KitPlus | Articles

Selling your business Part 3. Gearing up for sale

In the final article in his series about preparing your business for sale, Peter Savage outlines the strategy that leads to success even in a slowing economy. Last month we were left with a conundrum: how do you sell a business when the company clearly has a value but the market, and consequently the performance of the business, is in reverse? This...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 September 2008

Scriptwriting

“Is the pen mightier than the sword?”As a writer myself and having penned a few scripts in the past, mainly for TV commercials, corporate presentations and voice overs, it always amazes me 'when a film actor, whether it be a known or an up and coming potential' just seems to utter those mortal words “It was such a great script...I just had to do it...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 September 2008

Dont Drink from the Mainstream.

Here’s the note pinned on the studio door of Undercurrents productions in South Wales. To do list for 20081) Make 10 new video series on topics ranging from Woodland skills to Technology reviews and from Political news to investigative documentaries. 2) Develop a desktop video player application based upon the open source software. 3) Launch an Int...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 August 2008

Getting up to speed with IPTV

Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) has been gathering pace around the world for the past few years and is major competition to cable and satellite broadcasters. As a satellite subscriber its something I seem to have largely overlooked and the recent IPTV World Forum prompted me to get up to speed on this emerging format of TV delivery and called f...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 August 2008

Is it cool to use cool lighting

Is it cool to use cool ?The term ‘cold lighting’ is used within the film & TV lighting industry as a generic term for energy efficient, Fluorescent, LED, and Plasma (panel) lighting sources which emit little or no radiant heat. HistoryThe technology is not so new; Evidence exists of neon lighting being used on a film set in Teddington Studios Engla...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 August 2008

Calzaghe Fight with Input Media

Sports production company Input Media faced a series of technical, logistical and creative challenges when they were commissioned by fast rising broadcaster Setanta Sports to cover one of the biggest live Boxing events ever staged in the UK. The main fight during the 8-hour long broadcast was the world unification fight between WBO/IBF Super Middle...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 July 2008

CTV OB Truck

Responding to the growing demand for HD broadcasts and with a fleet of already overworked outside broadcast trucks, CTV Outside Broadcast’s newest addition to its fleet, OB 9, is a fully-equipped production facility with the latest in High Definition production, mixing and recording equipment. Targeted squarely at major entertainment and sporting e...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 July 2008

Guide to filming in London

Film London aims to make filming in the capital as straight-forward a process as possible. They hold a library of over 10,000 London film locations, a comprehensive database of crew and facilities in the region, and can also provide information and advice about the filming process. Please note however that they do not provide permits for filming. T...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 July 2008

A hidden beauty

The lifestyle of the Wildlife cameraman (and woman) you’d have thought, and I was hoping, was all exotic locations and beautiful scenery. Except for me the reality was a murky, water filled quarry during a very cold winter and early spring of 2006- 07. But to come face to face with a real homegrown legend I was more than ready to take the plunge. T...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 July 2008

Royalty Free Music Can Save You A Fortune

How important is music to your production? Think of the two notes John Williams used in Jaws to signal danger and to sometimes mislead the audience into believing that a great white shark was lurking in the hidden depths. Music plays such a crucial and powerful role in the visual world to be overlooked at your peril. Notice how suddenly your edit c...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 June 2008

Lender of the last resort or good use of your assets

Recently several people have asked me why companies use factoring or invoice discounting as a way of dealing with debtors. “Are they in trouble?” and “Is it the last straw before throwing in the towel?” were the most common questions. So I thought I would talk you through these types of sales finance, dispelling a few myths by explaining when they...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 June 2008

An airport more dangerous than Death Valley

As far as Insurance Companies are concerned, Airports can be a greater risk than some of the loneliest places on the planet. Airports in the UK lost a million items of luggage last year, and that was just for the holiday makers. We know of a claim, which cost an Insurance Company over one hundred thousand pounds, when camera equipment being returne...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 June 2008

One man and his boat

It all started when I decided to build a boat in the garage. A fifteen-foot gaff rigged pocket cruiser to be precise. I bought the plans from a naval architect in Wiltshire and had the hull planks computer cut by a specialist boat builder in Kirkcaldy. Then I searched the Internet for a DVD about boat building for beginners but found nothing. So I...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 May 2008

The Reflecmedia Chromaflex portable chromakey system

The use of keying a foreground image over a background image to form a composite is an established and widely used technique in film and TV production. For most cameramen this will usually involve them in shooting a subject against a coloured background, typically green or blue. Sounds simple but reality can be far from it, anecdotes abound of nigh...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 May 2008

Setting up in business: Le Christmas Crunch

Well, I just fancied having a break as we have been slogging away for almost six months – planning, starting, measuring and then employing. So, phew, it’s the Christmas break. Well haven’t we done well to get here? You certainly have. And now for a little topical help: the credit crunch that is currently the focus of so many media reports. What doe...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 May 2008