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The Need for Speed

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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.

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A finger on the pulse

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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:

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Weedfree Winners

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Weedfree2Weedfree1Weedfree4Weedfree5After winning the Sustainable Innovation in Export Award at the Golden Bridge event, Weedfree asked us to produce a couple of films for them. The first was a video press release for social media showcasing their latest award. And secondly they take all their staff to Tenerife for a short break and wanted to show a film to inform and encourage the team in the year ahead.

We visited the Weedfree headquarters in Yorkshire to interview the bosses, as well as shoot a few additional setups near train tracks and on quad vehicles. Once back at base I rebuilt their logo in 3D to create an animated opening. Editing was pretty straightforward thanks to Final Cut X and here are the results:

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Trafalgar Triumphs

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GoldenBridge2013_2I’m in London again with Howard from Red Lobster filming the ceremony for the 2013 Golden Bridge Awards. This year we we’re asked to film the event for both the British Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and the Belgian-Luxemborg Chamber of  Commerce.

This meant visiting London and Brussels to film presentations of the shortlisted companies, making two films to show at the event for the assembled dignitaries.

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After filming the event on the FS100 I edited a video for each chamber, which showcased the presentations and awards from their parts of the evening. The first two thirds of the videos below are close to what was shown at the event before the awards were given.


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Keep the Faith

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The Faith Through A Lens photography competition has been running since 2010. I was approached by Congregational and General Insurance in 2011 to film the award ceremony in Bradford. The next year the awards moved to London and another video production company was used,  but I was delighted to be asked to film this years event again.

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This time I was able to film the judging panel who met at Microsoft HQ a month before the ceremony. I made a short film on the history of the event as well as interviews with the esteemed panel of judges. This short was shown at the ceremony to give the people attending a feel for the event and explain the thought processes behind the judging.

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I filmed the event with three cameras. A GoPro suspended in the ceiling, my FS100 and an EX1 operated by BobMcGowan. I’d worked with Bob a few times in Liverpool filming at the Essar Oil Refinery and it was great to do so again. Then after the event I produced this finished film:

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Cutting-edge Cutting

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‘Going on the Road’ had a whole new meaning this week. Our regular client Northern Gas Networks asked us to make a video to help explain new technology used for detecting and repairing gas leaks. Over three days and three sites I found myself in the middle of busy roads, in mud, rain and sunshine.

We didn’t have much of a brief to start with and everyone was finding their feet. Balfour Beatty has been using video cameras in water leak detention for some time, but gas detection need a different approach to find the leak as well as more stringent safety systems. Together with Scotia Gas’ innovative cutting systems the idea is to trace leaks at a distance down a gas main, then drill a 60cm core down to the main and fix the leak.

Of three cores drilled, all three worked perfectly (luckily) and the crews were able to be off the site in 6 hours or less as opposed to the usual 3 days when digging much larger holes.

Core&Vac_4I shot the interviews and GV’s on my trusty EX1 which offers great control in these testing environments. But the biggest surprise to the client was the pole I waved around while filming with a camera on it… They didn’t know what to expect until they saw a first draft edit and were amazed by the footage I had got with this little camera. It was the GoPro of course, which let me get footage from every imaginable angle and matched the look of the EX1 really well. I rigged the GoPro of vehicles, strapped it to barriers for timelapse and used it a lot on a monopole.

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Another practical aspect of using a GoPro is that it doesn’t get in the operators way and I could put it right down the holes when I wanted. Also I wasn’t concerned about the camera getting damaged or wet as it was in it’s 60m waterproof housing which is really tough and has a scratch proof glass front element.

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admin

Ten years of Toolbank

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Today was my last day working on Toolbank’s 2013 Christmas campaign.

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I first worked with them back in 2003 when I was Senior Editor at CBF in Leeds editing their TV commercial. From then on I worked with various agencies to create their campaigns.
In the early days 3000 VHS videos were distributed across their UK dealers together with VHS combi TV’s. I started filming on my VX2000 and authoring DVD on the early Final Cut Studio software.

These days it’s distributed on DVD, SD cards and via Social Media and the Internet. The bulk of the work is an in-store loop video running at over 20 minutes in two versions – Sterling and Euros.

The online campaign will be rolled out a week from now, and the thirty or more individual videos I made will start going live.


Lastly, today we filmed the TV commercials in Leeds with the team from Dark Horse Media. After helping rig the lighting the day before we got an early start and filmed all 10 adverts in a day, plus some additional footage!

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It’s a Disaster!

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NGN called us with a last minute job.

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The main road bridge into Skinningrove in North Yorkshire had collapsed during the recent flooding, and the gas main into the village has been damaged.
We arrived on scene and Howard from Red Lobster got his hack hat on, speaking with the various parties involved and outlining a schedule for the day. While I popped off to get B-Roll of the village and the coastline.

 

 

Once again the GoPro proved it’s worth here. I filmed in the river water, leaning out over the bridge and shooting into the broken gas main and filming close to the NGN team down in the roadworks.

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Villagers provided us with phone footage filmed during the flooding, and I added a Google Earth flight to the finished video:

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SoftBrick

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Today was my second day of filming for SoftBrick, the UK’s biggest manufacturer of soft play equipment for children’s play centres. Using my FS100 and 11mm ultra wide lens I’ve been able to film inside these huge and amazingly complex structures that they’ve created. Also also worth mentioning that the low light capabilities of the camera are a massive help as some areas are designed to be really dark and atmospheric.

The first day of filming was at Bubbles World of Play in Liverpool, followed by filming at the factory in Manchester. Today I visited a huge, newly opened play centre in Northampton – The Riverside Hub. These venues are amazing, I wish there was something like them in Leeds as I’d love to take my two year old along. I’ve also used the GoPro to shoot factory timelapse and I had the opportunity to use the full length mode of my 4 metre jib, which doesn’t often happen as it’s too long for most venues.

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Softbrick are using various edited videos to show at trade conferences across the EU. These videos are mute and create a seamless loop when played back on a solid state media player.

Below is a typical section of an exhibition loop.

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Putting words on your mouth

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The guys at IdeasBynet are always asking me for something a little out of the ordinary. This time we were making a TV commercial to promote their rebrand, something fresh and fun with loads of character.

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This was shot in their photo studio, lit with two 1.2kw MSRs through my diffuser frames and Dedos as backlighting. The performers were two staff members and one semi-pro actress. They were holding sticks with cardboard sheet and tracking markers drawn on. The shoot was fairly simple, the only difficulty was ensuring that the actors didn’t move their mouths too much behind the cardboard and that they didn’t turn their heads too much or their mouths would be visible.

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The post production process was obviously quite complex as you’d expect…

-Get the voice performances edited and signed off by the client.
-Edit the actor’s background footage to match the voice recording.
-Save each dialogue line as individual Quicktime files.
-Motion track the individual mouths for each file.
-Edit the mouth movement images to match the voice recording.
-Apply the mouth images edits with the motion tracking to the ordinal background files.
-Put it all back together in Final Cut Pro.
-Apply colour corrections, add strobing/weaving effect.

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I’m really happy with the end result:

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