The University of Sussex was the first of the new wave of universities founded in the 1960s and received its Royal Charter in August 1961. Nearly 50 years on, the University has become a leading teaching and research institution; and in the 2009 Times Higher Education University World Rankings, Sussex was ranked in the top five per cent of all universities worldwide.

In April 09', Spectrecom was commissioned by the University to produce a series of films to communicate and celebrate University achievements to a wide internal and external audience including potential undergraduate and post-graduate students, at home and abroad. Almost all of the films are now complete, so I'll be posting one to the blog everyday this week. Today, it's the Founder's Day Film.

Shot in full HD on a Sony EX3, the film combines the glossy high production values of a commercial with a more conventional corporate communication. It celebrates the important achievements and events of the academic year, focusing on key areas of research, sports and student life. It also includes a few remarks from University Vice-Chancellor, Sanjeev Baskar.

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a blog entry reporting the release of a music video produced by Spectrecom for BANDAGED and Terry's Old Geezers & Gals (TOGs) to raise money for the BBC's Children in Need Appeal. 

The track was a cover version of The Beatles classic "All You Need Is Love"; and was performed and recorded live by the great and the good of the music, radio and TV industries at the legendary Abbey Road Studios.

On Friday, clips from the video were broadcast during the 30th Children in Need Appeal, which is now well on the way to beating the record-breaking total of £38 million raised last year.  

Here's a clip of Lee Mead and Sharon Corr, two of the celebrities who collaborated on the track, discussing the recording on GMTV.

Over the last few years, our work in the education recruitment market has expanded rapidly and our creative team have now worked for over 30 institutions across the UK. 

The University of York commissioned Spectrecom before the summer to create "a series of films to help improve and sustain student recruitment and to attract corporate interest". They also wanted to "make an impact on a wide-ranging audience with a short overview film to be shown on the home page of the website".

Working on the assumption that a highly polished and expensive looking film would be needed to reflect York's position as a top ten UK university and connect emotionally with viewers, our creative team produced a film that combines strong story telling, bold music and striking cinematography; and draws upon iconic scenery and key aspirational events, with the sum of the whole communicating York's rightful place as one of Europe's most successful modern universities.

Spectrecom was recently asked to produce a 10-minute training video for the prestigious Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery at King's College, London.

The film - a short excerpt of which can be viewed by clicking the image above - was commissioned to demonstrate to King's medical students how to perform a technique known as wound "debridement", which is the "medical removal of a patient's dead, damaged, or infected tissue to improve the healing potential of the remaining healthy tissue".

Sounds a little gruesome doesn't it?

Well, if you're faint-hearted, don't worry ...  the clip above is just the introduction.

With a large Halloween party arranged at our parents for the weekend, everybody was doing their bit to ensure that it went down a storm. It seemed only right that Jonny and I also chip in our with our contribution, which is why we decided to make this short film. Though we were actually filming for a different project in the area at the time, as the weekend came we saw a good opportunity to rope in some of our family members to be filmed for this horror film idea.

We formulated the story, and shot and edited it all within the space of about 10 hours, and we're really pleased with the results. It intentionally homages some well known films, and definitely had the right effect on the night, helping to scare all the visitors to the party. Following the film, all party goers were taken on a scary tour of our parents woodland, where they got to meet the aforementioned serial killer from the film who was still stalking the woods! The whole thing went down so well I expect we'll be doing it again, so keep an eye out for the sequel, which will be bigger, darker and more expensive - because that's the rule for sequels, right?

Enjoy with the lights turned off, and the sound turned up!