KitPlus | Articles

Back to the future

by Dick Hobbs Issue 103 - July 2015 I was recently talking to the estimable James Gilbert, who runs the equally estimable graphics and automation specialist Pixel Power. He said something that made me think. We were talking about scalability, and he said that it works in two directions. There is the sort of scalability that we all readily understan...

Submitted by Dick Hobbs.

Published 01 August 2015

#TVFUTURES

by Callum O\'LearyIssue 102 - June 2015I made it! So here we are, the last feature to write for Kit Plus and the end of my time as a BSc (Hons) Television and Broadcasting student at the University of Portsmouth. I remember my first year at the University fondly. Lecturers and students told me that it would fly by and however cliched it sounds...it...

Submitted by Callum O Leary

Published 01 July 2015

Those pesky scientists

by Dick Hobbs Issue 102 - June 2015 This month\'s picture is of something I was given on a visit to the Grass Valley camera factory in Breda, maybe 10 years ago. I think it is a thing of beauty, which is why it sits in pride of place on top of the wine cabinet. It is the sharp end an HD system camera: the optical block and a CCD imager. We saw in t...

Submitted by Dick Hobbs.

Published 01 July 2015

Hungerford and the 10 rules of making a Microbuster

by Miles Bullough Issue 101 - May 2015 On April 27th 2015 Wildseed Studios\' debut feature film, \'Hungerford\', launched on iTunes and begins what we hope will be a digital voyage around the world to success. We coined the term \'Microbuster\' to describe movies made on micro budgets but with blockbuster ambitions - and it perfectly captures what...

Submitted by Miles Bullough

Published 01 June 2015

#TVFUTURES

by Callum O\'Leary Issue 101 - May 2015 When I first introduced myself back in September, I had just begun my final year project and it was all very early days. I cannot stress how scary the prospect of a final year project is, and it is most certainly a mountain that needs to be climbed. I had originally decided upon a \'combined project\', which...

Submitted by Callum O Leary

Published 01 June 2015

A box of delights

by Dick Hobbs Issue 101 - May 2015 In the immediate aftermath of NAB and its bombardment by new gizmos, I want to talk about Professor Noriaki Kano. In the 1980s, at the Tokyo University of Science, he came up with a simple model of product design for customer satisfaction. His original work was more complicated than this diagram, but fundamentally...

Submitted by Dick Hobbs.

Published 01 June 2015

Audio basics

by Larry Jordan Issue 101 - May 2015 It is an absolutely true statement that the best way to improve the quality of your image is to improve the quality of your sound. Viewers will happily watch grainy, black-and-white images and consider it "art.\" However, nothing you can say will keep them in their seats if the audio is too loud or unintelligibl...

Submitted by Larry Jordan#

Published 01 June 2015

REDucation - Real world RED camera training

by Ben Sherriff Issue 101 - May 2015 Saturday 28th and Sunday 29th March saw the REDucation training workshop arrive in London at the Met Film School in Ealing Studios West London. I\'ve used a Red One but have yet to work on a shoot where I can get my hands dirty with the newer cameras they manufacture (Epic-X, Scarlet, Dragon and now Weapon). Whe...

Submitted by Ben Sherriff

Published 01 June 2015

Ride on time

by Alistair Horne Issue 100 - April 2015 The highly competitive sport of track cycling emerged in Europe in the late 19th and early 20th century as a way to continue the sport year round, and velodromes soon became a common sight on the Continent. Whether indoors or out, track cycling is one of the world\'s most intriguing spectator sports and, as...

Submitted by Alistair Horne

Published 01 May 2015

Fuelling productivity at BP

by Angus Mackay Issue 99 - March 2015 As one of the world\'s leading oil and gas companies, BP has a long history of producing a variety of film, video, and multimedia, and currently has an archive of over fifteen thousand films dating back over a century. The productions cover topics ranging from scientific discovery, energy exploration, community...

Submitted by Angus Mackay

Published 01 April 2015

Visualising the future of digital media business

by Simen Frostad Issue 99 - March 2015 More and more, successful delivery of digital media services is all about data management. Data about how well the services are performing can come from many sources - from market research and customer satisfaction responses, from analysis of customer support and maintenance activity, and from monitoring syste...

Submitted by Simen Frostad

Published 01 April 2015

Freelance Success - Make the most of your talent

by Peter Savage Issue 98 - February 2015 I was reading the back page of The Sunday Times this morning an article by Luke Johnson of Pizza Express fame (though that description doesnt do justice to this serial entrepreneur and business investor). Todays article was about how to get rich quick. Interesting, I thought, as it made me think of all the p...

Submitted by Dick Hobbs.

Published 01 March 2015

Open Source for Film and TV Production

by Dan Mulligan Issue 98 - February 2015 There\'s nothing like a new project to make you feel excited about life, and excited is definitely how I\'ve been feeling since I adopted an Open Source policy to my companies\' camera and workflow divisions. My background is in cameras. I started out assisting and focus pulling before moving up the ranks to...

Submitted by Dan Mulligan

Published 01 March 2015

Sealife - Shooting 4k

by Kieron Seth Issue 98 - February 2015 Since the days of Jacques Cousteau and his Undersea World, marine habitats have fascinated television audiences. From 1972 to 1975 the French explorer and filmmaker brought his excitement and passion for sea life to our screens and have inspired documentary makers since. The films lay bare the lengths the cre...

Submitted by Kieron Seth#

Published 01 March 2015

The road to Sundance Film Festival

with Kivu Ruhorahoza Issue 98 - February 2015 Things of the Aimless Wanderer, the latest feature from Rwandese filmmaker Kivu Ruhorahoza (Grey Matter) is a beautifully crafted narrative about paranoia, mistrust and misunderstandings. Premiering at this year\'s Sundance Film Festival, audiences can expect an arresting film that reveals a series of c...

Submitted by Kivu Ruhorahoza

Published 01 March 2015