KitPlus | Articles

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

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

Everything you ever wanted to know about lighting Part 1

Anyone starting on the long and winding road of lighting might well be baffled at the number of very different approaches that he or she might find in books and articles. I certainly did, and that was probably because my training in Television had been engineering based, where the very nature of engineering provides specific answers to specific pro...

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

Selling your business Part 1 of 3

In this first of three articles on selling a business, Peter Savage explains why it is not easy to determine the true value of a businessThe industry buzzed this month with news that Simon Meikle at Mitcorp was selling out to fellow reseller CVP. Amounts, money valuations, multiples were all bandied around so I thought it a good time to run over so...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 July 2008

Protect your boys toys

In a recent survey it was estimated that there were 70 million mobile phones, in the Uk. More than one phone for every member of the population. This figure is staggering in its self, but then consider the replacement value, which is in excess of £500 billion pounds. Makes your eyes water. We have dipped into our pockets, or swiped our cards, to fi...

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

The Benefits of Lens Add-ons

Zoom lenses on broadcast and professional video camcorders are wonderful tools for the videographer, allowing quick and easy focal length change. But ultimately, a zoom lens is limited on both the wide and telephoto end of its zoom range. On higher-end camcorders there is generally a choice of lenses, and thus zoom range, when the camera is purchas...

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

Quality Assurance for Digital Production Workflow

In every industry that I’ve had anything to do with the word ‘Quality’ gets backs up faster than just about anything else. Well, perhaps some parts of the automotive industry are amenable but then they largely invented the concept in the last century. Perhaps it would help to start off with a definition. After all, the word means many different thi...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 June 2008