Shooting my first corporate film on this camera was a challenge. I acted as a shooting Director of this film for a HGV training company and was ably assisted by my photographer friend Mark Kensett and another photographer, Glenn Blackburn. These guys had the cameras and some exquisite lenses but very little moving image experience.

As it turns out, together we made a pretty good team and were happy to take direction from me as well as both come up with some excellent ideas as well.

The film ends with a articulated truck up in Buttertubs Pass in Hawes, Wensleydale. Quite dramatic.

The 5D is a difficult camera to work with, but the images speak for themselves. Worth the effort!

Here’s the final edit.

Share on Facebook

So as I was busy sorting out the laundry basket and dashing around doing the washing, the phone rang and I was asked if I could ‘go to The Jordan next week’! Wasn’t expecting that.

I was to record the visit of Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson to the launch of an Olympic initiative called ‘International Inspiration’. I was filming for UNICEF who are also supporting International Inspiration.

I had the pleasure of hooking up with a Sky News Olympic team and we followed Tanni around during her visit.

Of note during the visit was that we stayed in the Hyatt Grand Hotel. It was bombed by a suicide bomber in 2005. During the night, there was a car crash outside my hotel window – got us all a little jumpy…

We also visited the Souf refugee camp. Not so much a tented camp, but now a small concrete town because it has been there since 1967. Crazy middle east politics.

Share on Facebook

Now Paul has an idea. He wants to share his magical entertaining talent by hosting a series of shows in the local village halls along the path of the river. Riding on his antique electric wooden canoe The Lovely Debbie McGee, Paul and Debbie will share a journey from Oxford down to Teddington Lock, stopping along the way to explore the local history, speaking to some of the amazing characters who live the river life, performing adhoc street magic and treating the locals to a world class magic show in their local village halls.

Often controversial, Paul will also share with us his point of view on life, the universe and everything in it with surprising and often witty points of view. A chance to experience the mind of a character who has often been dubbed the most famous magician of modern times.

This six part series, shot and directed by renowned filmmaker Claudio von Planta, promises to get under the skin of one of the countries’ best known, but least understood, entertainers.

We’re currently pitching this concept to several broadcasters in preparation for filming in the Spring of 2010.

Share on Facebook

They’ve been through a re-brand and I was asked to make some on-sceen elements for them. In this instance it was their logo idents. Here are my efforts! All created in After Effects CS3 with sound effects generated by yours truly.

Share on Facebook

It’s an amazing community, full of friendly people who live together and shop together in a, I suppose, old fashioned style. They’re keen to protect what they have and the local church (Hull Community Church) has set up a brilliant initiative called Love Local. A scheme to encourage people to shop locally and this keeps the local commerce going and protects this special place. Like a loyalty discount scheme amongst all the shops, a directory and a cool web site.

Here’s a film I made about the Launch Day event

Share on Facebook

Share on Facebook

Can it actually happen? Is the technology really there yet? More crucially, will the Sri Lankan government support it. Remember, Sri Lanka has just come out of 30 year war on terror and redeveloping is high on their agenda. They need energy to do this – and fast…

This 20 min episode highlights the Due Diligence part of making a significant investment in an unproven technology such as this. Tauni has made the trip to Sri Lanka to see for herself the methods used to make energy from the plant life of the country. Is this really achievable and will the investment happen.

Additionally, the team who have developed the green energy ideas, have other innovative concepts. This includes a way to utilise household waste to power a town without ruining the natural flora and fauna of the surrounding countryside with the look, smell and effluent of the rotting, smoldering waste.

There are two versions here. One is essentially a TV sales trailer (the 8min version) and the other is a 20min cut. Your choice. I hope you like them!

The 8min version

The 20min version

Share on Facebook

Can it actually happen? Is the technology really there yet? More crucially, will the Sri Lankan government support it. Remember, Sri Lanka has just come out of 30 year war on terror and redeveloping is high on their agenda. They need energy to do this – and fast…

This 20 min episode highlights the Due Diligence part of making a significant investment in an unproven technology such as this. Tauni has made the trip to Sri Lanka to see for herself the methods used to make energy from the plant life of the country. Is this really achievable and will the investment happen.

Additionally, the team who have developed the green energy ideas, have other innovative concepts. This includes a way to utilise household waste to power a town without ruining the natural flora and fauna of the surrounding countryside with the look, smell and effluent of the rotting, smoldering waste.

There are two versions here. One is essentially a TV sales trailer (the 8min version) and the other is a 20min cut. Your choice. I hope you like them!

The 8min version

The 20min version

Share on Facebook

“Have Your Cake Eat Your Cake” became the catchphrase in the team throughout this trip.

The reason? Well, we were filming a project about renewable energy. Having your cake and eating it. Except the Sri Lankan guys couldn’t quite get it right. Hence – Have Your Cake Eat Your Cake!

I was fortunate enough to be in a position to be asked to take the place of good friend, Claudio von Planta He’s out in the Far East filming Charley Boorman’s latest TV show, By Any Means 2.

I was shooting a pilot episode of a TV programme about renewable energy in Sri Lanka. An amazing place where I was privileged to meet some amazing people who are working to make the country one of the world’s first fossil fuel free economies. It’s a story of business and science working together to try and create a new way to power a country.

I’m working on the edit now, so in a few weeks, I’ll be able to post something here for you to see. I went with my photographer friend, Mark Kensett. He’s let me have a few photos for you to look at. Mostly of the back of my head! Thanks Mark.

Share on Facebook

Let me know if you like it!

Share on Facebook

It’s quite an amazing film and will be screened as part of the ‘Revelations’ season on either July 5th or July 12th.

I’ll set my VCR!

Share on Facebook

The upshot of this is, that I’ll be appearing on Al-Jazzera (English) on Friday 17th April. Of course you’ll all be watching, so I won’t have to remind you…!

Share on Facebook

At the moment I’m designing the maps for the programme. You can see an example of what I’m doing below.

The programme is due to air in June but the first screening to the commissioning editor is on April 22nd, so I’d better get going.

Share on Facebook

Set against this very limited experience of Fairtrade, I was asked by the Co-op to cover their Fairtrade Fortnight event at the end of February. This is a nationwide attempt at increasing the awareness of fairly traded goods and every region in the country has their own ideas. Greater Manchester decided to bring over a ‘real live’ coffee producer from Columbia as their centre piece to a series of visits, talks and events promoting Fairtrade in the power bases of Manchester. The idea is to promote the purchasing of Fairtrade goods in the local government, schools and large companies within the area. This way the overall quantity of produce purchased should increase substantially.

Now this, potentially, all sounds terminally boring. On the surface, it is only for the devotee of Fairtrade and for the green eco-warriors and tree huggers. So, my challenge is to make a 20min short documentary which covers the events and keeps the pace up so I don’t lose everyone’s interest. Should be interesting. Hopefully.

I’ve made a start on the edit, and you can see it here. My brief was to cover the events and to, literally, document what happened. It’s been quite a challenge so far and one of the most difficult edits I’ve undertaken. I hope it’s light enough to keep you interested and detailed enough to satisfy my client. I have to say, I’ve been very impressed by what the Fairtrade Foundation has accomplished and the real difference it’s made to people’s lives. So, I fully expect you all to look out for the logo and buy Fairtrade when you can. The Co-op is a good place to buy it as well! 

Here’s a few pictures to excite you…

Share on Facebook

For those who are interested in the technical stuff. I shot this in HDV and transcoded to SD resolution ProRes 422(HQ) for the edit. I knew I wanted to grade the sequence so I tried ProRes to keep the colour gamut as wide as possible. The final piece was output to H264 for inclusion in a Powerpoint presentation. ProRes 422(HQ) was good to use, but heavy on storage and heavy on processing power when rendering. Managed OK with it though.

It was fun to shoot and to make something creative out of it. However, throughout the entire shoot the temptation to crack the “you’re pulling my leg” gag proved almost irresistible…

Share on Facebook

This isn’t the script to a shady movie. The reality couldn’t be further away. In actuality, I was filming a short film for a web site about hand washing hygiene for the NHS. We needed a set and a model, pronto. So one of the guys in the office volunteered his house and one of the girls in the office volunteered her hands.

We had to work really quickly, so I shot it on the Z7 compact flash card to speed up the ingest. Also, I was using a couple daylight temperature lights. I bounced these from the ceiling to increase the overall ambient level of light and give the room a nice soft light. The voiceover was made by the medical professional stood to my right (just outside the bath!) during the shoot. After 40 minutes, I was on my way back to the office to start the edit.

Log and Transfer using Final Cut Pro is very easy to use and before so very long, the edit was underway. Aside from cutting, the biggest decision to get right was the grading. I generated the look you see to clean up the image and focus your attention on the hands. I added some appropriate music and top and tailed the piece with some nice motion graphics in After Effects.

The following morning, the clip was on Vimeo ready for client approval. They loved it (always a relief) and the master was encoded to Flash video ready for delivery to the client via FTP. Less than 24hrs from start to finish and not a tape or silver disc in sight…

Share on Facebook

Share on Facebook

 
Funny thing was this. They are super strict about their hygiene policy and insisted on testing all our equipment for ‘bacterial loading’ before we could take it into the factory. This entailed swabbing various parts of our cameras and putting the swab into a testing gadget. Of course, my camera failed miserably but after a light dusting down with a alcohol wipe they were happy to let it in the factory. If only they could have seen where my camera had been just 24 hours before! I’d been filming cows in a field and shaking hands with numerous people in the surrounding areas of Nakaseke in Uganda, Africa and then handing my various parts of the camera. But just a light wipe with the alcohol wipes and they were satisfied. Crazy!

Here’s a nice picture of myself with the Fairview guys all dressed in our fashionable gear.

Share on Facebook

I’ve not long popped out of the other side of a lengthy edit of my latest short documentary. It’s amazing how much energy one expends when you edit for a week straight, day and night. Anyway. I think the results are good. 

I’ll explain. I was recently asked to make a short film about a farming co-operative society in Nakaseke, Uganda. Proper, up country stuff with mud huts etc. I went with my photographer friend, Mark Kensett (hence the nice pictures here – thanks Mark), and our assignment was to document how the co-operative is getting on. It’s been about 2 or 3 years since they started and they seem to be making great progress. But you can see all this for yourself in the film.

It was quite a challenge. We had to leave at short notice and jet in and out of the country in just a few days. I shot it all on my Z7 (as you can see in the picture above) and was pretty pleased with the results.

The guy who runs the co-operative is called David Sseruwagi. An amazing guy that no only runs the co-operative, but also runs an orphanage, a secondary school and is the Pastor of a very lively church called the Uganda Gospel and Rehabilitation Centre. We had to make a couple of other little films which looked at the schools whilst we were there as well.

All in all, a hectic time. The equipment performed perfectly (got to love that Sony build quality) and we got back all in one piece. I hope you like the film…

 
Mifunya Co-operative Society, Nakaseke, Uganda from Jonathan Richards on Vimeo

Here’s a selection of the great pictures by Mark Kensett

Share on Facebook

It’s funny how many of us free fall into panic when Christmas comes around. If it’s not our finances that are challenged, then it’s all the organisation required for just two days of so-called celebration. I was particularly struck how miserable everyone was looking when I recently went shopping myself, and how many of us sometimes buy presents out of obligation rather than out of love. To be seen to do the right thing seems important to us.

I was prompted to make a little film about the absurdity of all this and how far away from the original message of Christmas we are. I hope you like it!

Share on Facebook