Behind the scenes

I am proud to have been commissioned by St Giles Trust to create and produce their 2011 Christmas fundraising film.
Firstly I want to say having previously photographed for the Trust at their places of work and events I was aware of the good work they carry out.
This time round I got to more personally know the team and the ins and outs of the work they are so committed to doing.
Here is a link to their website to find out more info.

Right, let’s start with the roles I had, in short Creative director, Director, Cameraman, lighting, focus puller, editor, post production colour grading, social media IT assistance oh and taxi driver on the day in my car between locations.

Pre production
Initially I had a few pre-production meetings with the Trust project team and put across my ideas for the filming style and listened to the brief and about Patricia’s story and the areas of the Trust they wanted to draw attention to. The focus of the film changed a few times before the actual shoot but on the day I had a good idea of what I wanted and needed to film.

Due to the sensitive personal life history of Patricia’s story, St.Giles made the decision that an actress should play the role of Patricia.
I was asked whether I knew of a good place to find actress and my friend and university lecturer Jane Barnwell pointed me to casting call pro and from there the Trust booked in 2 potential actresses and I went along to the castings to meet and ask questions I thought were relevant to the look of the film. Dealing with actors and this process was a first for me.

Production
The film was shot all in one day. The locations were around the Camberwell and Elephant & Castle areas and included the St. Giles Trust HQ, outside a local court house [as there wasn't enough time to go to Holloway prison and back], outside Elephant & Castle tube station for the time lapse / tear scene and at one of the St.Giles teams home [thanks Alex as this was sprung very last minute].

Moving from scene to scene I didn’t have time to playback and review the footage and I had to make executive decisions throughout the day to move to the next setup in order to get everything finished.

At least the weather was a good consistent overcast grey. One problem when shooting in winter is how little daylight you get given. The time lapse / tear scene was shot with an iso of around 1250 [fine for 5d] as by the time we found a location with a large enough footfall the sun was just setting. And typically when you need busy crowds the streets of London were pretty empty for us [there was no time to go to the West end]. This particular scene was shot for 10 minutes and sped up to only a few seconds in the film.

Post production
Editing what you shoot is always good and I had a pretty good idea to the pace of the film and knew the overall length it was going to be 2 minutes or under [final version was 90 seconds without credits and titles].

After my first edit, St. Giles made asked for a couple of amends and then I organised for the recording of Patricia’s voice for the voice over and this was recorded by a pro sound recordist and recorded on to my Zoom H4N digital recorder.

I then made a final tweak to the now colour graded footage [I always shoot my footage in a super flat camera setting to have the best possibility for any style of look to the footage] to better sync to the timings of the voiceover.
Finally I rendered and exported at 1080p social media settings and uploaded directly to a newly created St.Giles Trust YouTube channel.

Now I hope that all my hard work helps raise lots and lots of money for the trust.

This type of commission is definitely the direction I am going to strengthen in 2012. I enjoy assisting my clients from initial concept to final product and do so with a lot of passion and understanding of the needs of my client.

Gear & Tech

Some new toys to play with on this job.

About a month ago I was at Pro Solutions event in London and tried a unique camera rig setup by a company called Swedish Chameleon, which I instantly wanted to try.
So I rented it and used it throughout this film. A few photos and some more info can be found on my facebook page and whilst you’re there please click ‘like’ to stay in touch.

Canon 5d Mark II.

I also used a Zacuto EVF with Zfinder.

I took several lenses [including primes] but only had time to use 2. Most of the film was shot on a Canon 24-105mm f/4 L IS and a couple of scenes on a Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 L.

The IS lens was my choice purely because of the image stabilising which helped whilst shooting video and F4 although not always fast enough was acceptable.
Ideally I would have shot with some of the prime lenses, but being a one man band there simply wasn’t enough time to change lenses and try different setups which was a bit of a shame. This included doing some glide tracking shots, I bought the equipment but never had the time to setup. If I had had 2 days of filming then things would have been different.

The audio interview voiceover was mixed and recorded by a veteran pro sound recordist. I’m always happy to defer to others when it comes to audio as I prefer to concentrate on the visuals and overall look.

Lighting: Daylight balanced bulb lights with soft box / Litepanels micro hybrid pro / Lowel Rifa EX Pro 88 kit / reflectors.

Tripod: Manfrotto 545B which was only used in the time lapse scene as the rest was shot on the rig.

If anyone wants to know about the post production side and grading please let me know as this was all done by me.

TIP: If others are shooting with the Canon 5D mark II and reading this you should film in odd multiple iso no.s, 160, 320, 640, 1250 etc as its best for low noise [this does not apply for stills].

Testimonial
Karim produced a very compelling film which captured the essence of St Giles Trust’s work.  Furthermore, this was done under time pressures and a limited budget.  Despite these challenges, the end product is very high quality and original.  He also provided valuable support in social media functions and maximising the film’s online fundraising potential. It has played a key role in helping us raise vital support through our Christmas Appeal 2011 and I highly recommend his work.

Tamsin Gregory, Communications Manager, St Giles Trust.

Behind the scenes
This is the third year that I have been commissioned for a creative video show reel, interviews and photography [8th year photographing] by the Petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain and The Department of Energy and Climate Change at the Prospects Fairs: The UK’s leading networking event for exploration and development.

I won’t go into too much detail on this post as many details overlap with a previous post [PROSPEX 2010 post]. But instead showcase the new visual material I produced this year at the Business Design Centre in Islington [a favourite venue of mine as it's so close to my home]

Production
2 days and evenings solo project, again not sure how many others out there are photographing and filming in the same way I do. The evening at the Victoria and Albert Museum was a highlight as I always enjoy the venue.
In total I filmed 16 interviews [all on the PESGB YouTube channel], shot the footage for the cinematic package show reel and documented the event with my photojournalism photography.

Some interviews were prearranged but most were shot on the fly and sourced by going from booth to booth and asking delegates for their participation.
If I had a 2nd cameraman / assistant then I would have considered one of my multi-cam interviews, but I had so much equipment to lug around and sound to monitor that a solo multi camera approach was to much.

Post production
The show reel edited myself and at the end I have added my new motion graphic KM credit.
For several clients I offer assistance with the social media aspect. I help set-up channels, login and upload directly and create annotations.

Gear & Tech
Canon 5d mark ii
Canon 24-70mm F2.8 & Canon 70-200mm F2.8 IS
Lapel mic’s connected to a Zoom H4n external audio recorder for interviews
Video tripod
Litepanels pro off camera light for interviews

Testimonial
Karim’s commitment shines through in a top quality product.

Dr. Steve Garrett: Manager, Global Technology Centre
2011 President, Petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain

Behind the scenes
The above video clip is under 6 mins and highlights KM production values on this and similar jobs.

This was filmed at the IEA HQ in Westminster.
We set up 3 cameras, one at the back of the crowded room and one on either side of the stage.
There was no time for a sound check as the MP and IEA director walked in, put the mics on and started the interview.

Post production
As usual I film with at least 3 full HD cameras and it was great to be able to cut between cameras to create an engaging final video for all viewers.
The only problem is the edit takes longer with 3 separate timelines. I also film with flat picture profiles and grade the footage.

One thing I would change would be that I would have liked a fourth camera on the audience for some reaction cutaways [but this also adds to the overall budget of the production].

However, you only have to compare this production to the more common approach of simply pressing record from a camera at the back of the room and occasionally zooming in, which unfortunately I see far too often for companies and organisations that could have higher production value filming.

If you’re interested in viewing the full 1hr interview you can do so on here on the clients Vimeo channel which I upload and assist them with.

Gear and Tech
Sony NEX FS100 [back of the room camera]
2 x Canon 5d Mark II DSLR cameras
Canon 70-200mm F2.8 IS and Canon 100-400 L IS
Zoom h4n with Sennheiser lapel mics x 2
3 x Manfrotto video tripods and 3 x video heads
Pluraleyes for syncing of all 3 cameras with the master audio

Testimonial
“I’m absolutely delighted with the service we receive from Karim at Creative Visual Services. The photos and the multi camera video productions we receive are always imaginative, elegant and beautifully shot. Very highly recommended indeed.”
Mark Littlewood, Director General of the IEA

Behind the scenes

Less than two weeks after filming and photography inside No.11 Downing street and I’m back. This time in No.10 Downing street and with the Prime minister David Cameron.

The commission was for photography and the wiring of images to press news desks onsite of Britain’s Kindest Kid and this was for a new client the Charities Aid Foundation [CAF].
Channel 5 news were also filming the event so I had the opportunity to work and meet their cameramen [had a nerdy conversations about filming broadcast news with DSLR cameras during the Arab Spring], news presenters and news editor.

As per No.11 security and time were big factors. Channel 5 news were filming the event and there were times when I couldn’t use flash, but shooting available light is what I prefer so this was not always a problem.
When the PM handed the awards to the 5 winners [who were each amazing individuals, one of them has raised £400,00 so far to help combat bullying in schools!] I had a few seconds to photograph with flash [with my on camera soft box] before the PM moved on to chat with the next award winner about their achievements and background.

After about 30mins with the PM indoors there was a quick photo-op outside No.10 with the channel 5 news presenters issuing medals to the winners, this had to be quick as the BBC were about to go live at 6pm and the nation would have seen me in the back of their shot taking photos [more likely they would have told me to move].

The next stage was to get a group shot of David Cameron with the award winners across to the news and picture agencies.

As usual after the event CAF and Channel 5 could view the full set of images and download the high-res jpegs. A CD-ROM was also sent in the post.
A smaller selection of images is shown in the above slideshow

I’ve greatly enjoyed my two jobs inside No.10 & No.11. Its valuable to have the experience of the protocol involved and I look forward to getting theopportunity to photograph and film there again.

I’m always pleased to work with a new client and the Charities Aid Foundation team were a pleasure to work with.

Finally, look out for me on Channel 5 news for their coverage of Britain’s Kindest Kid [going to a public vote soon] as I’m sure I was in some of their footage.

Gear and Tech.
Canon 5d Mark II DSLR
Canon 24-70mm F2.8
580EX flash [took the wireless Quantum Qflash with me but there was no time or space to set it up]
Micro Apollo soft box
Laptop

Testimonial.
“Karim produced great photographs for us. He thought of everything which meant we could relax and enjoy the event. I would definitely recommend him.”
Mandy Pursey, Head of PR Charities Aid Foundation

Behind the scenes

This commission was to film and photograph INSIDE No. 11 Downing street. Previously I have only stood outside No.10 across the street behind the metal gates for press photo calls.

My client is the Institute of Fundraising and this is the fifth year I have been commissioned for their National Payroll Giving Excellence Awards.
I have proudly been the IOF’s official photographer over the last 7 years.

On this occasion the IOF requested my full creative visual services package, photography of the awards ceremony, an HD multi camera angle video production including interviews and post production services to bring everything together.

Time was a key factor during the evening as we had to leave the building at 8pm sharp. We manages to set up in the room about 45mins before the guests arrived. Directly after the awards ceremony I set up posed photography portraits of all the winners and certificate winners with the ministers/mp’s [I used a new Micro Apollo soft box on my Canon 580 flash gun to soften the light and it worked well]

Once the photography was complete, it meant that there was little time left for the interviews, about 25mins. Initially I wanted to set up for multi camera angle interviews but getting the audio levels right with so much background noise was challenging and took priority so I went back to just the one camera. Ideally I would have moved somewhere away from the 100 people happily [but loudly] networking in the same room, but we were not allowed to film outside of the room the awards were taking place in.

There was no stage lighting for the speakers other than from 2 large chandeliers in the room, ideally some catch lights for the eyes would have been nice, but the noise free high ISO [film speeds] of the canon 5d mark II cameras is always impressive. Also as all the delagates were standing it would have been better to have raised platforms for a clear line of sight.

These last few points sound a little like I’m moaning but many of these variables are part and part of filming on location and unless you can have a fully locked off and controlled shoot, getting results that you are pleased with and more importantly the client loves is where experience and a I believe background in photojournalism pays off.

The show reel above highlights how I look to film and take photos with available light and shallow depth of field for a more cinematic feel during the networking drinks reception. I had more footage from the networking sessions but wanted to keep the overall length of the show reel to a minimum to keep viewers attentions.

I take care of the social media uploading to clients channels [saves them time and problems] and any amends to the footage. Before the client could use the photography and videos Downing street press office had to approve all the footage.

Overall a fantastic event, great to film and photograph in such a prestigious location.

Gear and Tech.
First outing for the new Sony NEX FS100 [matched colour profiles to the 5d's, still needed further colour grading in post]
2 x Canon 5d Mark II DSLR
Canon 24-70mm, 70-200mm F2.8 IS and Canon 50mm F1.2
Zoom h4n with a new custom made -45db attenuated xlr stereo cable into sound mixing desk with engineer.
Litepanels micro pro hybrid led light [new]
Sennheiser & Rode Videomic pro microphones
3 x Manfrotto video tripods and 3 x video heads
Pluraleyes for syncing of all 3 cameras with the master audio [a must for me working with DSLR's in these environments]
Music rights for the show reel

Testimonial.
“We have worked with Karim for five years on the NPGEA and find the service quick and of a very high standard.  Nothing is too complicated and the team is adaptable, meeting our exact needs.  This year we used their video technology to add an extra dimension to our awards event at Downing Street and promote the event using social media tools and the results speak for themselves”.
Lee Grant, Head of Membership Communities, IOF.

Behind the scenes
I cover a lot of corporate events. I don’t blog about everyone but it’s been
a while since I’ve taken photos in the London ‘Eye’ so I thought it was
worth posting.

In fact the ‘Eye’ was British Airways the last time round and now its
EDF energy.
The weather in the day had been particularly excellent and the private champagne pod was booked from 7-8pm. Unfortunately it couldn’t have been any earlier and when we launched the sun had set and we had missed the ‘golden hour’.

The enclosed space and reflective surfaces in the pods can be challenging when using flash. Security restrictions also mean that you are limited to what equipment you can bring on. It’s cramped when at maximum capacity and 3 staff members are trying to move around and serve food and drinks.

As we set off the sky in the west was still pink and I balanced the flash with the outside ambient light to get balanced exposures.
This worked well in the beginning but when it became properly dark you could only make out the building and city lights, luckily London looks great with the lights off.
The lighting in the pod is almost nonexistent, except for when exiting, so after one round the lights came on [we stayed on] and I pushed the iso to around 4000 and fired away.

As usual the client had a web gallery and downloadable and corrected high res jpeg images available the next day with a CD-ROM in the post.

Gear & Tech
Canon 5d mark II  /  580EX Flash with diffuser  /  Quantum Turbo 2×2
Canon 24-70 F2.8  /  8mm Sigma fish eye lens  /  Off-Camera Shoe Cord

Behind the scenes
This is a flagship annual event held by the Institute of Economic Affairs [a profile of previous work for the IEA can be viewed at this post].
This is the second year I have been commissioned to photograph and video the lecture.

I know that anyone who is viewing any website or blog nowadays is ‘very busy’ so I don’t expect anyone to watch the entire 1hr 12 minute lecture with Q&A unless you have an interest in economics in which case please do so and the link to view is here

To showcase how I film and edit this type of work I have edited together a 6 minute show reel. This approach and high production value style is also used on full day conferences, seminars and events and differs greatly from other video companies who simply place a camera at the back of a room and press record.

Being adaptive on shoots is key. For this lecture I was told that the lights that lit up the lectern and panel would be switched off during the opening speech and for the Q&A session.
For optimal filming this really is a not ideal. However, having no choice I had some comfort in knowing that my cameras with full frame sensors are some of the best at filming in low light situations.

I used three cameras on this production. One fixed and operated with a Canon 100-400mm IS lens. One attached on the second floor pointing down and filming throughout the lecture, this was key for referencing on the edit where to put the presentation slides and for full room shots and edit cutaways.
The final Canon 5d camera was roaming with my 24-70 and 70-200IS F2.8 lenses for creative video angles and still photography.

Behind the scenes
I was contacted about this project by a friend whom I photographed an annual report for in London back in 2005. The agency he worked at the time with were looking to totally redesign the Crown Inn Elton image and required photography, HD video and 360 degree virtual images.

I had 2 and half days to film three interviews, photograph and film all the rooms, the food, music in the evening and other potential  promo marketing shots and to shoot the 360 virtual reality images of the AA accredited 5 star rated bedrooms.

Challenges on this production were time and organisation.
My method of working with HDSLR cameras is part of the rise of micro crews [or often as is the case just me]. This means I can set-up many different shots far quicker than conventional large crew productions, saving time and money whilst not compromising on production values.

Time was against me throughout the shoot even though I had gone up a week before on a recee to help storyboard the shoot, do ighting setups although natural took time in some of the small spaces to get right. My assistant and sound engineer helped greatly to speed the setups along.

After every video setup I would change settings and shoot raw high quality photographs, although my video style is to frame video to my photography approach the change overs still needed tweaking especially as I was filming scenes with the use of a glide track. Also, when I needed to photograph in portrait mode I had to make even more changes. Perhaps 3 cameras instead of 2 would have been handy.

Post production:
The HD video you can watch above is my edited vision of the Crown Inn.
The brief was to make the Crown’s video look luxurious and this is what I set out to do through subtle grading and dip to black transitions during the edit.
The music is a demo song kindly provided by musician and composer Gareth Moss.

The 360 degree virtual images were taken after I had filmed and photographed all the rooms on the final day. I went from room to room and did a quick check that all measurements and calibrations were accurate and then the time consuming work  is done in post, stitching the images together.

Highlights:
The Crown Inn ale and working on a new project that has already interested other similar establishments and clients who commented on the production values.

Gear & Tech
Quite a lot of gear was used on this shoot, of course the Canon 5d mark II cameras, a range of F1.2 and F1.4 prime lenses and zooms, I took the great Canon TS-E 24mm F3.5 L with me but didn’t have time to use it, which was a shame, a glide track which was much better and more economical than laying down tracks given the time constraints.
Lights, a set of tungsten red heads and daylight bulbs with soft boxes. Sound was recorded to zoom h4n devices and synced in post.
Nodal Ninja panoramic head with 8mm fish eye lens for the 360VR work.

Behind the scenes
Shots if you haven’t come across it is a ‘creative connections’ magazine and website [that's how they describe themselves] http://www.shots.net/.
The likes of David LaChapelle shoot covers for this magazine so a double page spread was a great opportunity to further showcase my editorial photography.
The subject of focus was the worldwide post production company Whitehouse Post Production and its owner / film editor John Smith.
You can view before and after shots above [aspect ratios were changed for the monitors].

I’ve been in several editing suites over the years and they can all look a little the same, so I needed to have a creative concept to get the client excited about the shoot before I arrived.
I settled for an environmental portrait with John facing away from the camera. However, I would take portraits of John and place them in the monitors looking back at the reader.

I sent a mock up I made one evening  with my beautiful wife working at her Mac and they loved the concept.
John has edited films such as Leaving Las Vegas, Sliding Doors, Gulliver’s Travels, commercials and many other works, you can see more of what Whitehouse do here.
I then had the idea that the portraits could be of himself recreating a key scene from films he had edited and make it appear as if he was editing himself in his edit suite.
I ran this idea in my head and came to the conclusion that we only had a short window to shoot in and the set-ups may just take too long.

On the day of the shoot we began preparing for the main shot where John would be editing himself [on blank screens to be filled in later]  when I had the idea for a little movement in the shot and Anna kindly pushed John’s wheelie chair in and out of frame until we had it just right amount of motion blur. Anna also organised the whole shoot and gave me the job in the first place so cheers again Anna.

Before we were about to shoot the different portraits [to be with lots of expressions] John suggested he would be game to re-enact the famous films and commercials he has edited.
John was great to work with and wanted to try every idea, so we had the staff quickly buying and digging up props to make our shoot viable.

The looks we went for were Leaving las Vegas, Gulliver’s Travels, a serial killer TV series and Cubehead a water commercial. We left the vodka bottle pouring shot until last and I used wireless flash and soft box to freeze the water stream, this was a one take shot.
Sliding doors is another John Smith edited film and we thought about going down to the tube station but there wasn’t time so we left this one.
Post production, I wanted to colour grade the images to look like the films they were. This took some time but the result was worth it and then I placed the images into the monitors.
I also had to work with emap magazine guidelines for submissions and shots magazine.

Gear & Tech
Canon 5d mark II
Canon 85mm and 50mm F1.2 lenses
Quantum Q flash with soft box for the Leaving Las Vegas image
Quantum Turbo 2×2
Pocket wizard radio transmitters
I was tethered to my laptop throughout the shoot for client viewing .
Other items such as reflectors, tripods, daylight bulbs with soft box lighting.

Finally, you can pick a copy of the magazine or this back issue and see my work in print for only £160, yes that’s £160 for one single issue.