Category: Diary

Frank Carter

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

Soundtracks in progress

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.

Dante Di Massa

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.

DSC06108 IMG_7696

Miles Chaperlin

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.

Transcribing Interviews

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.

Jordan Teear

Jordan is one of the resident tattooers at Frith Street Tattoo.
He’s been with us since 2010.

In this clip Jordan talk about his role in the Frith Street family, how the people he works with influence his work ethic, his future at Frith Street and he shares a story about the first time he came to the shop and got tattooed.

I interviewed Jordan last August, in his home shortly after he returned from his ill-fated road-trip across the USA.
This is one of the first interviews I did. As a result, the lens I used on the wide shot proved that it wasn’t up to the task of shooting moving people in dimly lit rooms. For the next interview (Lee M. Knight) I used a higher quality lens that’s excellent in lower lighting conditions. I won’t be able to use the wide shots in the finished film as a result.

Lee M. Knight

We’ve known Lee since he started working for our friend Aaron Hewitt at Cult Classic Tattoo in Romford.

In August 2012 we asked him to work a few days each week at Frith Street.

Lee touched on some very interesting topics and added depth to the pre-prepared questions I had for him.
He has a very different view of our shop than someone like Chad. Lee has worked in the same shop for around five or six years.
We talked for over 90 minutes. It was great to chat with someone who is very passionate about tattooing and who feels the weight of Frith Street Tattoo’s history.

You can see some of his work here.

Thanks for watching,

Stewart.

Snippets of Vargas, October 21, 2012.

Here’s a clip made from short sections of an interview I did yesterday with Valerie, here in San Francisco.

This was a quick interview, in a hotel room away from home. I didn’t have space in my luggage to fit all my camera and audio gear next to my tattoo equipment. I used an on-board mic for the audio so it doesn’t sound as good as it could but I wanted to get the interview done right before a major convention rather than wait until we got home.
Among other things, we talked about how on earth we got to be invited to one of (in our opinion) the best tattoo conventions in the world, alongside most of our favourite tattooers and many of our tattoo heroes. and the difference between checking out a tattooer’s portfolio online and watching them make a great tattoo in the shittiest of conditions.

Thanks for checking it out.
Stewart.

San Francisco, October 21st 2012

ImageThat’s right, I’m in San Francisco.
That has no real bearing on this first post, it just happens to be where I am when I find the time to start this production diary.

I guess it’s a good time as any because right before I came here (the night before my early flight, to be exact) I decided on a working title for this film:

“FST: Standing On the Shoulders of Giants”

I hope it conveys the way I feel about Frith Street Tattoo, my place within it and one of the many things I’d like to say with this film.

I have more to say, but that can wait for another diary entry.

Thanks for reading,

Stewart.