1. Hiya, what's your preferred name and pronouns, and whose country do you live on?
Hey! My name is Bailey, also known as pain.program, and I use he/him pronouns. I currently reside on the stolen land of the Jagera and Turrbal peoples, Meanjin.
2. What's your rig rundown?
I predominantly use the Canon XL1S mini DV camcorder for shows where I know I can get a good vantage point either from afar or side stage. I also have the previous model, the XL1, for multicam coverage. It doesn't exactly handle stage lights very well as they tend to cause some crazy glare in the lens. When I know a venue has these forms of lighting I generally opt the XL1S out in favour of the Sony CCD-TR511E Video8 camcorder which can handle crazy lighting a lot better. This camcorder also has a handy night-vision feature which has come in handy more times than I can count. The small size of it also makes it a perfect drum cam due to it being non-intrusive.
Since both of these cameras are over 20 years old the onboard mics are not enough to capture the sounds of live concerts professionally. To counter this I always bring the Zoom H4N Pro to every show so I can capture audio properly. Most shows I just record the audio of the room since I blend the camera audio and the audio from the Zoom together in the editing process. The camera audio adds an authentic tape saturated sound to the videos that I feel gives them a lot of character. When these aren't enough I do try my hand at getting stereo audio feeds from the mix desk console, typically for guitar and vocal clarity.
Also a cool fact; the XL1S is the very same model of camera they used to shoot the majority of 28 Days Later with.
3. How did you get in to shooting live music?
A couple of months after graduating TAFE Media I found myself winning an eBay bid for the XL1S I use now. I was originally planning on progressing with short film stuff but never really found the motivation due to my prior stressful experiences attempting to direct things in TAFE. During this time I was trying to find more local bands and found myself having a hard time finding full set footage on YouTube. I was living in Logan at the time and never really had enough money for shows, or even really knew how to find shows that weren't big concert events. It wasn't until the Blind Girls' album release show where I was given the opportunity to cover my first show thanks to one of my friends, Erin, knowing a band member. Since then it's taken off and been a consistent part of my life which I am immensely grateful for.
4. What/who are some of your influences in photography/videography?
I think a pivotal point would be watching the music video for Linkin Park - Points of Authority when I was around 6 years old. Since then I've always found myself gravitating towards low fidelity visuals of the pre-digital age of cameras. I also watch a lot of old school death metal/hardcore footage - the real grainy, noisy VHS kind where someone in the crowd has just happened to film an entire show of their own free will - and they never cease to inspire me. Documenting shows is an important thing and these unsung heroes were doing it for nothing more than personal enjoyment.
5. Do you have a favourite show that you've filmed, or a favourite memory from a gig you've shot?
Having the opportunity to shoot HEALTH at Knotfest was an incredibly huge event for me. At that point I had only been recording shows for about 4 months so being able to do something so huge in such a short amount of time was immense. My personal favourite from a performance standpoint, and one of my videos that I rewatch often, would have to be Unwound. That was such a beautiful show. Seeing how many people in the audience were emotionally moved was powerful stuff.
6. What else do you like to photograph/film outside of live music?
I try to gather B-roll where I can for my ever-growing folder of random footage. I manipulate, glitch them and re-record them through my CRT TV to get weird effects for any other form of video editing I find myself doing. I really enjoy doing video backgrounds for bands as it really lets me get creative. Sadly there's just not many places around that have a screen or projector to display these visuals.
I also recently had the opportunity to film a live session for our local emoviolence band Blind Girls and that is something I would love to do for more bands. If I can get an Audiotree-type thing going on my channel that would be huge.
7. How can folks reach out to you if they'd like to get in touch?
I do try my best to answer instagram messages but truthfully the best way to contact me seriously would be to shoot me an email.
Thank you so much for having me!