I’ve had one of these cheapo Konig universal dolly bits o’ kit sitting around in my wardrobe for some time, and bought it with the intention of using with the Manfrotto 525 / 503HDV – but after removing one wheel and losing all 3 of the leg clamps I decided that equipment modification was not my forté.

Quail Trail started by drilling holes in my 525 legs. I can hear people shoting “OMG!” – but it’s ok, the legs have little rubber covers on the feet, not on the actual legs, that were easily modified. We then went to a local shop  to purchase all the necessary nuts and bolts. To attach the larger castors to the dolly we purchased 3 washers, 3 bolts (35mm), 3 nuts, 3 locking washers. To attach the tripod to the dolly we purchased 3 tapered bolts with 3 wing nuts.

Once we had all the fastenings, Dale made the markings on the dolly and drilled all the necessary holes. Hey presto, my cheapo dolly was now customised to fit my Manfrotto 525 legs perfectly! Im really happy with the finished product, official Manfrotto dollys are approximately £150 second hand – in comparison this cost £30 for my cheapo Konig dolly and I bought Quail Trail lunch and gave him some money for his banana fund!

I’m currently sitting in the Journey’s hostel in Greenwich, or West Greenwich to be a little more precise (I think!) with my Canon 7D tethered to my faithful laptop once again using the EOS utility software. There are a few people sitting right next to me with a group of people playing pool, reggae is blasting over the stereo and I’m sipping on a Guinness (this is work). I’ve set the EOS utility to take photos every 25 seconds as I have an exposure time of 20 seconds and the apeture is set at f/14, it’s now taken just over 35 images which means I’ve only really got just over a second of footage… so will have to sit here till at least 11pm to have  a few seconds of footage.

Anyway… babbling (as per)… what I intend to do is get a lot more time lapse footage over the coming weeks and create some kind of time lapse compilation. I’ll have to capture some sunrises in my hometown and also some other bits which I am yet to figure out. If I get up early tomorrow Tom has recommended that I visit “a big hill in Greenwich” as it overlooks the City Of London and would be great for time lapse, this would involve waking up at 6-7am though… and I don’t really like that idea as I’ve had 2 pints of Guinness and it’s approaching 11pm…. we’ll see though!

That’s me done, I’m sure you’re bored already, apologies in order (as always).

I used a Canon 7D with the Canon 17-40mm lens for a wide shot, I then fired up the trusty laptop and EOS utility software to capture all the images. I had a quick fiddle and found an exposure time of 25 seconds with an apeture of f/11 worked well. This gave a nice exposure and everything was in focus, then I used the EOS utility to fire the camera every 30seconds.

This resulted in just over 700 images, but, unfortunately the battery died at around 7am just as things started to get a little more interesting. Next time I think it may be worth getting up early, rather than staying up late for a better final video!

Anyway, this is enough of me babbling… check out the video!

Today I took a bunch of photos in Lowestoft for a friend of a friend for an e-commerce site where she will sell clothes, jewellery, shoes and all that girly type stuff. It allowed me to have a fiddle with my camera in a studio environment, and after setting up the camera to take pictures of vintage clothing on a mannequin I got snappin’, slowly. It takes a considerable amount of time to ensure that there were no creases or funny folds, and you have to make modifications when taking shots of the front/rear/side of each item and after a full day I reckon we got through about 70-80 different pieces of clothing, thankfully I didn’t have to take all of these! Saying that, I may have drawn the short straw, I decided I would play with Luca, who was fueled on a diet of Cadbury’s Milk Chocolate Buttons, Cookies and Pringles,which meant he was hell bent on keeping me running round, swinging him about and generally keeping me very busy, as you can see!

Tomorrow I will be taking shots in Norwich of more clothing & fashionable items, but this time it will be with models, which is another area I am not so experienced… Telling girls to look down the camera and pout, and maybe even explaining how you should pout (someone explained to me what you’re meant to do!) is a little bit daunting, but it’s all a learning curve – which will mean I will be able to perfect my skills at photography with models, and hopefully offer some kind of portfolio photography for aspiring models in the future!

On Wednesday we will also be returning to Norwich once more to do the last few items with the models. Lydia said that we have approximately 35 items to do tomorrow and Wednesday, so, I would have thought it won’t be as hectic as today, although the addition of the models may make things more complicated… Who knows?! I will report back and maybe post a few photos up of the results – until then, you can enjoy the random photos of the gang involved today!

I left the guys to start rigging as normal and I set about setting up our servers and ensuring all connections were going to work smoothly during the show and this is when we came to our first stumbling block, the venues firewall! For most people, they use a simple firewall on their computer, but the Bonus Arena in Hull happened to have a third party that managed their security and servers, so I started to panic a little.

After some googling, negotiations with venue managers / technical support, and a lot of pacing around the venue we managed to get ports opened and the stream working, about an hour before the fans were due to arrive at the venue. All was ready to rock, cameras calibrated, audio levels set, fighters and event staff briefed, pre-production meeting complete… and now the fans started filtering through the door.

At that precise moment, the wireless connection kept dropping repeatedly – I wasn’t sure if this was something to do with the amount of people in the venue or just Windows playing some stupid game with me knowing that I needed some sort of reliability from an operating system at that particular moment in time. Leon, however, was able to save our bacon with a last-minute ingenuitive solution to our unforseen technical issues – it was our first ever show, so it was kinda to be expected!

So, 2 minutes before the event was due to kick off (at the slightly later time of 7pm!!), we went live online… and the show went pretty much as per normal.

We were all really impressed with the amount of views we received. As mentioned earlier it was broadcasted worldwide, and the google analytics proved this too us with people logging in from all corners of the globe!!

Tom with commentators Ray Flores & Dan Singh

Live Streaming In Progress!

I enjoyed making the video, as each time we do these we have a chance to not only be a little creative, but it’s a chance to watch new videos to be inspired by them, then set out to find out how they are made and what techniques are used. I’m quite sure Michael Surtees will be happy with this epic MMA promo video!

With the MMA promo video out of the way, it’s time to edit all the fights, a total of eight to be precise. Then we can add the stats, timer graphics, check the audio, do some motion menus, bish-bash-bosh, job’s a good ‘un, BOOM, POW, power shower, downgrade, upsize… on with the next job! Well, not quite, we then have to prepare a program for the television – but this time should be a lot easier than our last as we know what we have to produce.

Now I’ve finished scribbling, I better get on with packing up my gear. Off to film some darts this weekend and also WFC3 in Cheshunt. Looking forward to it!!

Supremacy Fight Promo Video

Check out the photos here : Music Video Premiere Photos

I really enjoyed shooting this music video, and think the next one will definitely be much improved. In September we will be filming our second music video for a cover band. The band members are based in France, but we will be using the picturesque surroundings of Lowestoft as a backdrop. At the moment I am still trying to think of some good locations, so before September comes round I will be scouting out potential sites and also studying some other music videos to learn some new techniques. I intend to use the Canon 7D for shooting the video again, but this time am hoping to do a multicam shoot with Brendan and has 550D, hopefully cutting our shooting time down 50% (although I expect we may be doing more than 11 takes!).

On Saturday we went to film Supremacy Fight Challenge in Gateshead. Brendan was operating the 7D, capturing all the highlight footage for the event, which I will be working on tomorrow. As Jason and I had filmed this event so many times we decided we would be up and down the ladders all night – and let Tom stay at the top for the duration. A smaller crowd meant that the balcony camera wasn’t knocked by spectators, which is a bonus! The long running show ran really smoothly as expected, there were some good fights and we will be submitting the work to SKY281, The Active Channel and believe they will want to play the footage.

Brendan Looking Like A Model!

Zarreen, Taraneh’s mum has Alheimer’s Disease which is a form of dementia, she looks normal (as do all those with dementia) but she forgets things and has quirky little habits. Despite this, Taraneh and Zarreen are getting on just great and I had pleasure working alongside the NHS and Nudge Productions in producing this informative & positive documentary.

For more information about the film or if you have any questions, feel free to email us, www.nudge-productions.com or visit the NHS website: http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Dementia/Pages/Introduction.aspx

The music video was shot in multiple locations around Lowestoft including the industrial areas of Whapload Road.

Samuel Hughes, a Grime & Hip-Hop has received a lot of praise and encouragement for his freestyle rapping having recently performed in London. He hopes to be sending the completed video to the AKA TV channel.

Tom Ellis, a resident of Lowestoft received a triple distinction on his BND Media Production course at Great Yarmouth College this year and will be starting his studies in editing and post production at Ravensbourne College in London in September. He said “It’s nice to enhance your portfolio whilst helping other people at the same time.” Tom Ellis’s Website: Tomellismedia.co.uk

Fellow filmmaker Tom Tailford generally shoots mixed martial arts, the fastest growing sport in the UK and said “I’ve gained a lot from this experience and have really enjoyed it. I am hoping that other local bands, musicians and creative people may also see our work and make contact to create new and interesting videos.” Tom Tailford’s Website: Chimpmedia.co.uk

The creative trio hope that this will bring attention to his music and launch him into the next stage of his career. The music video will be premiered at The Globe public on Monday 29th August at 7pm, all are welcome.

Sam Hughes - Photography Chimp Media