Video Artisan | Company Film and Video Production | Loughton Essex
Corporate video and company film production services for businesses of all sizes
Great end to the week with my first corporate video in the bag! I don’t want to give too much away at the moment but its lucky that I have a reasonable head for heights. Start shooting week after next.
Spent most of this week mining for data – and I think I now have a reasonable database of the businesses local to me. Going to start hitting them next week so they know there’s a new (well OK “old”) kid in town.
Am I cool or what???
I still meet up regularly with a group of school friends, some of which go way back to my infant school years. Like me, life has been kind to them and they don’t look a day over 21-years (ah hem!!) – well all except one poor chap, Ricky Haynes, who has always been a little on the slow side.
Anyhow, when I posted my last video on the honeybees (http://vimeo.com/37314982) Ricky was simply unable to spot the ones with bulging pollen sacks – so I went back to the hives today and filmed some close ups for him.
Kev’ Shed – More close ups on the bees using my Macro Tube from Kevin Cook on Vimeo.
This was really another excuse for me to experiment with some of the DSLR toys I’ve been collecting over recent years. Getting up really close to the bees was a job for my macro tube which I bought new from eBay for just a couple of pounds. When connected to my vintage Fujinon 200mm f4.5 lens it enabled me to get a big enough shot without upsetting the bees too much and having to put my bee suit and clobber on.
With the cropped sensor of the Canon 550D, the 200mm lens is the equivalent of a 320mm lens on a full frame sensor camera. In real terms this meant I could position the camera about 3-feet away from the entrance to the hive. Sticking the same macro tube on my 50mm lens would have meant having to getting the camera about 6-inches away. I tried that – and the bees didn’t like it much.
So – result is I’m now a bit more practised in the use of the macro tube and Ricky Haynes will now know what a honeybee laden with pollen looks like when one lands on the end of his nose!
Most videographers out there have probably already got one of these – but if you haven’t then you definitely need one!
Kev’s Shed – Colour Confidence White Balance Card from Kevin Cook on Vimeo.
This has been my first full week since going solo and I think I deserve an early exit. 10 major things achieved since Monday…
1 – Local district council, surrounding town councils and town centre partnerships know there’s a new kid in town.
2 – Negotiated my first regular paid-for blogging job – and will start this from March onwards (I’ll let you know when that starts and what its all about very soon).
3 – Produced an audition piece for an international online publication which has a readership of 250,000 – and the first impressions were good.
4 – Contacted nearly all of my past corporate video clients and let them know Cookie is back (I told them I would be!).
5 – Created ‘Kev’s Shed’ channel on Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/channels/kevsshed) and made a couple of videos to kick it off. Also created a new Kev’s Shed category for this blog.
6 – Had a meet with my local “friendly” competition and explored areas where we can cooperate on future projects.
7 – Booked in for local Chamber of Commerce exhibition next week – and might even take a stand!!!
8 – Arranged an open evening here at the studio for all the local IOV members – for which there’s been a great response.
9 – Got my website listed on tons of free directory sites so that I now come up somewhere in the top ten for all the search strings I think I need.
10 – Established the most efficient Edius workflow for editing footage shot on the 550D and for spitting it back out in H264 for online delivery.
Like I said – I deserve a early exit. Hope you all have a good one.