Hack Attack
Here’s a slight reworking of an existing format for the lovely folks at UMPF. And this time, for a new client: Virgin Trains. Hopefully we’ll see more work from them in the future…
Hold(er) on to your Hard Hats!
A long term project for Northern Gas Networks has finally been published online.
Commemorating our gas holders from Northern Gas Networks on Vimeo.
Over 18 months of production and over a dozen site visits, resulted in the finished 15 minute film.
The response has been amazing. Thanks to everyone involved!
5 Star Service
A regular client that I can’t blog about very often, is ACC – The Aged Care Channel. The work that I do for them is often confidential, and protected by their copyright. Occasionally however, they post short public excerpts of their training films, like this example on providing a 5 Star Service:
Back in May I filmed for four days in and around Aylesbury, with the lovely team from ACC. I supply my camera kit, lighting and additional sound kit. We work with a variety of freelance directors, Tony on sound and the production team from ACC HQ. Once we wrapped I returned home and started editing the film for both the UK and Australia, where the two versions have slight regional difference regarding terminology and care guidelines.
I delivered the 20 minute edit as a ProRes master and ACC UK play it into their live monthly programme, which is simulcast to their subscriber around the world via their own dedicated delivery system.
I Shoot – You Score
Another regular client – UMPF PR asked me to make a quick awards submission video for them:
Filmed in their soon-to-be new office in The Calls in Leeds, Amy did a great job in front of the camera (not the first time I’ve filmed her), then with the addition of a few graphics and sound effects we were done.
A square kind of a deal
Over the past year I’ve been creating fun 15 second Instagram videos for ParkInn hotels. As the videos get released they appear on the client’s feed
It all started with the Manchester video:
More recently the graphic style has change slightly:
A video posted by Park Inn by Radisson (@parkinnbyradisson) on
Originally I edited these videos in a 720p timeline with a custom 640×640 overlay to help with framing, then I’d crop the resulting video in Handbrake when encoding the mp4 for Instagram. But in recent months Final Cut Pro has been updated to allow for custom project dimension so a 640×640 30 fps workspace was easy to create. As you can see I remake certain elements such as the particle effects for creating water and steam in the shower scene, as well as creating the blue nightime effect in the bedroom scene. And luckily I’ve got a huge collection of sound effects and music that always seem to deliver what the clients want.
Here’s an edited compilation of some of the fun stuff, including a recording of my daughter playing the piano:
Astra-nomical
Today was my second day of filming Astra Zeneca in Manchester with VisMedia:
The previous shoot was in October:
The material I shoot is always under NDA, but it’s nice to see that occasionally some of it makes it into the wild.
Toolbank’s Legs 11
Another year, another Toolbank campaign, and I’ve just uploaded this year’s introduction video:
The full loop video shown in stores this year is 25 minutes long with 9 fully featured products, as well as 72 additional products and prices. All of this produced in two currencies as usual:
Year on year the campaign has grown to include more and more products, most recently gaining a significant social media presence as well. To help with this I’ve been tasked with making social media video for almost every product in the campaign in both Sterling and Euros currencies. Due to stock availability and time constraints I film most, but not all of the footage, however I do edit it all adding the campaign graphics that I build each year. In total I’ve uploaded 155 Toolbank videos to YouTube this year!
This year the creative agency ‘Shine’ designed a cloche and dinner table setting style. So I decided the only way I could bring it life with a transitioning animation was to have the cloche lift, revealing the brand logo which then transitions to the video. My wife kindly provided the butlers arm which I shot against my Chromakey screen. Thanks Chuck!
Lend Me Your Ears
Caisley Eartags asked me to produce a video for the upcoming changes to Aberdeen Angus livestock eartagging and DNA sampling regulations. We used three different calves for the filming as we weren’t sure how they’d react to the tagging and the people standing around them. I made a widescreen and 4:3 version for use in a photo frame at exhibitions.
When in Rome…
We’re barely back a week and the main Rome film is edited and signed off.
We’ve also made a simpler, faster version for social media. This is using footage I shot specifically for this purpose while on location.
Proper Pasta
On our first evening in Rome the two students we were featuring were having cooking lessons at a brilliant little restaurant in the heart of Trastevere, the original artisan home of Roman cookery. Arriving at Andreas restaurant we were giving a really lovely warm welcome by the man himself and his charming missus Erica.
They got down to the preparation quite quickly, so I did a quick white balance in both rooms and started shooting. We only needed to capture a few minutes of usable footage for the Kent University film that we were in Rome to make. But seeing all the fantastic colours, smiling faces and great smells made me think it was worthwhile gathering extra footage as I felt sure they’d like a better record of the evening’s proceedings.
I got quite a bit of decent footage given the hectic nature of working in a small kitchen with 15 people. We ended the night with a few shots of his homemade Sicilian Limoncello. Oh and yes, the food was fantastic: