Tag Archives: filming

Autocue at Change Group office

Green screen presentations

If you’ve got a long and detailed values and mission statement to present to a global audience, what’s the best way to go about it? Change Group, an international retail foreign exchange and bureau de change company, with headquarters in London, is launching its new Vision statement. But how to inform staff at over 120 branches worldwide? Sacha Zachariya, CEO of Change Group, chose video to reach out to his workforce.

The creative brief was to come up with a stylish visual presentation to help win over hearts and minds. The concept was for a series of presentations by the CEO, combined with motion graphics and an animated character to lighten the mood.

The filming was done in Change Group’s new offices in Holborn, in between building work on refitting the new offices. This allowed us to turn it into a TV studio for the day. We first hung our mobile green screen and rigged up the telepromter to the Sony HD camera. Then loaded the script, mic’d up the presenter, Sacha, and started to roll.

Each section of the script was filmed in wide, then we went to a mid-shot for key sections. Finally we moved onto the sections with props – who knew that Sacha could flambe and juggle whilst presenting!

Now we’re adding the graphics layers to the video, working to create the animated character that will help Sacha to deliver his message.

Ovo Energy AGM

Event Filming – Ovo Energy AGM

On Tuesday Skylark Media got a call from Ovo Energy, an energy supply company based in Cirencester, England. They were in the final stages of planning for their AGM and wanted a film to record the event.

We quickly responded to their brief, to create a short, engaging film that they could use to record the event and hold onto those memorable messages. A video adds diversity to corporate communications, and it ensures messages stay consistent and entertaining time and time again.

Two days later we are setting up with two cameras at Paintworks in Bristol. The HD Sony EX3 and a Canon 7D for close ups and cutaways. At 3pm 10 coaches disgorged over 200 staff, eager to start playing the Ovo Quiz to win a flying lesson. The AGM was a great success, the company laying out its business strategy and plans for the year ahead. There was even time for a round of bingo. Before the refreshments at the end a group photo recorded a bumper year for employment in this fast growing company.

Skylark Media’s editing team will be preparing two videos for Ovo Energy; a full record of the event and a 10 minute cut-down version for showing to staff, new recruits and those who couldn’t make the event.

Dronecam in Watersmeet

Drone cams

Experience Exmoor National Park like never before.

Cameras attached to silent drone cams swoop up tree-filled coombes. Fly over the gushing waterfalls of the River Exe then sink into the water on the back of a leaping salmon.

We employed Cineflex cameras to give us staggering rock steady aerials from a helicopter flying along the highest cliffs in England.

The video is reaching the final stages of production and will be shown at Exmoor’s new tourist pavillion in Lynmouth in Spring 2013.

helicopter-for-web

Helicopters over Exmoor National Park

Well we’re back from our week filming the wonders of Exmoor National Park. The film will be shown at Exmoor’s new pavilion in Lynmouth, opening in Spring 2013. It’s to be an immersive experience, where the audience is ‘flown through’ the landscape, appreciating the sounds, animals and history as they go.

The weather during the shoot was variable, however through the excellent organisation of producer, Rebecca Bangay, we had long enough at each of our amazing locations to catch the shafts of sunlight when they fell. From Watersmeet to Dunkery Beacon we explored Exmoor from the macro to the micro. Our on the ground cameraman was BBC Natural History expert, Richard Jones. Although normally waiting for big cats on the African plains, he flexed his camera at dippers, red deer and slugs (not too hard to find this year!). Our drone cam operator was Phil Dalton, who picked up some amazing shots, flying up trees, under bridges and over waterfalls. Castle Air took on the job of getting the helicopter aerials. I’m pleased to say that we stretched the budget to a cineflex camera and got some beautifully steady tracking shots across the cliffs and valleys.

We’re now into the edit and choosing just the best 10 minutes from the hours of footage! Then, once this is signed off by our clients at Exmoor National Park the work will begin on CGI animations of iron age settlements and bronze age processions. Then the composer will work her magic on the music score. Come back in about a month and I’ll let you know how we’re getting on. Until then, it’s back to the edit suite for me. Jo Haywood, Executive Producer

Running this shoot was very much back to my days as a BBC documentary producer/director. We pulled out all the stops to make this a truly epic experience of Exmoor’s hidden wonders.

5 x cameras
3 x cameramen
2 x helicopters (one remote controlled)
22 x locations
6 x extras

Filming Events

In June, Atrium Software launched their new product, Atrium Vision.

The launch was given via a series of presentations by industry experts in the top class venue, The Institute of Mechanical Engineers.

Atrium wanted a series of short YouTube videos from each of the speakers.  We filmed these against a green screen so that we could be creative with their backgrounds, and also add in the relevant slides from their Powerpoint presentations.

The event videos will be used to promote their new software on YouTube and for internal training purposes.

Suttons Seeds Gets Grafted

This week Skylark Media has been filming with Suttons Seeds at the impressive Plant Raisers, the site of the largest tomato plant propagator in the UK. We filmed 3 films in the day, getting real value for money from the presenter, camera operator and location.

Suttons are adding to their highly successful library of videos to offer help and advice to their customers. These new videos are about grafted plants and sweet potatoes.

A stunning lifestyle set had been created by Suttons marketing department. Then it was a matter of conveying 10 foot mature tomato plants from the perfect growing conditions of the green house to our outdoor location. Once everything was in place and the script was agreed then filming commenced. The weather was kind to us and a warm low sun gave us direct light and reflected balance from the green house wall – perfect. As the sun set we had all 3 films ‘in the can’.

Presenter, Rebecca Morris, did a magnificent job at presenting and Luke Fleming was operating the Sony EX3 and Canon 7d. The videos will be available on the Suttons You Tube channel from April 2012.

Filming with Alys Fowler

This week Skylark Media have had the pleasure of filming with Alys Fowler, author and gardening columnist for the Guardian.

We were blessed with a crisp, sunny, January day for our filming. The drive up from Bristol was smooth, leaving us time to grab a cup of tea before meeting Alys, her dog and chickens in her town garden in Birmingham.

The job was to film two videos for Carbon Gold’s new website. The first is a promotion for their soil enhancer, BioChar, to show the many ways that the product can be used to improve soil fertility and plant growth. The second is a guide to jobs you could be getting on with during the winter months.

Cameraman, Luke Fleming, was operating the Sony EX1 for the wides, and a Canon 7D for close ups and promotional stills. We came home with some stunning rushes that will be edited together over the next couple of weeks into a powerful marketing tool for Carbon Gold’s latest product range. The videos will be hosted on You Tube, and embedded in the client’s website to gain the maximum value from video SEO.

Have a look at our latest video presented by Alys Fowler.