Saturday, September 29, 2007

Geo Prizm CV Axles

Geo Prizm CV Axles Photos

The 94' Geo Prizm has been shuttering under acceleration. We attempted to fix it by changing the drivers side wheel bearing. This did not work. We then tried the CV axles and it solved the shuttering issue!

Time: 5 hours

Cost: N/A

Equipment/Tools: Craftsman Mechanics Set, Craftsman "wonder bar", 30mm axle Socket, Torque wrench

Level of Difficulty: (What's with the saws?)

Thursday, September 20, 2007

S-10 Truck Tune-Up

S-10 Truck Tune-Up - Photos

We found a pretty good deal on a 2001 Chevy S-10, so now it is part of the Witchger fleet! It has a good 110,000 miles on it. (just ripe for the Witchger fleet) Spark plugs, wires, and fuel filter were changed.

Time: 4 hours

Cost: N/A

Equipment/Tools: Craftsman Mechanics Tools set

Level of Difficulty: (What's with the saws?)

Whate I learned: The spark plugs were very corroded and worn. The wires on this truck are routed in a complex path to the coils located behind the passenger side wheel. The fuel filter was messy so no pictures of that.

Van Universal Joint

Van Universal Joint - Photos

After years of loading the van with music equipment, plywood, cement, and other building supplies; and after one exciting trip to Michigan to pick up thousands of pounds of lead type and a printing press, the universal joint on the 88' E-150 began to fail causing a heavy vibration at high speeds. We took a few hours to fix it.

Time: 4 hours

Cost: N/A

Equipment/Tools: Craftsman mechanics socket set, clamp, and vise.

Level of Difficulty: (What's with the saws?)

Saturday, June 16, 2007

digital degeneration

This project was initiated to realize the true potential of the digital copy's degeneration power. How quickly will a digital picture quality degenerate when copied using different digital dsplays and capturing methods?

Desktop Degeneration: This is a picture of dads computer of a picture of bobs work computer of a picture kevs computer of a picture of kates computer of a picture of kate on moms computer.



This is picture of kates computer of a picture of moms computer of a picture of kate.


This is a picture of kate.


Most extreme degeneration *Skype/Digital Camera Degeneration*:
This is a pic of a Kevin off the Skype video chat screen, emailed to him which he then opened took a picture off of his screen and showed me via skype off the back of his digital camera from which I then took a picture:

Friday, June 15, 2007

Volviendo: Documentary


Volviendo [English Version] (2007) from Lawrence Martin on Vimeo.

This summer my flatmate Laurie began his dissertation project for his masters in documentary studies. A 30 minute piece he shot this spring in London and Chile, the documentary followed Vladimir Vega a Chilean exile who was forced to move to London over 30 years ago after he was imprisoned for his political action against Pinochet. Vlad read a news story about the youngest boy killed under Pinochet's rule, a 13 year old named Carlos Furinia who's body was discovered last year. Vladimir wrote a song in honor of the child and took it to Chile to play it for Carlos' surviving family. Laurie followed Vlad on this journey recording over 30 hours of footage.

This summer he and I spent 3 weeks in a classy climate controlled edit suite in the media studies department at Goldsmiths reworking a mountain of footage into what we hope became a complex story of exile.

This was my first stab at editing something I hadn't shot myself. I also discovered (what everyone already knew) that I like to be in control of things. Luckily I found a great editing partner who is quick with the technical side of things, knows what I mean when I say 'no, make it half a step earlier and switch the 3rd and 1st clips' and has it done just in time for me to say ' no, no the 2nd and 1st would be better' and does it all without protest or pause(and it doesnt even seem to phase him when I writhe on the floor when a cut doesn't work or do a victory dance when it does) Hopefully we will work on many more projects to come.

Time: N/A

Cost:
N/A

Equipment:
Sweet Suite G5 Mac with Avid and double screens; PAL monitor, Tape Deck, 30 hours footage on MiniDV (prelogged, binned and transcribed thanks to Laurie's super organization), 23 regular lattes

Level of Difficulty: (total project: 5 sawzalls) editing 3.5 sawzalls

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Backyard Tilling

Backyard Tilling Photos

Making our backyard look nice really doesn't seem to be possible, but here's another try to plant grass, smooth out the dirt, and create of uniform look to the backyard. The yard was tilled, raked, smoothed, and planted. Weeks after, the result was a uniform dirt yard. The grass and clover that was planted never took.

Time: 6 hours

Cost: $300 - This includes the used tiller, the seed and fertilizer, and the gas to exchange the broken craftsman rakes!

Equipment/Tools Used: Craftsman Tiller (Thank you craigslist!), rakes, shovels, seed

Level of Difficulty: (What's with the saws?)

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Separation: Digital Short

This was a digital short to test my new HD camera. I shot and edited it while feeling a little homesick one rainy afternoon out of the windows from Batavia Mews (grad student housing) and set it to Sorry, Kevin's Separation. Unfortunately I cant figure how to export the HD quicktime to a format small enough to upload to the web without squashing the aspect ratio. (insert 'Back Burner' link)

Time: N/A

Cost: N/A

Equipment/Tools Used: Canon HV20, tripod, LaCie Drive, Mac G5/Final Cut (MAVis Lab @ Goldmsmiths), MiniDV tape

Level of Difficulty: (What's with the saws?)

(only because of the frustration of only being able to log 10 second clips of HD footage at a time before crashing the computer)