It’s the first day of 2012.

I woke up at 07:13 by alarm clock and eventually got up at 08:00. It’s a breaking record since the holiday began.

The weather was good for a while and then rained for a while. Typical England weather.

I am not a great fan of films but I sat down to watch two films with my family, one then the other.

Suddenly I thought about Helen.

Helen is a librarian. She is going to give up her job and to be a foster parent.

Remember the horrible man I mentioned on one of my posts? I am so glad to that Helen and her husband make such a generous decision. They have brought up two great children and I am sure they will inspire those unfortunate children.

Make a change.

It’s New Year. Let’s say good bye to 2011, try our best to live for ourselves and our family. When you think you are a better person, and you will be.

It’s Christmas Day, but I am depressed.

Firstly, I am tired. These days I couldn’t sleep properly as I usually did. Yet, I still have to work, discipline and educate my little girl and bear the noise in the house all day long.

Secondly, I am stressed. There are 7 coursework I should have submitted for my course but I have done none. It’s been 2 months but I only finished the first chapter. I need time of my own but I just can’t let my little one watch telly all day…

And then, I feel no family and no friends. The man of the house doesn’t have any friends and he doesn’t like to socialise with my friends. What can I do?

At last, I was told a related 17-year-old boy is going to be a father. That made me feel very disappointed. The father of the boy said he was proud of it. This made me feel disgusting. How can such a young boy be responsible to a family? He is just one of the many. They don’t realise but they uses the resources of the nation and disadvantage their own children. It’s the parents’ faulth. The generations in the UK seem to go downhill further and further. I am losing faith on this land.

What shall I do?

Here is a short video I made on the 17th November for the Mansfield Lights switch on. We didn’t get anywhere near the stage because of the sheer volume of people there, ans we were quite late, but got some lovely shots of the fireworks and lights, and hopefully some of the atmosphear….

Mansfield Christmas Lights Switch on 2011 from GreenwoodVideo on Vimeo.

 

There is room for all types of wedding videos, and a market for all the many different types and budget ranges. Some brides just want some sort of video record and will try and get it for nothing (family member with a little camera), while others want a full film crew at their wedding and will pay about 8K for it!

I spent 20 years producing what I regard as the traditional type wedding video. It was a formula that never varied in all those years because it worked. Brides loved it, it was easy, mostly edited in camera stuff.

But since joining the IOV I have changed my views somewhat. The IOV hasn’t made me do this, it’s a choice I made on my own because I wanted to start doing something different. I wanted to produce something I was even more proud of, that compared to what you would see on TV, something that would bring a little respect to my company name GreenwoodVideo.

No longer do I use handheld shots, no longer do I use the entire ceremony (usually I edit it down to 15 minutes) unless the bride wants it, the photo call is usually edited down to about 7 minutes (from an hours footage) plus a few interviews and little montages I make with the bride and groom on their own.

I use sliders, glidepod, monopod, I’m just starting to use DSLR… and use different techniques picked up from watching work freely available throughout the Internet… I have a car boot full of stuff, carry a bag around with me with my slider and Steadicam, a utility belt with batteries and cards and gawd knows what else that I may need… I’m like a combat commando rather than a videographer!

At the end of the day I have left my job and now just do video production full time, something I wanted to do for 20 years but had never dared too before joining the IOV.

Now that I have entered the Cinematic Wedding Film realm I actually enjoy doing weddings much more than I ever have because I can put much more thought and style into the work. I love colour grading and adding flares and all the rest of it during the editing stage. Sometimes it takes me a full day to just produce 2 minutes of video! But I love it!

For me, it’s all just so much more rewarding, even though it’s more work. It’s a choice I and others have chosen. There is a market for it but it’s not for all brides because of the higher price tags involved, some would rather spend 1k on a cake!

The advancement in large chip cameras with lens that can (and more importantly are) interchanged throughout the job in-hand, the new editing skills, plug-ins and techniques just make the top end of the wedding video market more and more outstanding!

I love what i do and love the challenges before me, and those I have beaten behind me. I am thinking of the IOV fellowship next, and have some ideas to get it using my new skills. I may never achieve it, but I am still going to try, just like I am going to try for the IOV awards next year… and the year after that….

So for all those who love doing the traditional wedding video, your doing an excellent job. There is a huge market for it and it has worked for over 20 years and will continue to work long after you retire!

For those that are challenging new techniques, good luck and welcome to a whole new world!

 

Both yesterday and today are duplicating days. I am using a brand new duplication tower connected to one of my computers burning copy protected DVD discs. The idea behind this is for my Dance show filming campany Dance Show Filming (visit) to offer “Child Protection” copies of shows or plays.

There is an additional cost to this as the protection works on a “per” disc scheme, but we feel that it’s worth absorbing this additional cost into our product. Making the discs virtually uncopyable is a great way to help prevent images of the children getting into the wrong hands, or been uploaded onto the Internet (e.g. youtube, facebook etc) without other parents consent.

Of course nothing is 100% and for the really determined there’s always a way past the encryption, but at least there are some barriers in the way to slow them down! The protection is actually better than on DVD movies from Amazon, and we are more confident to assure parents that their children are safer on our DVDs than any of the competition.

What are your views on this? Please use the comments below….

 

 

Just finished the Tate Furniture promo video, changed a few little details to get it looking just right. Hope you like….

I made this video a while back and thought I’d post it up here. Its a video I made to help me get my Masters of the Instutute of Videography . I also tested my new Glidecam on this shoot so expect to see lots of moving shots past posts etc. Came out very well

Just been working with Ben Richards (from the Bill amongst other things) and what a down to earth guy he is. He’s a brilliant teacher as well as a talented actor and performer. He spent the day at Expressions Arts College and gave the students some a very valuable workshop based on first hand experience, something that doesn’t come around all that often!

The lessons were based first on video production, his experience working for the Bill and what the students might expect on a TV production set. All the students had the opportunity to act out a TV scene with they did with great skill, and in Ben’s owns words, he has seen so much talent at the college that he would like to do something else with the students too! Not only that but he was very happy to become the colleges Male Patron and hopefully will be a more familiar face in the future!

Some video footage below….

Ben Richards interview on Expressions College from GreenwoodVideo on Vimeo.

At the ProVideo show recently I won a GoPro camera at one of the seminars. Feeling very lucky to have won such a marvelous prize, or any kind of prize at all, I immediately began testing it to see what kind of shots I can get from such an amazing little camera in real life conditions. Enlisting the services of my daughter, Gabby, I began filming the events of the day with her as it was one of those silly school inset days where the teachers, back from a week long holiday, decide to create another day of chaos for busy parents by closing the school for yet another day, for training purposes you understand!

So Gabby and I had the whole day to ourselves and we spent it doing things together as father and daughter, which really we should do even more of. Great day and we both loved it… and a great opportunity to put the little cam through its paces.

Now one thing the little camera is not is a replacement for a full size HD camera. But for special shots where it’s impractical to have your normal camera, it’s fantastic. I filmed the first half of the video demo below in 720/50p resolution and the second (trip to MacDonald’s) in 1080/25p. Both excellent results but I feel the later was a little more stable.

I have to admit that I did manage to drop the little camera a couple of times, but as this is a tough piece of equipment, it didn’t even flinch! And I didn’t flinch either because lets face it, if it falls off a bike, or a car when in use and broke at the first drop, it wouldn’t be very practical. But it’s such a popular camera for a reason and its toughness is one of them.

I have mentioned one or two pros and cons on the video but a couple of points not mentioned is that I feel the shutter can get a little high at times making the video a little jerky, and the white balance may be out now and then too, but the main problem is the lack of an electronic stabilizer (as you would expect on a £300 camera). That said, fasten it security onto something and the results are breath taking.

I love the sucker mount and I did attach it to my car (though not for any great distance). It sticks to windows very secure and did the whole trip to McDonald’s with the camera going (speeded up x9000 times). The windscreen was a problem as its a very steep angle, so ended up filming upside down the whole way and rotating the video 180 degrees in the editing stage.

Handling noise is quite severe but it does do quite a nice job of eliminating wind noise (but not totally). The whole movie was filmed with the GoPro in its water proof housing (with open back) making the dropping of it more risk free. There is no way to attach it to anything if it is not in the housing, there isn’t even a tripod mount unless you purchase another mount specially for it

I would also advice purchasing the LCD screen for the back of the camera so you can see what your filming, would have been very handy for some shots, though not needed if you just attaching camera to the side of your car or helmet of course…..

Anyway, hope you enjoy the film and please don’t hesitate to comment on this….

Here is the video of the Free Runner training video I filmed when it was a little warmer outside. Tatally forgot to add to my my blog, but its a nice little film showing off the crisp colourful picture of the Panasonic Lumix GH2 SLR, my main filming camera these days…..