Again Pulsar Instruments asked me to their Filey HQ to film their latest industry leading product.
Although it’s a long drive out there, the scenery is really great and it’s nice to get to the seaside once in a while, even if the seagulls noise sometimes stops the filming.
After an initial meeting to discuss the brief, the filming went without a hitch. The edit brought the whole project together and the archive sequence at the beginning helped to set the overall tone.
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.
Ace Dance and Music from Birmingham asked me to film a promo for their current touring show – Mana. A word used in 24 languages. The show was being performed in the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in Leeds which is an amazing venue with a great lighting rig.
I directed and shot the promo in the morning with assistance of Tom, and we stayed through to the evening performance to capture the 2 x 30 minute performances as well. During the morning I used the FS100 with my 11-16mm and 35mm lenses, which worked well in the sometimes very low light, used for this style of performance.
I shot several sequences in overcrank on the FS100 for a slow-motion effect which the dancers then watched on playback between takes.
I’ve edited another version of the Promo with plenty of added VFX as a bit of fun:
I was asked to film another VIP visit at the Glen Dimplex factory in Prescot.
This time I took my new assistant Tom who operated the second camera.
We had time at the end of the tour to film to shoot a short two header interview:
We’re just back from 8 days in beautiful Athens, making another series of films for the University of Kent:
I also used the footage in several other films for IHC: an NGO based near Athens.
Our local fixer Alex was a huge help on this shoot and seemed constantly amazed by Howard’s knowledge of Greek culture and places.
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.
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:
What a great name for a great product… I’ve just taken delivery of the new Duzi slider direct from Cinevate in Canada. No-one in the UK knows when it’s likely to be sold here, and I had to have one.
We are booked to travel to Rome later this month and Athens in March and this slider easily fits in with my existing travelling kit.
It’s small enough to stay on the tripod all day as well. Can’t wait to try it out!!
After extensive research and testing the edit suite is now faster and more powerful then ever.
I’ve fitted a new high end graphics card – the 280x. Which is now rendering four times faster than the old card in Final Cut Pro X. I put my benchmark results on the fcp.co forum which put me near the top of the list, just under the very latest, top of the line MacPro.
I also took the time to install a new 6TB RAID array. I’ve been waiting for the new generation of Western Digital 2TB drives with an improved platter layout and IO. So now this three drive system gives me over 400MB/sec read and write which is crazy. I’m using an external 6TB eSata RAID for automated incremental backups of the entire editing RAID while I work so there’s always a recent working backup should the unlikely happen and a hard drive fails. Now that FCPX uses the GPU for exports and the fact that RAID is so fast, this makes the mundane tasks at the end of an edit so much quicker.
I’ve improved the edit suite room with acoustic treatment tiles, moved out lots of kit and bought myself a new FCPX specialist keyboard. But most importantly I’ve moved both mainframes into the room next door, so now it is completely silent and much cooler. That’s not something I’ve seen in any edit suite, anywhere for over a decade. They are normally very noisy, stuffy rooms with poor lighting and little space.
Pulsar Instruments plc have been manufacturing noise measurement equipment for 45 years. They asked me to produce a brief product demo video, which would be presented by the Managing Director of the company. The product is the new Nova range, a unique modular system which uses an OLED screen.
I hired a product turntable and travelled to their HQ in Filey on the Yorkshire coast for the shoot.
The client hired a small theatre next to their offices, and when filming on the stage with the main tabs (curtains) closed it acted as a decent studio for filming. I helped coach Sarah through her presentation and offered advice on the script as we went along.
Back in the edit suite I made an animation of the Pulsar logo and cut the video. I added a few finishing touches like luma-keying the black background to pure black, and including a music track. Here you go: