Sensei Mark Carroll has been training in Karate and other martial arts for many years. In that time, he had dabbled a few times in attempts to put his ideas onto video tape. Unforunately, the right combination of circumstances had never existed and the elusive videos never came to fruition. In September 2004, he asked one of his students (me), who had recently bought a half decent video camera, to bring it along to a session he was giving on the kata Jitte. There was no real plan in place, and I was much more interested in training than filming. In fact, I used just over one 60-minute tape for the entire shoot. However, when I came to edit the footage, it was clear right from the start that the formula worked really well - the film was watchable and Sensei's teaching came across in a natural and relaxed way. At this point I realised that we could end up doing a large number of these films, so I decided to create an image for the series based on an old poster I had made for a karate world championships a couple of years earlier. The idea was that the spines of the DVD cases, when ordered correctly on the shelf, would display an image of the 'Tora no Maki' or Shotokan Tiger.

The extra width at each end was to provide enough of the image to fill the DVD covers for the titles near the ends. Each title would have the sunrise background, but only the strip of tiger that would be visible on the spine of the case. The kanji images came from a book Sensei had given to me and my wife Kathy (also a passionate karate student) as a leaving present when we had moved away from his part of the world a year or two previously. Thus, the DVD cover design for Bassai Dai can be seen to fit in to the above image...

Each title also is given a 'slogan'. In the case of Bassai Dai, 'Finding the Spirit' was easy to think up owing to the nature of the kata. In the case of Bassai Sho, 'Capturing Memories' was the central theme of the philosophy behind Sensei's approach to understanding kata. Jitte - 'Bringing the old to the new' - was reference to the fact that the whole approach of Sensei's bunkai is returning to the original approach of the old masters who studied karate for fighting purposes rather than the 'Neo-Traditional' approach of the more recent JKA masters. 'Letting the power flow', from the Nijushiho kata, is a reference to the central theme of the movement of the kata, and the way in which the techniques can unleash a deadly effectiveness especially when the contrast between the hard and soft movements is properly understood.

During the editing of the first film, Jitte, I wanted to use a piece of music by 'Propellerheads'. I asked them if I could use it, but they denied me the use of the music. Therefore, I was forced in to creating my own version of their track. This has become another link between the films, the fact that each one has another piece of music recorded at Domino Studios. In line with the 'rough and ready' feel of the video footage, it has become a habit to use the first take for each of the musical pieces. This has given the musical tracks a very 'rough and ready' feel, but this seems to suit the films and I expect to continue in the same way. It at least saves an awful lot of time!

Domino Studios consists of the spare room. It is, however, equipped with some of the most up-to-date geeking gear available. I built the current computer myself and it is fitted with a ridiculously fast dual-core processor and over 2 TerraBytes of hard disk storage-ideal for video production. Of course, the real magic happens in the dojo, when Sensei Carroll is doing his thing... but it is here that the boring legwork is done.

It is, however, a great privilege to be able to spend hours studying the Bunkai of one of the greatest emerging karate ka of our time.

The studio is also equipped with 4 guitars, a digital keyboard, acoustic and electric drum machines, and other assorted instruments. The music is performed and recorded by me using Cakewalk.

At the time of writing, I have just finished making Nijushiho, the fourth in the series. There is a long way to go. However, those buying the DVDs, although small in number (29 customers at time of print), are almost all buying not just one film, but all of them. The cost of making the DVDs is currently greater than the money recouped, but if this trend continues and the karate ka who have discovered Sensei Carrol's DVD series keep coming back, perhaps one day we'll break even.

For more info on this or any other aspect of Domino Productions, email me at yourname@dominoproductions.co.uk.