KitPlus | Articles

De Wolfe Celebrates Centenary

De Wolfe Music Publishers, the longest-running independent film and television music library resource in the world, is celebrating its remarkable centenary this year. Over the last hundred years, the music library’s vast collection of instantly recognisable and iconic tracks has helped shape popular culture; if you've ever seen Man About The House,...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 January 2010

Surround technologies

Throughout the world, in a wide range of broadcasts, surround sound has become a vital tool for easily and effectively capturing real-life recordings. Playing an equally important role in developing advanced surround sound microphones is Holophone®, with its patented audio recording devices designed specifically to address the challenges audio prof...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 January 2010

New Light in the Forbidden City

IBC 2009’s Production Village was the venue for the launch of a revolutionary new lighting product, the Rotolight ‘Stealth Edition’ RL48 ring-light. Although the show had more than 48,000 visitors and over 1200 exhibitors, Rotolight was listed in the TV-Bay lighting category, featured in the IBC News and the ‘Eye Catcher’ technology report on Amste...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 December 2009

Polecam on Safari

Safaricam"No, you can’t get out of the car", the voice replied. "Why not?’ I asked. "Because you might get eaten by a lion."I put the phone down and contemplated what it was I had just agreed to do. The Kenya project started with a call from a French production company expressing an interest in hiring my Polecam system for three weeks. The series,...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 August 2009

Its A Bigger DAM Picture

There’s a lot of fuss these days about “Digital Asset Management.” Why? Because organizations (and their hard drives) are busting at the seams with digital assets that are multiplying faster than hamsters at a rave. Many of these organizations already have enterprise management software solutions in place, so DAM often becomes a new, isolated plane...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 August 2009

The Fairlight Time Machine

Just over fifty years ago, the then Soviet Union launched the first satellite into orbit around our planet. At that time the USA and USSR were in the depths of the cold war and the launch of Sputnik 1 on the 4th October 1957 was the starting gun for the space race. The winner would be the country to successfully land the first human being on the Mo...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 February 2009

How we lit Mick

Shine a lightLets start at the beginning with the most fundamental, basic of questions – what’s the point of lighting anything, let alone a living legend like Sir Mick Jagger? The answer is simple – because lighting is the most important part of the whole process. Not the filming. Not the fiddly edit. Not the chin-scratching pre-production. The lig...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 January 2009

How and where to do your Post Production.

The world of professional editing and post production has changed dramatically in the last few years. The biggest of the barriers to entry – (cost), has all but disappeared with the advent of desktop editing solutions. Manufacturers like Apple and Adobe and even Avid have made this possible with products like Final Cut Studio 2 and Adobe’s CS3 Prod...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 December 2008

New editing essentials

I like to think of myself as a bit of a pioneer at the frontier of the new age of HD Digital Cinematography. Investigating the best of the new technology available to our industry and evaluating its possible impact. I ‘d like to explain the impact of some of the particular examples of this today starting with:-XDCam EX Tapeless HD Camcorders. One w...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 December 2008

London to Capetown, by bike part 1

South Africans are known for being to the point, so when I was told that I had done the whole thing ‘Arse Backwards’ I wasn’t unduly upset, but I did feel a need to justify the way I had approached this project. I had just arrived in Cape Town and was rather pleased with myself, having just completed a year long journey through some of Africa’s mos...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 October 2008

Insurance in a muddy field

There can be few subjects which provide a wider insight into life than Insurance. Don’t let anyone convince you that it is boring. Over the years I have been involved in covering risks as diverse as insuring a belly dancers belly against injury, whilst dancing at a top London Turkish restaurant, to covering the Polish Chamber Orchestra and the Pope...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 August 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

A Cinematographers Companion, through hell and high water...

Miller Camera Support has never been more thoroughly tested than by Australian Cinematographer Wade Fairley, through Antarctic winters and summers, floods in Tuvalu, swamps in the Solomon Islands and the outback deserts of Australia. The most outstanding project of recent times for Wade was the trip for the BBC Natural History Unit, shooting footag...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 March 2008