KitPlus | Articles

STAYING AHEAD OF THE BBCS QUALITY CURVE

At True Vision TV, our tagline is “Films that make a difference” – and it’s been our guiding ethos since the company was founded in 1995. We strive to make television that engages viewers with issues that matter, and we produce character-led documentaries that entertain, but also inform and educate. As such, we’ve built a particular reputation for...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 May 2012

TV-BAY questions Jason R Moffat

Name & Title: Jason R Moffat, ColouristWho are you (about yourself and who you work for)?I’m a film colourist living in London, I mainly work on independent fiction features, shorts and commercials from my Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve based studio, where I do most of my work. What do you do? What does your company do?The work I do is specifica...

Submitted by Will Strauss#

Published 01 May 2012

BVE 2012 in no particular order.......

The big story at BVE 2012 was BVE 2013. With the Earls Court exhibition site scheduled for redevelopment, BVE relocates next year to the ExCel exhibition site in London’s Docklands. The distance is only about 10 miles but, in the minds of many BVE exhibitors, the move is comparable with moving the NAB Convention to the Mississippi Delta. If you rea...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 April 2012

The Biggest Game in Town

The Biggest Game in TownAnnually, as the Super Bowl approaches, stores across the States stack their shelves with the latest HDTV sets. Advertising sales teams cancel all holidays and prepare for a feeding frenzy. Networks bid in earnest to win exclusive game broadcasting rights. And new media innovators roll out their latest online and mobile apps...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 April 2012

3D Diaries Cameras: more for less

http://www.tv-bay.com/imag/issue062/files/44.htmlCameras: more for less?There is plenty of guidance available about how to shoot ‘good’ stereo 3D and the principles are quite easy to understand. Achieving good results takes good equipment and, maybe, the assistance of a stereographer and even a convergence puller... unless you are using one of thos...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2012

February is where its at

January is an overrated time of year to make new year’s resolutions. There's too much food, port and chocolate in the system to make wise decisions. February is where it's at. I've never really been one for goals, especially work related ones. At college, though we were encouraged to think more for ourselves, all our time was dictated by the exams...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2012

So why bother with training?

Joseph Turner, the famous British painter (1775 to 1851) studied at the Royal College of Art from 1789 until his first exhibition at the Academy in 1793. Rembrandt (1606 to 1669) studied first with the famous painter Jacob van Swanenburgh and then with Pieter Lastman. Young talented artists need guidance from experienced and talented teachers to he...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 February 2012

Commercial break

The first commercial to be shown on British television was for Gibbs SR toothpaste, transmitted at 20.12 on 22 September, 1955. Back then, according to Lord Thomson, the founder of Scottish Television, commercial television was “a licence to print money”. The first ad I remember was from around 1960. A bloke in a trenchcoat and hat – not cause for...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 January 2012

Putting the Realism into Reality Television

“Reality television’ as a category of programming emerged in the late 1990s with the introduction of shows that attempted to portray real people responding to real challenges under more or less continual public gaze. Unlike sport, where the focus is primarily on physical skills and endurance, reality television shows place their participants in a w...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 January 2012

Sennheiser MKH 8060, 8070 and MKE1 Lapel microphone revie...

Sennheiser recently asked me to review two new MKH series microphones, and a new Lapel MKE 1I had a job coming up and I thought this would be the perfect time to try the two MKH microphones out. The job was a TV commercial. We would shoot on the beach and in Jumeirah Beach Park. For my set up, I decided I would use a PSC Alphamix Mixer, a Sound Dev...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 January 2012

Cut the risk out of developing and operating connected se...

When is an opportunity also a threat? In fact, most opportunities also pose some element of inherent risk. And for today’s media operators, the opportunities have never seemed riskier, and the risks have never offered so much potential gain. A diversifying, multi-screen, ‘connected’ media landscape is like a vast new hinterland for traditional broa...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2011

Ask the Experts - Integrating Social Media

Why should I care about integrating social media into my broadcast operations?Viewers are the lifeblood of any broadcaster, whether public service or commercial, major national broadcaster or special interest, free-to-air or pay TV, RF or IP delivery, fundamentally it's all about getting, and keeping, as many viewers as possible. Social media provi...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 October 2011

Glasses wars again

It was never going to be easy. Even now, over four years into the modern 3D era, reliably creating and displaying 3D still presents many challenges. Everyone says that the footage must be technically ‘good’ and, for television, the need for glasses is an issue for viewers, though glasses are pretty well accepted for cinema. The good news is that hu...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 October 2011

Keeping both eyes on the ball

It goes without saying that spectator sports are made for television; of course they are, as can easily be proved by trying to follow a football match on radio. A skilled radio commentator can describe key aspects of the action fairly well but television actually gives viewers the impression that they are sitting in the stadium. Widescreen high def...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 September 2011

Panasonic AF101 review

In 2008 Canon released its latest stills camera the 5DMk2. Little did they know what they had released on the videographers world. This so called STILLS camera had a hidden talent, that of course of remarkably good 1080p video. The indie film makers went wild, no more did they have to bolt on large cumbersome depth of field adapters to their video...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 September 2011