Butchers Hook Blog

This blog post will be unashamedly promoting our home town on Brighton. This vibrant city is a fantastic place to live and work and over the following paragraphs, I’ll explain why you should seriously consider Brighton as the base for your next film or video production.

History

Firstly an interesting Brighton fact, the British film industry has its roots in nearby Shoreham-by-Sea, where a studio was established on the beach, to take advantage of fact that Shoreham has the most light of any area of the country outside of Cornwall. We are also home to one of the oldest cinemas in Europe, The Duke of Yorks. More information about the history of cinema in Brighton features here.

http://www.terramedia.co.uk/brighton/brighton_chronology.htm

Facilities

The city features some impressive facilities for the film maker. There are numerous photography studios of varying sizes dotted around the city. Both Sussex and Brighton Universities have excellent facilities on campus – with Sussex having its own sound stage!

One studio that we frequently use and can recommend is slightly outside Brighton – the Cottage Studio in Albourne.

http://www.thecottagestudio.com/

One of the best film schools in the country is also resident here. The Brighton Film School has a fantastic reputation for melding exciting film and video talent

http://brightonfilmschool.co.uk

Locations

Brighton & Hove features some of the best examples of Regency architecture in the country.  The Palace Pier and Royal Pavilion are world famous and have featured in Film and Television since their inception. There are also fantastic rolling parks (which we’ve used in more than one production) as well as the (in)famous stony beaches.

Creative hub

Brighton is a well established hot bed for creative talent and bleeding edge technologies in the UK. Now known as Silicon Beach, the city has many excellent video production companies and organisations that can work in conjunction with the medium to spread your message.

Wired Sussex

Wired Sussex acts as a hub for all the companies and individuals involved in the creative and technology sectors in the city. They hold social get togethers and training programmes which we’ve found extremely useful.

www.wiredsussex.com

Online Creative

A fantastic post-production facility with the only Davinci suite in Brighton. Darren regularly produces projects for ITV and the BBC and also offers training programmes for his highly advanced facilities.

http://www.online-creative.com/index.html

Scene stealer/Re-flow

A fantastic firm who have made award winning interactive video content, including the iconic Knicker-Picker online changing room. They also now provide an excellent video delivery platform for blue chip clients.

http://www.reflow.tv/

Butchers Hook Video

It would be a little disingenuous of us to write this article without a *little* plug. Suffice it is to say that we consider ourselves to be amongst the best in Brighton (and on a good day the country) – feel free to get in touch so we can show you what we do.

Luke Cairns

Butchers Hook Corporate Video

There are many ways in which a web video can help any business, from a huge blue chip multi-national all the way to a sole trader, working from their garage. Frequently, clients come to us, knowing they can benefit from web videos – but having no real idea of what the many benefits are.  In this article I’ll explain some.

• Professionalism

 A well produced web video on a home page delivering a strong message adds hugely to a website’s perceived professionalism

• Overview of the site

A video can give a concise explanation of the features of the website, something which can be difficult with endless banks of text

• Webinars

Further into the site, well constructed seminars and webinars can help clients with more technical aspects of your product.

• Case Studies

Testimonials and case studies are ideal for showing off your company’s professionalism to potential future clients. What better way than to have existing client’s raving about your services?

• Project Progression videos

Another great idea is to chart the progressive of a large project with ongoing production videos. These visually chart how your company works and is also a big draw as the more video on your site – the better for the Search Engines.

• Interactive Video

A massive draw for many types of marketing video – as this type of web video draws the potential client in and retains their interest with intriguing content. A great example of this, from our friends at Steal Stealer/Reflow can be seen here.

• Marketing web videos

For marketing, web videos are becoming significantly more important. For any organisation, having a video go viral is fantastic of course for brand/product awareness. It is also very important for Search Engine Optimisation reasons. Google rates websites with a lot of videos well and ensures higher results for those sites with video content.

Probably the most important aspect of getting high results on the Search Engine results pages is to have good quality back links. A viral video, which is shared across the internet will gain your site a lot of vital high quality inbound links. Proper optimisation will ensure your site is riding high!

Luke Cairns

Butchers Hook Video Productions

When engaging a video production company for a new corporate video, one of the most frequent pit falls for the corporate client is that of establishing costs.

It is a difficult process on both sides. For the client it can seem as if the production company is being evasive when providing a definitive price for a production – the oft-used “how long is a piece of string” frequently gets trotted out. Why can these people not define a cost for their product easily?

Equally it is a challenge for the production company, who have to take time to really establish what the client wants from their video. A comprehensive conversation explaining different filming techniques, graphics and post production plus the thousands of other options available usually does the trick. However the production company is always aware that the client’s expectations can and will frequently change. It is important that the price is right at the start, otherwise the production company could be running at loss.

The best way of establishing what can be provided – is of course to find out the approximate budget. From this the production company can tailor a quote accordingly – managing expectations as they go. It’s unrealistic for example, to expect a computer generated multinational spectacular for £500!

Reasonable prices for a well produced video.

For the sake of the corporate client – here is an approximate price guide in terms of what you should be paying for a few different kinds of corporate video

After Effects based video.

A typical, 30 second AE based video should take the production company a few days to produce. It will usually form photos/graphics provided by the client, as well as some custom designed logos and may have a voice over

Reasonable price £800-£1200+VAT

Presenter led video

This would feature script consultation and a presenter in front of a green screen with custom graphics keyed in behind him/her.

£1000-£2000+VAT

Corporate Marketing Video

What most people would consider to be a proper corporate video – with multiple live locations, talking heads, graphics, voice over – whatever is needed!

Minimum £1000+VAT per minute

This leads on to the importance of finding the right production company. There are, of course, many production companies who will promise you the moon on a stick for a price which seems very competitive. Buyer beware – as is always the case with these things – you get what you pay for. There are a lot of poor productions companies out there will be more than happy to take your money and provide you with an inferior product which you’ll want to keep well away from any customers

And this of course defeats the point of the whole exercise!

Luke Cairns

Butchers Hook Video

The monster genre has evolved in countless ways over the years since the early days of Nosferatu and The Golem. Since the beginning, what has always been interesting is how horror as a genre has been the launch pad for film makers who are given a tight budget, prove themselves and go on to greatness. This article will provide some film making video production techniques of how to produce a classic horror movie on a shoe string – the same way that Carpenter, Hooper, Dargento and so many others before have done.

Your Monster

The first important decision to make (in our opinion) is to ditch any idea of some extravagant CG monster. Firstly computer graphics cost a fortune and take a lot of time to produce. For a new film maker with a limited budget and a time scale this isn’t practical. Secondly – the chances are that your CG monster will look rubbish. If Hollywood can pump millions of dollars of CG into the remake of “The Thing” and “Super 8” (two recent examples) and it not work – what are the chances of you making it on a budget of £5K?

A much more cinematic and cost effective alternative is to build your monster using good old fashioned prosthetics – to have the monster on the set, so the cast can react to it and the monster is “in camera” – rather than badly pasted on afterward. 

The Jaws method

This dove tails nicely into the Jaws method. Spielberg – so embarrassed by how plasticy “Bruce the Shark” looked when he got to the edit suite, decided the best thing was to keep the shark hidden as much as possible. This had the happy side effect of tapping into everyone’s subconscious fear of the unseen and the unknown. You can adopt this method (and you’ll probably be doing yourself a favour if your prosthetics are a bit ropey).  Having your audience gripped with fear until the last reel will help your movie no end.

Fast cutting

Another effect technique you’ll often see in good horror films is the fast cut. Again, this has its roots in masking slightly embarrassing monsters from the audience. Fast cutting in horror can be very effective at disorientation and can be unsettling. Equally – it’s important not to be caught in the trap of shaky cam/crap editing that you see in a lot of Hollywood horror remakes these days.

Lighting

Lighting of course, is a big fundamental in keeping the nasty monsters in the shadows. Modern horrors seem to have adopted an unfortunate dingy aesthetic (the remake of a Nightmare on Elm Street is a particular bug bear of mine.) There are many amazingly lit horror films to take inspiration from – I particularly like 70’s Italian horror films and Kubrick.

There is an interesting discussion of this topic here.

Another common assumption is that all horror films have to be shot at night. This seems like a reasonable assumption, but have a look at this genre defying sequence in Jeepers Creepers 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzLq1BoLxQc

Cut aways

Cut aways (close ups) are a classic method to help ratchet up tension in horror films. The scene plays out – and you close up tighter and tighter on your protagonist. Then boo! Your monster or something else pops up and frightens the audience. Again, Jaws provides a classic example of this, in the Ben Gardner boat scene.

http://youtu.be/hb3gYaKT6r8?t=3m58s

Sound

For classic horror, sound is often the componant that lifts the film to greatness. Sound can frequently be scarier than visual horror, again playing into the audiences’ subcionscious fear of the unseen. Perhaps the most classic example of this is the bumping scene in the original “The Haunting”

A great example of how sound can be used in modern horror is the recent release of “The Inn Keepers”

To conclude – monster movie greatness is in the reach of anyone with a decent DSLR and a good idea. The important thing is to stay faithful to the classic techniques of horror which have stayed true and been cleverly adapted over time- rather than adopting the current vogue of “found footage” which is a bit boring now, frankly.

 Luke Cairns

Butchers Hook Corporate Video

Now that we’re in 2012, it is interesting to see the difference between organisations that have really adopted the potential for web video production and others that are still a little cautious.

It is understandable in these times of recession for SMEs to be reticent about spending a good deal of marketing budget on a series of corporate or web videos. Spending thousands of pounds on a product that may not meet the company agenda, or get lost in the quagmire of content available to the public is daunting.

To those who haven’t totally adopted the genius of well made marketing web video – here are some thoughts

Articulating your message

Whatever your business might entail, the chances are that the product or service you are selling has some complex attributes, which the layman may have trouble understanding. With a good marketing video, you can articulate your message visually – perhaps showing off complicated machinery or having a potentially unexciting proposition explained with beautiful, colourful visuals.

Credibility

A well produced video lends instant credibility to a brand. Note the emphasis on “well produced” – equally a poorly produced video can damage a company’s standing online. A good example (the client’s words – not ours ;) of a well produced web video we made last year for Remeha can be seen here.

Viral potential

The most interesting and exciting area of how web video is developing is with social video marketing. This is the process of getting your web video in front of influential internet folk who will share the content with their peer groups – allowing the content to go viral. This process is of course a lot more involved than merely sticking the video up on YouTube. Fortunately, we here at Butchers Hook Video are very accomplished at social video and are excited about its future potential for both we and our clients.

To conclude we feel that marketing web video is potentially the most cost effective and wide reaching way of articulating your company’s message to your client. We’d love to help you out when the time is ready for you!

Luke

Butchers Hook Video Production

Wardrobe and make up are a very important, although frequently underappreciated aspect of any corporate video production. The work of people in this industry can frequently make the difference between an average and outstanding piece of work.

Makeup artists

These vital ladies and gents are amongst the hardest working on a video set. The first fundamental for their role is ensuring that the acting talents natural perspiration doesn’t result in a head sheen that reflects off the lights. This happens to pretty much anybody in front of hot lights for a period and is not simply the bastion of sweaty fat people! Application of foundation and maintenance throughout the shoot is very important, particularly if the subject happens to be naturally sweaty – this really doesn’t look too great on camera at all!

Makeup people are great to have around during the course of a shoot. A big part of their work is finished before the cameras start rolling, so they can act as a second set of eyes for the producer/director and also even act as continuity – as they have to focus on the acting talent a good deal.

“Image positioning” is a recent buzzword prevalent in the corporate makeup industry – the importance of having the right style of make up for the video – i.e. Funky, conservative etc.  As organisations spend more on videos and need to have their productions stand up through the noise of video online – considerations like this as important.

Wardrobe

Wardrobe doesn’t tend to be quite as much of an important factor to the sort of video productions that we get involved with.  For corporate videos, generally the client will have their own clothes for interview type situations – or employees will be working insitu in their normal work attire. For demonstration videos and promos, wardrobe companies can be involved, but in our experience, even large corporate productions are happy to ask the acting talent to bring along a choice of their own clothes to wear in the production.

One area of contention is when the video features chroma key. This is the process of filming a talking head (for example) on a green background and then placing interesting graphics/pictures etc into the background with the computer. Effectively, what happens is the computer concentrates on the green colour and removes all of the green from the raw footage – changing the background accordingly. This causes issues if the subject happens to be wearing green – all the green bits of clothing will disappear! There are also issues with very stripy clothing.

You can see a good example of how it IS done here

Luke

Butchers Hook Video Production

Actors are a vital part of all sorts of corporate videos, from viral campaigns to sales presentations and product demonstrations. With budgets tightening, a put upon marketing director will frequently (and understandably) think about using nearby staff or others to perform in front of the camera. Here are a few reasons why we think actors can add such value to corporate video production.

Firstly - the pit fall of roping in employees of the company to perform for the video production. Note - This is quite different to having the relevant person being interviewed naturally for a talking head.

We are talking about a poor employee having to act the goat for a health and safety video or having to parrot scripted lines whilst looking as comfortable as a turkey on Christmas Eve. We get to see a LOT of corporate videos here at Butchers Hook and it’s quite frightening how often we see dead eyed employees having to make a fool out of themselves for free. It doesn’t look good.

Having professional actors taking these roles usually results in a much more natural result. These people are used to be being asked to do odds things in front of camera. They also are aware of their performance, so can be consistent over multiple takes, which helps the edit a lot.

Another benefit of having actors play employees is future proofing your video. You may have a manager perform in a corporate video and then quit a month later – instantly outdating your video. Perhaps more worryingly – your manager may have jumped ship to a competitor – which would make the video totally unusable.

As I mentioned above - even for a competitively priced acting agency you might expect to have a day rate of a couple of hundred quid per actor – but then an image buy out which may bring the cost per artist over £1000. This is really a case of weighing up the options – you may be able to get a friend or colleague to do it for little or no money – but you get what you pay for. A poor performance, particularly on a launch promo video reflects badly on your organisation and could even go viral (which would be a disaster!)

Having good actors conversely will add volumes to your video and general brand presence both on and offline.

To conclude, including actors in production can take the corporate video from the realms of the embarrassing and potentially quickly outdated -  to dynamic, editorially fluid and future proofed.

Luke Cairns

Producer

Butchers Hook Corporate Video

The production of video, whether it be corporate, web or even TV commercial can be a challenge when more than one territory or langauge is involved.

Produced a certain way, it might involve multiple locations worldwide, with different actors delivering dialogue in their native tongue and provide a SIGNIFICANT amount of post production. This of course would create a hugely expensive video. Fortunately, there are many industry "tricks" to avoid a hugely expensive and logistically difficult video production.

Having a generic set of actors who don't speak clearly to camera is a big help. In a recent big production we did for a multinational, we employed 4 actors who nicely covered the international demographic for the client. They also didnt speak to camera at all. We rounded off the production by shooting in some beautiful locations in Brighton and Sussex - which defied the English weather - to produce a video which could have been shot in California or Kuala Lumpar or Kuwait.

So there is a big price saving in producing a corporate video this way, the next step after the edit and grade is multi lingual voice over and titles in the languages necessary.

One pit fall to avoid is trying to be clever and lip syncing dialogue for multi-national campaigns (this seems to happen a lot with chewing gum and washing powder for some reason. Viewers can spot a fake easily - and it can be damaging for a brand if your client is laughing at your video/television ad.

Luke

Producer

Butchers Hook Corporate Video

There's been a lot of talk recently about motion capture and CG as it becomes ever more prevalent in films, the recent Rise of the Planet of the Apes and upcoming The Hobbit being two examples.

Looking back to when it was first introduced, we shouldn't forget why it was developed and the importance it has. Not, in my mind, to replace human actors, but to enable and enhance the actor’s craft within digital CG creations.

Working as a camera operator with Andy Serkis and Peter Jackson on the motion capture stage of The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King showed me how much life could be breathed into what was originally going to be a mere computer character.

Firstly, Jackson was able to use Digital Video production footage of Andy's performance to work the rough edit around whilst awaiting the time intensive CG modelling and rendering to finish on the computers.

Secondly, the motion that was captured was used to make the CG model much more life-like and enabled the other actors to interact with a real person on set.

Thirdly, it wasn't just Motion Capture that was recorded on the stage. I was part of a team recording Andy's face in close-up so that facial expressions could also be accurately re-created by the animators.

Fourthly, and by no means least, MOCAP enables an actor like Andy to bring all those great thespian nuances to a film. Performance, interaction (great direction allows the characters to react, respond and antagonise) and improvisation. Andy Serkis would 'become' Gollum, and at times flip to Smeagol and back again with not only speed but subtlety.

People who dislike the increasing use of CG in films should remember that movie making is about creating magic, about making make-believe. At the end of The Lord of The Rings trilogy, before the hobbits are able to have their overextended self-congratulatory epilogue, Frodo bites the ring from Gollum's finger, Gollum then falls into Mount Doom. As he flails backwards into a sea of fire we watch his horror, not at his impending demise, but at his loss of the ring and then as he falls his glee that the ring is going with him. This dramatic scene was all made possible because Andy Serkis contorted himself over the back of a broken office chair in a draughty warehouse in a suburb of Wellington, New Zealand. As a member of production explained at the time this was a 'Kiwi job'. Who cares that the practicalities of shooting that scene - both for facial expression and motion capture -weren't salubrious, when the technology allowed it to be transformed into the magic that made the final cut.

This motion capture technology is being ever refined. Even when I worked on Return of the King the process had undergone many changes since The Fellowship of The Ring. Now with The Planet of the Apes motion capture is proving an important addition to many action/adventure films.

Technology has always augmented film making, often being explored before it is fully ready to suspend our disbelief, but it is the development of such technology that enables cinema to keep progressing, from sound to colour, to digital, to CG, (let’s just try and forget 3D, for now at least).

Evan

Director

Butchers Hook Video Production

Excuse me whilst I make myself a little more comfortable! James Bond, this year; is celebrating 50 years on the silver screen. In the first wave of what production company Eon promise to be a fitting golden anniversary; we have all 22 official films on Blu-Ray for the first time. And they look HOT.

It's rather bizarre seeing how well the Connery films have been remastered in HD and cut into the more recent Brosnan/Craig films - it looks like some time warping all Bond's in one film extravaganza!

My birthday's next week if anyone's feeling generous!