monster just as captivating in silence. A cornerstone of Universal Studios’ shared monster cinematic universe.

All crew work is collective, and we could not have done this without the aid of veterans Nick and Max, who helped to set up and put the final pieces together while I was embroiled in all-day lectures. Their efforts ensured the project was finished to schedule.

Freshers had their chance to contribute too, with new student Ruby curating a masterful multi-genre playlist to accompany proceedings. Although I was obliged to throw in a few extra tracks at the end, we all agreed to remove ‘Monster Mash’ after the shuffle spookily reprised it over and over.

Nothing can ever happen without some form of improvisation, and the taming of wild ideas into practical necessity manifests many happy accidents. The surreal imagery of early experimental cinema, especially in Caligari’s twisted set design, was thrown further off-kilter by the warp of the drapes. An abstract unease accentuated by imperfect focus and inconsistent framing. It is important, at times, to let go of perfection so things may find their own form.

Overall, it went down very well. Revellers in various costumes drifted in and out to watch and take photos, enjoying my eager explanations. The client and crew working in the main studio also popped in to take a look around in appreciation. The only complaint from some was the installation wasn’t ‘scary’ enough…

… but the True Terror was throwing it together on time!

https://heathenstorm.com/2025/11/01/project-caligari/

#academyoflivetechnology #caligari #cinema #expressionism #frankenstein #halloween #horror #immersive #installation #nosferatu #projections #resolume #samhain #vintage

Back to Skool

Kit bag eagerly shouldered, I prepare to start my second year at the Academy of Live Technology. Returning to finish off my Foundation degree in Live Event Production, I’ll be specialising in Audio and Visuals instead of doing a little bit of everything. Although it seems, despite the long summer, that I’ve barely ever left campus.

After surviving a wild three weeks in Denmark, I came back to teach an early-teens Creative Skills summer school in whatever space we could sequester. Showcasing a bit of audio but mostly lighting, with a Willy Wonka theme indulging my penchant for psychedelia. The kids enjoyed getting to play on professional kit with nary a rhyming mishap, and I picked up a few tips and tricks myself – as well as working on some new Trismegistus Hex material during the downtime.

The big news, of course, is that Production Park are currently hosting The Voice UK in our studios. The campus has been aflurry with ITV’s production crew, necessitating flexibility all around the shooting schedule. The crew have offered plenty of work openings, with a few of my fellow students learning the Production Runner ropes. My own contributions were wisely relegated to keeping the car parks running smoothly once the audience rolled up.

Smaller scale, but thinking forward, I’ve been lurking at seminars presented by our CoSTAR LiveLab facility, a Research and Development lab in association with the University of York. In recent months, film industry professionals and researchers have visited to discuss the encroachment of AI (generative and otherwise) into the creative process. With such disruption self-evident, questions of ethics and responsibility have come to the fore as the industry seeks a more holistic, nuanced solution.

My own projects still tick along, with various collaborations outside of campus coming into the fold and new opportunities escalated to interested ears. I confess there have been many conflicting commitments drawing my attention, and the challenge of late has been to coax all these spinning plates into proximity. Working on one aspect now advances the others, and it is prudent to remember that – unlike the wider world’s indifference – they want me to succeed here.

By example I offer everyone my own encouragement and support. With my position as Wellbeing Executive ratified, this past week I’ve assisted freshers in finding their feet to navigate a campus very different to expectations. New blood is vital for the event industry, especially as many veterans changed career or retired during the ‘House Arrest’ years, and it is important to be welcoming.

This generation are as bright, enthusiastic, and eager to achieve as ever – although they do seem a bit quieter than our rowdy lot!

There’s always something going on at the epicentre of opportunity, and I’m thrilled to dive back in and embrace the adventures to come. For the next three terms and maybe, hopefully, beyond.

https://heathenstorm.com/2025/10/06/back-to-skool/

#academia #academyoflivetechnology #ai #costar #crew #filmmaking #freshers #livelab #productionpark #student #thevoice #wellbeing