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Everything you ever wanted to know about TV lighting Part...

In my last article, I talked about some of the basic technical aspects that we need to think about when we start on the lighting trail. I covered light levels and intensities in relation to lens apertures before discussing colour temperature and its relevance to producing ‘nice’ pictures. Although I’d like to move on into lighting ‘proper’ there ar...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 October 2008

Mixing with the wildlife on Springwatch

As the 5th series of ‘Springwatch’ draws to a close I’d like to share with you an insider view of one of my favourite vision mixing jobs. As a freelance vision mixer I work across the board on all sorts of programmes: quiz & chat shows, sports, drama, music & Light Entertainment, recorded & live, studio-based or Outside Broadcast. But for four week...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 October 2008

Scriptwriting

“Is the pen mightier than the sword?”As a writer myself and having penned a few scripts in the past, mainly for TV commercials, corporate presentations and voice overs, it always amazes me 'when a film actor, whether it be a known or an up and coming potential' just seems to utter those mortal words “It was such a great script...I just had to do it...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 September 2008

Dont Drink from the Mainstream.

Here’s the note pinned on the studio door of Undercurrents productions in South Wales. To do list for 20081) Make 10 new video series on topics ranging from Woodland skills to Technology reviews and from Political news to investigative documentaries. 2) Develop a desktop video player application based upon the open source software. 3) Launch an Int...

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

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

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 Reflecmedia Chromaflex portable chromakey system

The use of keying a foreground image over a background image to form a composite is an established and widely used technique in film and TV production. For most cameramen this will usually involve them in shooting a subject against a coloured background, typically green or blue. Sounds simple but reality can be far from it, anecdotes abound of nigh...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 May 2008

Chromakey questions

What does a specialist paint give me that a DIY superstore (matt blue or green emulsion) doesn’t?VFX Bluescreen Solutions paints are pigment based, as opposed to DIY chains ‘stain’ based. Pigment based paints ensure consistency and intensity of colour, against the stain based paints because they are ‘pure’, instead of being made up of various other...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 April 2008

Chromakey tips and tricks.

Chromakey is one of those slightly magical effects that can still bring out the child in all of us. Also childlike are the frustrated tantrums you throw when you have been trying for hours to get a decent key, and realise you will have to pay some compositing wizard to rescue the shot. There are now 2 distinctly different ways to shoot chromakey fo...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 April 2008

Making Common Sense of Production Health and Safety

Programme preventionAs many of you may know the presenter of a well known motoring program has a bugbear with the subject of health and safety in programme making. In the past he has often attacked health and safety professionals for becoming far too wrapped up in an ‘absolute’ approach to risk management – focussing on minute detail at the expense...

Submitted by Dennis Lennie

Published 01 April 2008