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On the 2nd of January I had the pleasure of interviewing Alex Reinke aka Horikitsune.
It’s the longest interview yet – we talked for almost two and a half hours at his private studio in London.
A conversation with Alex is always interesting and at times I was reluctant to steer the discussion back into areas relevant for this project.

Alex Reinke is a good friend of ours. He worked full-time at Frith Street Tattoo between 2008 and 2010 but he’s been visiting since 2004. His influence is still felt with the people who worked with him and it’s certainly noticeable within my tattoo work. It’s an honour to have him be part of this project, partly because of his openness and humility but mostly for his unique perspective and position within the lineage of modern tattooing – which is a theme at the heart of this project.

In this short clip he talks about relationships within tattooing, why he no longer works at Frith Street Tattoo and how he feels about the shop now he works privately.

Thank you for reading and watching.
Thank you to Alex for your hospitality and openness.

Here’s more stuff from the dusty hard drives I’ve been moving over.
I think this is the first interview I did. I probably sat myself in front of the camera to test it was working but that doesn’t count.

This short (very roughly edited) interview was a screen test for me to check equipment, workflow and editing software. We did it in April 2012. My questions were vague (mostly the usual crap about influence, reference and favourite tattooers) and my interview technique left a lot to be desired. I learned a lot from this interview. I’ve learned a lot from every interview and shoot so far, but we always have a special place in our heart for our first. This interview gave me the confidence to interview people I wasn’t so familiar with.

The only equipment I still use from this shoot is the camera body and SD card. Everything else, the lighting, microphone, recording device and lenses have been replaced by higher quality versions.

I’m showing it here as behind-the-scenes footage for those who care about that stuff.

Valerie Archive Interview (April 2012) from Stewart Robson on Vimeo.

I mentioned in my last post that this project originally had a slightly different focus. Also in this post too.
Over the last few days I’ve been migrating files from my laptop to a much more suitable editing computer. While I was moving them I had to check what some of them were and I found some old clips I’d made to help me get used to editing and filming with the equipment I use now. This clip doesn’t have the same feel as the stuff I’m shooting now but I still like it. Rather than it never see the light of day except in my household  I thought it might be interesting here.

I hope to post some more older stuff soon too.

I doubt these clips will work their way into the finished project. So think of them as sort of bonus features.

Early in 2012 when this project had a different focus, I tried a few different time-lapse techniques.

Trivia Bit:
The footage was shot in May, June and July 2012.
There’s a couple of clips with me in the foreground and Valerie tucked away  at the other side of the room. There is a couple of just me and my clients then there’s wide angle shots of Chris and Will from VICE filming us (for Valerie’s TattooAge episodes) while we work and then interviewing me.

Tech Bit:
I’ve done a little time-lapse before with my iPhone but I wanted better looking results and more control over exposure and focus.

• First was with the GoPro Hero2 but the angle is a little wide and gives the feeling of CCTV footage.
• Then I tried Valerie’s Nikon J1 which worked well but I found it difficult to set the aperture manually to a setting I wanted to use for a time-lapse shoot. Also the lens is only available with 3.8/5.6 aperture which often is not wide enough for what I wanted.
• Finally, using the Magic Lantern firmware hack, I tried a Canon 600D (which is what most of this project has been shot with so far). This meant that I could use the lenses I already have, with their wide aperture and wide range of focal lengths. (most interviews so far were shot with 16-35mm f/2.8 and 24-70mm f/2.8 or occasionally  a 50mm f/1.8 prime) I compiled the image sequence using QuickTime Pro and exported from there.

All these attempts can be seen in the video above.

I haven’t totally abandoned time-lapse, but if I use it, I’d like it to be more than a gimmick.

Before he was known as a frontman in a British band, before NME named him 2007′s “coolest man in rock ‘n’ roll” Frank worked at Frith Street Tattoo. He still does when he’s not touring.
He’s one of my favourite younger tattooers (although he started tattooing around the same time as me) and he’s one of the few people to start mopping floors and cleaning toilets then work his way to being an in-demand tattooer at Frith Street Tattoo.

I’m stoked that I got to interview Frank. Mostly because he’s been a semi-regular fixture at Frith Street but also because unlike many of the people I’ve interviewed and plan to interview for this project, he’s comfortable in front of the camera and is a great raconteur.
It’s a pleasure to have him be part of this project.

Follow his musical, painterly and tattoo adventures here: frankxcarter.com

Instead of posting another video clip this week, I’ve decided to post some in-progress soundtracks that I’ve been working on. I will try to use as much original music as possible in this film. Mostly because I don’t have the budget to license music I like from artists and record companies but also because I want to avoid outside control wherever possible. Once I begin licensing music or archive footage, the licensee has some sort of say how it can be used.
Each of these still needs work and I do need to write some soundtrack music that isn’t as gloomy or intense, for the light-hearted and positive moments.

Keep your eyes peeled next week for a short clip of Frank Carter explaining how he came to be part of the Frith Street family.

I’m not sure how to introduce Dante Di Massa (Danny) He’s the owner of Frith Street Tattoo. He’s very heavily tattooed and he deals in some of the finest tattoo supplies and equipment available. He’s much more than that – He’s a great friend and possibly the main reason Frith Street Tattoo is the way it is.

He can be an intimidating figure when you first meet him but soon you come to realise that he is indeed a ‘clown’ as almost everyone I’ve interviewed so far has attested to. Here’s a very small sample of the photos he’s made me take of him over the last 5 and a half years.

Daniel is a painter and tattooer who works in New York. He has been visiting us here at Frith Street for a few years now.

In this short clip he talks about his opinion of Danny, the warm welcome he gets at Frith Street, why he keeps coming back and how he gets inspired when he comes to see us.

I interviewed him on November 8th, 2012 on the last day of his trip, right before the farewell dinner with the FST gang. Here’s a photo I stole from his Instagram.

It was a pleasure to interview him. I don’t know Daniel as well as the other people I’ve interviewed so far but he was great. I expected a 10-15 minute chat which I could use for a couple of soundbites but I got 40 minutes of gold. He managed to effortlessly expand the topics I asked into some interesting areas. It’s a pleasure to share snippets of his insight and to have him as part of this project. He even touched on topics that I’d only just began to consider for a project further in the future that I’d want him to be part of. I hope you get to see the complete interview when this project is complete.

Thanks for reading and watching,
Stewart.

http://danielalbrigotattoo.com/

Miles has been tattooing for over 20 years. He worked at Frith Street Tattoo a couple of times.
The first was from around 2004-2006. Then from 2010 until August 2012. He has been friends with Danny, owner of Frith Street Tattoo for over a decade.

Miles is the reason this project happened as soon as it did.

I had been planning a video project of some kind, since February 2012. Originally it was to be centred around Valerie Vargas and myself and the trials and tribulations of creating custom or bespoke tattoo work every day. Much of this work is large scale bodysuits or at least backpieces and sleeves.

Then Chris Grosso got in touch with Valerie.
I knew that whatever Chris did with Valerie’s Tattoo Age episodes, it would touch on some of the themes that I wanted to use and the Vice team would do a great job of it. Chris interviewed and filmed me for Valerie’s Tattoo Age, which I was and always will be proud to have been part of and I love the way it turned out. I also learned a lot from being on the ‘wrong’ side of the camera.
I didn’t want to make a second-rate version of Tattoo Age, so I expanded my scope to include the other tattooers at Frith Street. In turn, I found myself wanting to interview tattooers who sit in for a short time and to guest artists.

I was content to spend the rest of 2012 refining my ideas, themes and learning the myriad technical aspects of making a digital film: From cameras, lenses, white balance, lighting techniques, audio and microphone techniques, to digital file organisation and dealing with large media files, to finding a narrative in documentary footage, whether to use a dramatic or poetic narrative, etc, etc.

Then I discovered that Miles was leaving England at the end of August 2012.
I knew I had to interview him and capture what he had to say about the history of Frith Street Tattoo and the history of tattooing in the UK before he left.

I learned a great deal of technical information on this shoot. Actually, I didn’t learn much, I discovered that I knew nothing of interview techniques, Audio recording, lighting and remembering everything that needs to be remembered when setting up a shoot. I learned the technical information later.
So far, each shoot has thrown new problems and challenges at me, so I make notes and make the effort to remember to prepare for those challenges next time. Hopefully this effort will pay off with a watchable, enjoyable, informative portrait of the workplace I call home.

Here’s one of the less interesting bits of making a documentary: Transcribing interviews.

I’ve spent most of today transcribing the interview with Chad Koeplinger.

This is the first time I’ve done anything like this and at the moment I don’t have the budget to hire professionals so I’m doing as much as possible by myself. I tried to skip the time-consuming task of transcribing interviews but soon found that planning and editing without transcripts would take many multiple times longer. So I bit the bullet and decided to transcribe interviews myself.

My first attempt was to use FinalCut ProX’s marker feature but found that I would need a printed sheet later. At the moment FCPX doesn’t have a way to print and the xml export messes up the timecode.

My second attempt was to set out a spreadsheet and insert the timecode and description manually. This proved tricky and frustrating to switch between applications to pause and play the video during typing larger sections.

Finally I looked into dedicated transcription software. I found InqScribe.

It’s a joy to use. The tab key pauses and plays, ⌘; inserts timecode into the text, clicking on the timecode jumps to that place in the file. By exporting a tab-delimited text file, I can import into a spreadsheet and format print-ready sheets to quickly flip through, make notes and decide which footage to use.

Chad’s interview is 01:15:57 (just over an hour and a quarter) His transcript runs to 11 pages.

The process, while time-consuming, was so hassle-free that I transcribed an interview with EJ Miles, which is much shorter, around 15 minutes. That transcript is just one page. Already, seeing the printed sheets, I can see how they will help me clarify ideas, narrative themes and hopefully make for a much more engaging end product. I’ll post my progress here as I go.

In my list ready for transcription, I have interviews with Jordan, Lee, Miles and a short one with Valerie we did in San Francisco last month.

I have a couple of cool interviews with guest artists scheduled in the next few weeks.

Thanks for reading,

Stewart.