Vivid work with Tecmark

A few months ago whilst scouting locations for our Miniature Manchester video we were fortunate enough to cross paths with Tecmark. Tecmark is a UK based Digital Marketing Agency that specialises in mobile app development and marketing, as well as Search Engine Optimisation. They have offices in Manchester and London.

They were due to update their website and wanted an eye-catching video on the Home Page. A video that portrayed how technology has made our lives easier.  How Mobile  Apps mean we can have information instantly, wherever we are.  We worked very closely with Richard, Kevin and Scott from Tecmark to come up with a Storyboard.

The basic idea would be to show a young man at work, doing the same task but in the years 1991, 2001 and now 2011. And how as the years have progressed, that task has become simpler.  We wanted the film to have a movie trailer feel, that grows in pace, building up to a final scene with bespoke animated graphics to show how people use mobiles for so many things in our modern world.

Once the final Storyboard had been agreed, we had to source props. We wanted  the same feel to each decade with subtle changes, for example Computers used, going from an old PC up to a new iMac. As we’re all football fans we used the nearest football tournament mug to the year, so Italy 1990, Euro 2000 and Africa 2010. There’s also a few other props on the desks, cassette walkman for 1991, Sony mobile phone for 2001 and an iPad for 2011.

We filmed it over 2 days and used local actor Danny Jackson, who we’d worked with before.

We are really happy with the final film and fits perfectly on Tecmark’s new website. We received  great feedback from Tecmark who have already used the video at trade shows as well as on their website.

We’re looking forward to working with Tecmark again in the future on video production jobs. To find out more about Tecmark and to see how the video compliments their new website, the link is below.

http://www.tecmark.co.uk/

Miniature Manchester Tilt Shift Time-Lapse

Well it’s nearly Christmas and the Vivid team decided that as part of our Christmas email campaign we should create a film that was a little different.

Inspired by Australian filmmaker Keith Loutit, we decided to produce a short film based around our home town of Manchester.

We used a technique called tilt shift time-lapse, for those not familiar with this, basically what happens is specialist lenses are used that enable the plane of focus to be tilted at an angle. When this is combined with an elevated view point it gives an almost Toy Town effect.

Looking down over St Peter's Square in Manchester

First we needed to obtain access to some rooftops in and around Manchester. We were fortunate enough to have a few clients in Manchester that were very obliging  as well as friends, and friends of friends who we managed to sweet talk.

We filmed it over a few days and from 4 or 5 locations to give some variety.

One of the challenges when filming from rooftops is wind, and I’m not talking about Tom’s post Brussel Sprout incident! You’re at the mercy of the Great British weather, and the wind is obviously not blocked by other building when you’re on the top of them.

Smile for the camera but don't look down.

Obviously the main concern is Safety; of ourselves, the public and our equipment. All cameras & tripods are secured individually using climbing clips and webbing, so there is no chance of anything falling.

As for us, we carry an umbrella each so should we fall we can just open it and float gently to the ground…..we haven’t had to use them yet but when we practiced by jumping off the desk in the office, it seemed to make the landing a little lighter.

Seriously though, we would like to thank all the people and companies that gave us access, as we mentioned at the time Miniature Manchester is an on-going project and we hope to add further locations in the coming months. So watch this space…

All that’s left to say, is have a wonderful Christmas and fun packed New Year, oh and enjoy the video.

Vivid, Virgin and Sky News

Finally after a 2-year wait we got back on Sky News….. not including that incident with Glen and the Remington Fuzz Away!

Our footage on Sky News HD

Last month we were very excited to receive a phone call from Virgin Atlantic, a subsidiary of the Virgin Group. Sadly it wasn’t Sir Richard  ”smiley man with a beard”  Branson who was on the line, but their Producer of OnBoard Media.

Virgin Atlantic had seen a recent time-lapse video that we had produced for Air Livery – a Manchester Airport based aircraft repainting Company. Virgin required a film of a similar ilk to showcase and launch their new livery (paint scheme) to be shown at a press conference at the end of July.

For those not familiar with the concept of a time-lapse film. It is a cinematography technique whereby each film frame is captured at a rate much slower than it will be played back. In this case we took frames every 90 seconds over a duration of 15 days.

Graham in position waiting for the Virgin Atlantic 747-400

We positioned 4 cameras overlooking the plane and set them to take a single picture every minute and a half. Using this technique we were able to film the repainting of the plane over 15 days and speed it up so the entire film takes less then 4 minutes. We also moved some of the cameras during the process, so in total we used around 9 angles. If it takes 25 pictures to make 1 second of finished film, then by my rough calculations, we took in the region of 60,000 frames in total! Also just to give that extra spice we added some HD filming for the close up shots, which we feel really brought the film to life.

'Mustang Sally' preparing for her make-over

Due to the tight timescales that we were up against Vivid were putting in some late shifts so we could meet the client’s deadline.

And here Vivid are on the Virgin Atlantic site

Please click on the following link to see the Time-Lapse we shot for Virgin.

We are really proud of the film that we outputted, and Vivid know that it was an important aspect of the new livery’s launch for Virgin Atlantic. We are also proud that such a prestigious company would choose Vivid Photo Visual for their video promotional material.

After 15 days 'Mustang Sally' looks stunning!

We wish Virgin Atlantic well for the future and I am sure that you will all agree the new Livery looks stunning and really compliments not only Virgin Atlantic but the overall Virgin brand

Time for a Time-lapse

Vivid have recently been commissioned by Air Livery, who are one of the leading companies in aircraft refinishing, to produce a Company Profile video to showcase their refinishing service. As well as filming and producing their 5 minute video we also produced 2 Time-Lapses of the whole event.

Producing a Time-Lapse is all about the planning and preparation;

• Total length of time he subject needs to be filmed.
• How long the final movie should be.
• How many frames would be needed to achieve this.
• Memory capacity required.
• Power to the cameras.

So after calculating that we’d take a image every 90 seconds and the project may last 9 days, that’s a total of 8640 frames from each camera!

The other concern was the environment that the cameras would be left in, however clean an aircraft re-painting facility can be, there’s no avoiding the stripping, sanding and numerous paint applications. And don’t forget in the quantities required to cover 2 large planes at the same time!

So after weatherproofing all the rigs we were ready to roll.

So who was going to set-up the Time-Lapse cameras……… in the roof of the hangers? Well there’s no room to be scared of heights in this game. That is unless your name’s Glen and you beg, plead and finally agree to buy the chocolate in the office for a fortnight.

So Glen was out of the running, too busy stocking up on Graham’s Boost bars. So it was decided that I was the action man of the team (mainly by me)

Where's wally?

After setting the cameras in place using Arri Superclamps and adding an extra safety harness to each, just in case. I set the cameras going.

Daily visits were required to back-up the images from the previous day, as well as to change power supplies. All this had to be done without moving the camera’s, and when you’re 100ft up on a tiny gangway, that’s a challenge in itself.

Anyway enough of my super hero antics, below is one of the Time-Lapses, check it out.