KitPlus | Articles

Ravensbourne 21st Century Broadcast Education

Just over eighteen months ago, Adrian Scott of the Bakewell House Consultancy was commissioned to guide Ravensbourne through the EU Tendering process to appoint a Systems Integrator to transform the broadcast facilities of Ravensbourne as it moved into its new multi-million pound home at Greenwich Peninsula. Winning the contract, TSL rose to the ch...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2010

Meet Steadicam

1) What is Steadicam?Steadicam is a body-worn camera support systems that isolates the movement of the camera from that of the operator and allows the camera to travel with great freedom over almost any terrain without resorting to conventional track and dolly techniques. Invented by Garrett Brown, the first model was produced in 1976 primarily for...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 December 2010

Hows that

A few days ago I umpired a cricket match. It was a very pleasant afternoon, marred only slightly by the almost continual drizzle, but it was August in southern England. The game was held at a lovely village cricket club, and so my fellow umpire and I did not have the benefit of replays or other technology. To be honest, I think they would have been...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 October 2010

Making the content factory a reality

The expression “content factory” has been around for a while and in a number of contexts. Is this a realistic concept? Can we – producers, facilities, broadcasters – embrace the idea of process in the manufacturing sense, or is making content for television and the new digital platforms too different to making biscuits or cars?We are naturally resi...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 September 2010

Making the grade

As we enjoy the Summer of 2010 the UK production industry remains in the grip of recession. Also, as noted in the recent UK Screen report, competition within the post production industry is damaging its own members with dangerous price wars. However, the biggest threat is coming from another direction – production companies and agencies bringing in...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 September 2010

Business advcie from the football pitch

Much has been written in the press about the performance of the beleaguered England football team during the World Cup and particularly Fabio Capello’s management. It seems that Capello was the root of the team’s problems, so this month I have analysed our performance through some very simply management headings to see how we could take some key le...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 August 2010

A conversation with Peter Harman, Vinten Product Manager

Vinten is celebrating its centenary in 2010. What were the origins of the business?William Vinten was an engineer with a passion for quality. He set himself in business to repair friends’ bicycles at the age of 13, did a full apprenticeship in a machine shop, and worked for Frederick Lamplough, the steam car pioneer. But it was seeing his first mov...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 June 2010

Does one size fits all

Economic realities are driving most technical industries toward considering solutions that combine what began as stand-alone, discrete devices into single, multifunction systems. In the broadcast and multimedia production arenas, character generators (CGs) are among the discrete systems now being offered in multifunction platforms. The assumption i...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 June 2010

Filming Underwater

Filming underwater remains one of the toughest assignments for any professional production, whether documentary or drama. There are safety concerns involved in having crew and, possibly talent, working underwater. Documentary filmmakers often operate in remote locations, far from medical aid and, especially, decompression chambers needed to treat b...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2010

Business lessons from tennis

It was interesting reading Rachel Bridge’s article in the Sunday Times this week, whilst watching Andy Murray lose to Roger Federer in the final of the Australian Open. Rachel is the paper’s enterprise editor and her column is always worth a general look (though I sometimes wonder, cheekily, if she plagiarizes my articles). And now you are wonderin...

Submitted by Bob Pank#

Published 01 March 2010

Location Sound Recording And Post-production with Chris W...

Sound is often regarded as playing a subordinate role to visuals in film, TV and video production, but the finest directors and producers have insisted on taking as much care over the sonics of a production as the visuals. Of course, on smaller-scale productions, it's still often the case that the soundtrack is whatever you capture while you’re bus...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 February 2010

Business conditions of Nigeria v UK

Peter Savage continues his series of articles on maximising business opportunities with a sideways look at opportunities in with emerging marketsDue to the efficiency (ahem) of TV Bay’s management and my own scheduling skills, I find myself, the day before going to press, writing an article whilst sitting in a hotel in Lagos, Nigeria. So, for a com...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 February 2010

Pushing Air- the art of acoustic design

Acoustics is usually regarded (or often disregarded) as a black art that is practiced with no discernable science involved, with a great reliance on ears for measurement and blind faith as a method statement. Nothing could be further from the truth in the professional study of sound, with many practitioners furnished with several degrees and a weal...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 January 2010

Lighting series

So far in this series, I have stressed some of my own preferences for good portrait lighting; using Fresnel lamps for key lights to enable accurate barn dooring, minimum spill light and an even ‘field’ of light. Open faced lamps, whilst cheaper, do not give the same control of light, they give rise to double shadows and are also prone to bubble fai...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 October 2009

Diversify - the key to success

Most business could survive the recession if they adapt what they do, or how they do it, explains Peter SavageIn the current economic climate, with the market shrinking, every business has to look at ways of growing or developing – if they are to survive. And sometimes you have to think outside the box. There is, as they say, only so much blood you...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 September 2009