My talented video production specialist friend – Mr Iain Slater BSc BBC – has polished it up with his trademark high production value. He’s slow, but he’s good! Have a butchers at the finished product (and some embarrassing outtakes).

Until another time: zoot alors!

Paris 2009

Paris 2009 outtakes

Seven Short Sketches

I wanted to make a short film that was more intricate and artistic than anything I’ve done previously, so what better than imitating the style of film noir? I studied several films to get a good feeling for the characters and story lines then set out writing.

As I was both writing and producing the film I was able to envisage my perfect locations and shoot it just as I had imagined. I created storyboards and included extensive direction notes in the script to this end.

A Gamble On Life scene 1

We’ve got to get stuck into the post production yet but the rushes are looking great (apart from my ‘acting’). I want to do quite a lot of grading on this piece so don’t expect it to be finished for a while! The first cut of the first scene is above.

A Gamble On Life script

Admission day show

We use a lighted set with a 3 camera set-up for the interview and Q&A then we take 2 roving cameras for a tour. We also live mix and direct this from the studio gallery. Over the years I’ve filled the roles of camera man, director, vision mixer, sound mixer and producer.

Piccadilly Circus – Sight 16 (The letter P)

We covered almost the whole of London and we hardly ever cheated (except maybe for Z) walking almost 11 miles and travelling by tube for over 25 miles. There’s even a map of our trip!

We’ve made a little video, you should get a good feeling for how we got on. And you can flick through the photos too.

London A-Z

London A-Z trip

London: A-Z map

We put together a script for a 10 minute show which incorporated a few live segments using 2 studios, including a green screen. The children directed, vision-mixed, operated cameras, and presented the show, with some input from group leaders. We had a great fun doing it and I think the kids did too!

The Crime Seen logo

We chose to create a spoof Crimewatch style show, much like Brasseye. We scripted several VT packages and live segments for the show, many of which I wrote. I took a leading role in the production and post-production of the show to drive the timeline and I got roped in to presenting a couple of segments!

The full show schedule runs as follows:

• Title sequence – a mix of recorded footage with 3D graphics and stills with a custom written theme tune;
• Introduction – a live section introducing with the 2 main presenters;
• VT package 1 – a fake story about the murder of the Vice Chancellor’s pet panda, presented by myself filmed at various locations;
• Crime weather – a live segment of the ‘crime weather forecast’ for the coming week, this used a retro-reflective LED green screen;
• Ad break – a 3 minute fake ad break consisting of 4 adverts, book-ended with a ‘tea-time teaser’ question;
• Crime news – a live segment covering recent crime stories from over the world;
• A phone-in – a live, unscripted, phone-in segment using fake callers;
• VT package 2 – a story about a counterfeiting ring based in Wales, shot like a MacIntire Investigates episode;
• Interview – an (improvised) interview follow up to the panda story in VT package 1, I was the interviewer for this segment;
• E-mails – this section was much like the phone-in segment, and was used to easily fill/cut down the show’s runtime;
• Live musical performance – a live performance, directed using a 3 camera set up, this was used to maintain the shows length.

Crime Seen

We got the opportunity to use various pieces of studio equipment and really concentrated on the efficient running of the show. Fortunately everything came together brilliantly. The edited highlights, out-takes and a spoof advert are below.

Crime Seen (10min version)

Crime Seen out-takes

WeCan advert

The 5 of us chose to create a single episode from a science documentary series (Science Friction). The episode is on the subject of ‘human matter transportation’ and follows a group of scientists in their experiments leading up to, and first test of, a method of human teleportation.

The transportation pad (plus spoon…and thumb)

We spent a long time scripting and story-boarding the piece before sourcing our actors and props. We filmed over 4 days on location (a working lab) and used green screen for talking heads. The bulk of time was spent in post-production with one person almost completely dedicated to effects compositing. We also authored the full VT (with added extras) as a DVD.

Science Friction

I’ve been involved in all areas; camera work, live studio production, acting (sigh), compositing and editing. We also got some great experience with different bits of kit; a SteadiCam rig, a studio chroma key setup, portable lighting, rail-guided cameras and a live studio equipment.

I present to you Science Friction – Human Matter Transportation.

Science Friction

Science Friction out-takes

Brighton – Shine On

The project was great fun, I concentrated on choreographing the clips to the music and threw in a bit of colour correction as an added challenge.

The concept is this; a guy gets home and goes looking looking for a cold refreshing can of Coke, his friend is jealous and steals it using a magic picture frame, the guy decapitates his friend. Simple.

Coke Christmas

This was an interesting exploration in special effects (with Adobe After Effects) by playing with tracking and roto-scoping. The end result is a great little video with a lovely Christmasy feeling.

Happy Christmas!