All the Tea in China

Shenzhen in China was the location for the WTA tennis to start off the New Year. Lots of Chinese lanterns going up for their New Year and some nice greenery too...

 

Celebrity Haunted Hotel

Celebrity Haunted Hotel on the W Channel, presented by Christine Lampard. A great week at Pluckley near Ashford down in southern Kent creeping around the most haunted hotel in Britain.

The exterior of Elvey Farm

The Studio

Jimmy Jib mounted on a golf cart

Behind The Scenes

Ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes on a stills or film shoot? There is often a lot more going on than you might think. One of the challenges we face with new clients is conveying what is involved in producing high quality pictures and footage. Once a client has witnessed the the whole process, it is usually a bit of an eye opener...

Need a bit of sunshine coming through the window on a dull day, or maybe the sun just isn't in the right place... no problem...

A bit of 'sunlight' brings a whole new dimension to an otherwise dull looking shot.

Other times a bit of 'moonlight' is required...

Shooting outside on location also requires the addition of controlled light to produce the desired look... even on a bright sunny day. That is a common misconception too... that on a bright day no lighting is required... it's actually quite the opposite and often we are trying to control and reduce the sunlight with diffusion, flags and various other light control devices.

Above top: Using a jib to create a big camera move adds massively to the production values of your finished film or video. Directly above: Using camera track and a dolly to achieve a moving shot, again adding interest and creativity over an otherwise static and uninteresting shot.

Sometimes sunlight and an artificial window pattern are required to be created from within a room if it's not possible to position a lamp outside or maybe the window is just in the wrong place.

Reflectors play a big part in lighting too... sometimes making use of the natural light and sometimes the source is artificial as in the set up above.

Office Montage

A montage of behind the scenes shots taken from various film and stills shoots is adorning one of the walls in our new office and making it all look very colourful. Thanks to Absolute Digital Print of Kendal for this and to Blinds by Design, also of Kendal for the motorised light control blackouts fitted to our windows.

Old Smoke House Yard Office & Edit Suite

 Our new office and edit facility in Kendal is now open. We were delighted to welcome a new client through the door on our very first day of opening.

Please feel free to drop in and see us at the Old Smoke House, Yard 2 on Stricklandgate in Kendal.

Muhammad Ali, a true legend

 

The end of another era.

'The fight is won or lost, far away from witnesses - behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road - long before I dance under those lights.'

Muhammad Ali.

Andrew Jennings FIFA Interview for the Mob Museum

We spent a day in Cumbria filming a fascinating interview with Panorama investigative journalist Andrew Jennings who has spent many years looking into the much publicised FIFA allegations. The finished interview is on display at the Mob Museum in Las Vegas

Anyone for Tennis?

First time on Centre Court at Wimbledon..!

 Up on the broadcast centre roof, a rather clever bit of hedge trimming.

 We had the honour of Dustin Brown coming to visit our studio after his win over Nadal in the second round. English born presenter Darren Tulett who now works for BeIn Sports in Paris, leads the chat.

Gael Monfils and Gilles Simon move from No. 1 court to the Centre Court after bad light stops play on the Saturday night in the third round, and continue with the roof closed and the lights on.

Bobbing Around...

Some of the pictures that Adrian shot out in the Irish Sea of the West of Duddon Sands offshore windfarm made it into the Spanish press. La Voz de Galicia published an article on the 20th June about the project which is jointly financed and run by Iberdrola and Dong.

New Keys

Exciting news from The Light Direction in Kendal. 

We have now got the keys to what will be our new office and post production facility in the heart of Kendal.

Can't wait to get started on fitting it out.

Please drop in to say hello any time. You're most welcome.

Viva Las Vegas...!!

Las Vegas Baby..!

Over in Vegas for the first time for NAB, the National Association of Broadcasters annual exhibition. The biggest in the world and Vegas is an appropriate place for that I guess...!
 

Filming at the House of Commons

An unexpected addition to the calendar in March was a last minute job that came up to film a speech being made at the House of Commons.

Stephen Larkin, CEO of the ever evolving Africa New Energies was making a speech to the Africa Alternative Energies Conference and was talking about the role his company are playing in the search for an energy solution for Africa.

Watch the video here

Cruising Lake Windermere on The Teal

Some beautiful weather this month along with plenty of snow on the hills made for some great days out and also some striking images waiting to be captured.

One particularly fine day saw The Teal arriving back at Waterhead under this rather dramatic sunset following one its regular trips around the Lake which includes stops at Bowness, Lakeside down at the southern end of the lake and Ambleside up at the northern end.

FA Cup

Lots of work recently bringing the TV pictures of the FA Cup coverage into your homes. Adrian has been working on many of the matches that you will have been watching at various grounds large and small across the north of England. Both the BBC and BT have been televising the competition this year.

Walk The Nile

Watching 'Walk The Nile' on 4OD reminded me of my backpacking adventure around Egypt in 1990.

Levison Wood and various fellow travelling companions walk the 4000 mile journey from Rwanda where the Nile begins to it's final destination in Egypt where it runs into the Mediterranean Sea.

Journalist Matt Power who was accompanying Levison on part of his journey through Tanzania, became a fatality when he suffered heat stroke and died on March 10th 2014.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/walking-the-nile/articles/tribute/in-memory-of-matthew-power

It was a gruelling, incredible and very scary adventure. Well worth watching.

Alexa's Borneo Charity Expedition

My niece has decided to go on a trip to Borneo later this year to help build accommodation, improve schools and regenerate forests. It is going to be an amazing experience. I think that's such a cool thing to get involved in and I love her enthusiasm and commitment to making it happen.

http://alexaturpin.wordpress.com/

New Energies, New Africa?

New Year, New Project, New Energies, New Africa?

Well, maybe... Let's hope so anyway.

This is an adventurous and pioneering project seeking to succeed where some of the oil giants have already failed.

Namibia is the focus for this story. Power is something we all take for granted but in southern Africa that's simply not the case. They are already suffering scheduled blackouts. Africa New Energies is going to try and solve all that with a rather different approach to oil and gas exploration. We have been commissioned to produce a four minute promotional video for them. Early days but scripting is in progress.

From the heat of Abu Dhabi to a frozen Lake Windermere

From the heat of Abu Dhabi and the cliff hanger finish to the F1 season to the cold and snow of the Lake District. Well done to Lewis Hamilton for winning his second world title.

Low Wood Bay is a fantastic spot to look across at the Langdale Pikes, Crinkle Crags, The Old Man of Coniston and Swirl How.

It was a very cold and frosty morning as the sun was rising over Lake Windermere painting the snow covered mountains a vivid pink contrasting with the deep blue sky and the moon sitting high over the water.

Suzuka Spiders and Russian MiG's

Konnichiwa means hello in Japan. These rather scary looking inhabitants of the Suzuka race circuit were waiting for us inside one of the tyre wall barriers at the Spoon corner. The impending typhoon and Jules Bianchi's crash made this a rather sombre week. Otherwise it was good to be in a new country and meet some of the locals who are all very enthusiastic race fans. Kampai (Cheers) and Arigato (Thank you) were about the only words of Japanese that I managed to pick up, very useful in the local bars..!


From the little town of Adler just south of Sochi, this view looking out across the Black Sea was waiting to greet us one evening after we had finished at the track.

The race circuit is built within the complex of buildings that housed many of the winter Olympic events and even attracted the Russian President Vladimir Putin who turned up to watch the end of the race on the Sunday. This caused mass hysteria with security, snipers and a fly past featuring several MiG fighters. We even had cameras inside the MiG's with 3 live feeds as they flew over the circuit.

Documentary for the LCC on their 90th Anniversary

We completed filming and post production on a short film documentary for the LCC Lakes Christian Centre based in Windermere, Cumbria who celebrate their 90th birthday this year.
Sarah Tyson who produced and directed the film had come up with a short script that took us from the early 20th century right up to the modern day. Shooting was done over a couple of days at various locations around the south lakes including the Langdale Valley, Ambleside, Windermere and Bowness.

We also used some of our own library footage filmed around Lake Windermere, and editing was completed on time in three days. The film has an original music score composed by local musician John Wright who did a fantastic job of scoring his piano sounds to a version of the edit that wasn't quite completed. He captured the feel of the film beautifully.