I left for Amsterdam at 4am on Friday 23rd, heading for Gatwick with Sam who really kindly drove me there! Having taken some equipment with me when I went to Amsterdam for the first time for IBC, however this time I would be covering a music event with multiple cameras so the kit list looked something like the following..

3 x DSLR bodies (2 Canon 60D, 1 Nikon D5000)

6 x lenses ranging from 17mm to 85mm

2 x Manfrotto ML360 LED lights

2 x Superclamp + magic arms

1 x Zoom H2

A load of extra things to cover my back just in case!

I got to Amsterdam at around 9am and headed for breakfast. Knowing how busy the Damrak is, I headed West and found a little cafe to chow down on breakfast. Like England, Amsterdam suffers from grim weather, so rain it was.

Now re-charghed, I headed to 420 Cafe, where Steven 'fly' works; the guy I met while I was over here in Sept, and offered me the job to come over and film the gig he is playing drums at; John Sinclair & His Vipers, on the opening night of the 2013 Cannabis Cup. For those unfamiliar with John Sinclair, he inspired John Lennon, writes amazing poetry and produces podcasts for Radio Free Amsterdam. With a huge following and message, capturing his performance was key to promoting John and moving his message forward into the age of video!

After dropping off my bags at Stevens, we had a look at the venue 'Arkhnaton' just round the corner from 420. It is a small venue with a corner stage, dark and faded which added to the aesthetic of jazzy, smoke filled Amsterdam gigs.

I then got to meet Mark from Iron Man records, and Claire, a producer back in 420 and got chatting about ourselves, the anticipation for that nights performance and how we can get the best material to push John Sinclair into the limelight. Through the cloudy room appeared John and Nick fresh off the train from England! We had a great time talking and relaxing in the great ambiance of 420.

After 26 hours of traveling, walking and getting settled back into Dam life, it was time for me to crash.

Up at 4pm the next day, recovered from the day before I was ready for a meal and to get on with the production that night. Steven and myself headed to John's favorite Indian restaurant on Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal and tucked into the best chicken madras I've ever eaten. Followed by a short walk across the road, we arrived at The Arkhnaton and began setting up for the gig later.

Naively, I forgot to pack the power cable for the field monitor, so I had to suffice with the on camera screen and viewfinder. I had a 60D on a tripod central to the stage with the 85mm F/1.8, with another 60D to my left a couple of feet higher than myself for a wide shot (with a superclamp and magic arm). Over to the right I had a D5000 with a 35mm F/1.8 for an extra cutaway shot.

Ready for the gig, I chilled while the band set up and rehearsed. I got some snaps and shots of John and his Vipers performing to build up a collective of promo material.

The blues and poetry were in full swing, Steve Fly on drums, Vince on guitar, accompanied by a last minute sax and horn player to add a touch of brassy class. Having Magic Lantern on the cameras eliminated the restart issue, so syncing up in post would be easier. It was a fantastic gig, and great to hear Johns poems in person.

Knackered from another late one, I turned around the memory cards and equipment the next day, racking up 70Gb of footage over 3 hours or so! It was enough of work, and time to enjoy Amsterdam.

I had a fab time with the 420 guys Janne, Eli and Tias when we went on a trip around town for a Cannabis Refugee's project, I accompanied with my camera, capturing the nights events in a number of hotspots around the city; Grey Area, Greenhouse, ending back at 420 for some more giggles and fun.

It was my 22nd birthday on the 27th Nov, so in true celebratory style, cake for breakfast! Followed quickly by Wok To Walk, which is like a Chinese version of McDonands which they have brought to Soho!! Thanks to Steven and the guys I had myself an exhibitor pass to the Cannabis Cup 2013, so the rest of the Cannabis Refugee filming went on the road! As a tourist, it was create to experience this new open culture and lifestyle!

There's Annika! Stevens flatmate and my new found seed genius!

After that, I got to see The Wailers (minus Bob of course) at The Melkweg, a local gig venue to the Leidsplein, which was awesome!! They played all the best tunes, a great end to the day.

Being a techie, its a bad habit of mine to check up on what the guys working are up to..

It was soon my last day in Amsterdam, it always comes around too quickly as I never get around to do all the things I wanted; museums, canal boat tour etc.. But it is winter and I was there for work so that is my excuse!

Now back home, I'm in the edit suite working on the multi-camera edit of the video!

I'm working on my laptop, so progress is a little slower than if I was working on a full powered machine, however I have got through most of it over the last couple of days, spending most of my time re-syncing the clips together.. Working with 3 cameras in post on a 1 man live crew is certainly interesting!

If you haven't already, check out some of my other stills I took, including a performance from Steven and Vince in a Squat house!

Thanks to Steven Fly for the job and for letting me stay at your place for my stay, thanks to Mark and Claire for your help with the video, as well as the guys from 420; Janne, Eli, Tias, Laura, Claire, Francesca, Annika, John and Caleb and anyone else who I've missed out!

Do you want video for your business, event or organization? Video is a powerful and vast marketing tool, get in touch at info@adamplowden.co.uk for more on what I can do for you!

I had never been to IBC before, I wanted to go a couple of years ago but I was a little last minute with extremely expensive prices, but now after all the hard uni work and starting myself up as a freelance videographer, a trip to Amsterdam for IBC 2013 was just what I needed! It was also the first time I've been on a plane in 11 years, so I was super excited, and acted rather like a tourist for the first couple of days.. But, I have no regrets!

Myself outside Amsterdam Schipol Airport, great smoking area with all the sunflowers, how Dutch!

Just had a quick thought, for you readers to enjoy your experience reading my blog further, you can listen to what I am listening to while I write it, having withdrawl symptoms from Amsterdam lead me to searching for "Coffeeshop" "Soul" on 8Tracks, hoping for a chilled result :) So here is the playlist you can listen to while reading! Street Cues Sound Clues Amsterdam Withdrawl Playlist on 8Tracks

Amazing Mexican restaurant called 'La Margarita' just off the canal, near Amsterdam University (https://plus.google.com/105150292043799825469/about?gl=uk&hl=en) They do great cocktails too, definitely recommend it.

Amsterdam's coffee shop culture is something to be admired, the liberal and relaxed lifestyle suits me perfectly, and I'm not going to pretend I disagree with coffee shops, because they are awesome. I met more friendly people and generated more work in coffee shops than I do in Starbucks in The UK. In the photo you can see The Bulldog, and further down is the original coffee shop. I did pop in to these, but both were really busy so I skipped off to another in the pouring rain. (https://plus.google.com/112706500562557581286/about?gl=uk&hl=en).

This rather lovely looking church turned out to be a brothel.

Taken from outside The Greenhouse Seed Co Coffee shop, near Dam Square. Sitting outside having a drink by the river is so cool. We had a couple beers over there on the first evening, Duvel! (Cafe Rock Planet)

The view from my hotel window, the Pathe Cinema! (Rembrandtplein).

On the Friday (13th) myself, Amy and Sam made our way to the Amsterdam RAI. We jumped on the tram outside our hotel on Rembrandtplein which took us all the way to IBC, very convenient although it was rammed with suited business-people attending the show! IBC provided free tram travel for the duration of the show which was great for getting around town, until I lost mine.

We made our way to The IABM stand, near the Future Zone in one of the 14 halls of this massive place, where we met Steve Warner and Sam Hawkins and were presented with the prize money. We also met the other Engineering Student Award winners who came from across the world for IBC; Zoe Wyeth of the University of Salford, Julian Theis of the RheinMain University of Applied Sciences, Adam Plowden and Amy Tinker of Kingston University, Pierre Hamme-Gerome and Antonin Morel of the Université de Valenciennes, Kathryn Savage of Southampton Solent University, Lennard Bredenkamp of HTWK Leipzig, and Evgenii Smirnov and Anna Nikolaeva of St. Petersburg State University of Film and Television. (Photos are coming from The IABM in the next couple of days).

The rest of the day was spent wondering around, wowing and touching all the amazing new technology and equipment, which I will upload the photos of soon! There will also be video blog entries uploaded very soon too, including interviews with manufacturers, designers, and a film of Amsterdam too, yes 'Ive been busy!

BlackMagic Design had a fantastic booth exhibiting many of their Cinema and Pocket cameras in different set-ups, as well as demonstrations of the new 6G production switcher, and the newly released DaVinci Resolve 10. As I am looking to upgrade cameras, the BMCC is definitely an option for me, as the price of the unit and features weigh it up considerably as a mid range cinema camera, rather than a simple DSLR upgrade. Also, as I discovered, Tokina had been hard at work on an 11-16mm T3 cine lens for Super35 sensors, demonstrated on a BMCC at their booth; finally opening up wide angle shots which had previously been restricted due to the 2.2x mag factor. More info on the NEW Tokina releases can be seen in an upcoming video with the Director of Tokina himself!

There will be much much much more coming soon, I just have to get through the video editing and chuck it all together, but please be patient, they are coming :)

As for future work and plans, I was due to produce a couple of videos for some classic RV's, with Joel from London Event Photography however thanks to the terrific English weather it was called off. Also got some top secret work with a manufacturer coming up, as well as a possible booking to go back to Amsterdam for the end of November.. IE.. My 22nd Birthday!! We shall see..

All the best for now you wonderful people! If you haven't checked out this kind of teaser video then please do :)

http://vimeo.com/74469276

A videographers diary of a working trip to Amsterdam

My experience of IBC 2013 Part 1

UK/Surrey Based DIT for Scripted Television Productions and Film Productions