Another full-on day’s filming with Eiger Safety last Friday – this time heading to theatre land, Claridges and then on to Trinity House.

St Martins Theatre - home of the Mousetrap

Eiger have installed and maintain various man-safe systems in theatres throughout the West End of London.  The two examples they wanted to show in their promotional video were those installed in St Martins Theatre (home of the Mousetrap) and the neighbouring Ambassadors Theatre.

The St Martins Theatre latch-way installation is located over the glass dome above the auditorium and allows for safe cleaning and maintenance.  It was a very tight, dusty space with virtually no light other than a couple of dim, coloured highlighters and the natural light coming in from the small entrance hatch.  The aim was to “show it how it was” as it was a challenging installation let alone a difficult space to film in.  Adding my own light was therefore not an option – plus like all the other Eiger Safety locations we don’t have all day to get the shot.

Admittedly, the picture below is tweaked a little in Photoshop but it’s pretty much how it looked to the naked eye.  The ISO was set to 2,500 so its as noisy as you’d expect – but I’m convinced had I used a normal video camera it just wouldn’t have given me any pictures at all (another big plus point for shooting on DSLR).

Shooting in the dark above the dome at St Martins Theatre

There was just one simple shot required at the neighbouring Ambassadors Theatre and that was of a ladder system which connects two of the roof levels – again to allow easy and safe maintenance of the roof and gutters.  The best place to get this was from one of the actor’s changing rooms in St Martins Theatre – which looks directly over the Ambassadors Theatre roof.

Safe perambulations on the roof at the Ambassadors Theatre

Claridges should have been a flying visit as it was a simple job of taking a couple of still photos of a specific type of latch point they have installed in this hotel.  Clients seem to think you do both stills and video these days – and whilst they’re happy to pay me for what I can do stills-wise then I’m not turning the work away!  But as usual its always the simple jobs that get you bogged down as it took nearly two hours to a/ Convince the management to allow us to film (although we’d already arranged this), b/ Find an empty room, and c/ Find a room with the right kind of latch point.  Needless to say we got what was needed in the end – but what was it Robert Burns said in his poem.. “The best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry”.

Our final location on Friday was the roof system at Trinity House. If you don’t know where Trinity House is there’s no prizes for guessing from the photo below that its located opposite the Tower of London.  The view was as impressive as I was hoping for and it enabled us to get some footage of the guys working and testing the walkway and latch-way system.   I think our appearance was a little shocking though for the chap who was standing in his hotel bedroom opposite the roof with nothing more than a smile on his face!

Overlooking the Tower of London

Fingers crossed that we are now heading into a better spell of weather.  The list of remaining locations includes Oxford, Bristol, Bishops Stortford and at least another day’s worth in Central London.  I do love a client who keeps adding to the task at hand – especially when it is this interesting.

Wash your mind out you naughty person!!!

I’m off to Cardiff on Wednesday to shoot the opening of a new depot for Beaver84 - a leading supplier of scaffolding, fencing and groundworks products both for hire and sale.  I’m doing this one in conjunction with my associates at N2 Visual Communications who do Beaver84′s design, website, SEO, branding and print work (and now video production – through your’s truly!).

Beaver84 website - another great website from N2 Visual Communications

It’s not a massive job at the moment – a few GVs, shots of their stock and facilities plus interviews with staff and customers. A full day shoot – plus the post to get it all in shape for their website.  We’re all hopeful that it’s going to lead on to something more involved – and lots of it!

Also had a great meeting this week with the guys at N2 about other projects in the pipeline.  I’ve worked with this company for about 17-years as they were the printers we used for the IOV’s Focus magazine and provide an otherwise unknown level of customer care in the print and design industry (to me anyway).  I’ve done a fair bit of freelance writing for them on websites and brochures in the past – and also got involved in various video projects with them over the years.

N2 Visual Communications - brand development and augmentation

I’m going to be starting production on a short teaser video for them in a couple of weeks – and once this is done they’ll be pumping video production services out to their extensive client base.

PS.  Brilliant N2 logo by the way.  What mastermind came up with that concept??? : )

If you are reading this you probably already know – but I completed my Video Artisan website refurbishment this week – moving away from my stark grey html preliminary site to something a little more colourful.  I did say “a little more colourful”!!!

A fresh look for Video Artisan

OK – not an earth shattering change but a bit more eye catching and logical me thinks – certainly for someone involved in a visual medium such as video production.  Its also mobile device-friendly which is ever so important these days.  It should also be a bit more search-engine friendly (I hope).

Enjoy – and let me know if you spot any Cookerisms!

The brief was quite simple – to produce a 2 to 3-minute video, cut to music, for their exhibition stand at the forthcoming Blackpool Dance Festival. The purpose was to highlight Supadance‘s “made in the UK” heritage and to help augment their position as the world’s number one manufacturer of dance shoes. The video would also be placed on their website – and also on the website of their worldwide network of distributors and retailers.

Supadance – Shoes for Dance from Kevin Cook on Vimeo.

The clients are extremely happy with the end result, which was signed off with only a couple of very minor changes.  They are so happy in fact that they’ve started talking to me about the next video – which will be an extension of ‘Shoes for Dance’.

My thanks go to everyone at their warehouse and factory who made my job relatively easy.  A really nice company to deal with.

Credits & Kit Info
Script to screen service by Kevin Cook.  It took 2-days to film (one day at their factory, 1/2 day at their warehouse/showroom and 1/2 day in studio doing some pack shots) and 2-days to edit. Shot on Canon 550D with Magic Lantern Hack and edited on Edius 4.6. Music by AKM Music (Orchestral Themes – Impact / Track 2 ‘Heroic’).