Things are looking bright for British filmmaking of late, as Vision+Media/Creative England is busy promoting a new film studio space in Woodford, spanning a 500-acre Stockport site, only ten miles from the city centre.  The area had previously spent its life as an aerodrome for global defence and security company BAE, but has now relinquished whimsical duties such as national security for the altogether more meaningful task of film production.

The facility also boasts some lavish facilities, including a seven bedroom hotel, nine-hole golf course and 2,000m long runway to cater for the jet-setting inclinations which celebrities are known to harbour. If that wasn’t enough, the space also boasts stylish office spaces, huge parking amenities and many annex buildings designed for storage, construction and prop-housing. The northern tip of the site will also be used as a housing and leisure complex, including an equestrian centre and point-to-point race course. The deal to create this huge project is estimated at around £100m.There is also full phase power and water facilities. Let’s just hope they don’t combine the two.

The screen agency has been searching high and low for a suitable space to shape into their vision over the last eighteen months, to “meet the demand of enquires in the area from feature film production companies”. Piers Tempest, producer of such films as Oyster Farmer and Murderous Intent, is said to be leading the studio side of the Woodford Development, and is reportedly in talks to shoot a blockbuster there.

We wish the Woodford project the best of luck in their new venture. However, if your shoot is down south then remember that you can always try out our own studio space here in London. You can check out our luxurious green rooms and flexible studio space here.

Those TV production companies who specialise in police-centric docu-soaps are facing a cut either in their profit margins or the amount of screen time their shows actually devote to the boys in blue. This is because the Metropolitan police force is now demanding that it be compensated when programmes feature its staff and/or resources, to the tune of £500 per day and a 15% back-end fee.

Not a great year for the Met, given the harsh criticism it has received both as a result of its role in the phone-hacking controversy and its response to the summer riots. But the capital’s police service is seemingly still determined to emerge from 2011 with some credit… mainly via its balance sheet.

To this end the Met is asking that any TV production in which it features (news reports are exempt) cough up a daily fee of £500, up to a maximum of five days, an administration fee of £25 and, most controversially as far as the telly companies are concerned, 15% of any money made from overseas and DVD sales.  

This ‘Income Development Charge’ from Scotland Yard has apparently left TV producers reeling. And with them finding it harder to guarantee their profits, there is now apparently a real risk that programmes featuring the Met will simply no longer be made. Programmes akin to this gem from the archives…

If the Met has just priced itself right out of your production then you’re going to need to mock up a replacement, aren’t you? Something we can surely do for you in our studios – check out our rates.  

How well could an online video perform if coupled with a slick social media strategy? Find out below with a brilliantly comprehensive infographic courtesey of those fine people at Mashable.

There are 750 million people using Facebook, sharing over four billion pieces of content each day, your web video could be a part of that. Evian’s roller-skating babies advert has received over 65 million views in just over two years, this is the power of YouTube and the importance of creating quality web video content coupled with a fully realized brand identity.

If you want to get your business out there with quality inexpensive video production then take a look at Spectrevids.

There has been a torrent of web videos recently from the video game industry as a slew of top-level titles are released and previewed across the most popular online video sites. Over the past month or so there has been a lot of activity from two gaming heavyweights in the form of the Battlefield and Call Of Duty games, both advertising their respective third instalments.

Released last week to critical acclaim after months of beta testing, the team behind Battlefield 3 have been steadily releasing great online video content since April but have been completely trounced in the viewing figures by the gaming behemoth that is Modern Warfare 3. The latest Call Of Duty has racked up a muscular 18 million views for its teaser trailer released back in July and on the cusp of the launch date has amassed more than 3 million views for the launch trailer released last week.

All of this pales in to insignificance though due to the latest announcement from the enfant terrible of the gaming world: Rockstar Games. The fifth instalment of Grand Theft Auto series is well underway and the links, commenting and shares spread like wildfire yesterday, as the first trailer was unveiled.

Video games represent a massive part of the online video industry and with brands like Machinima and IGN regularly pulling in views by the millions for their content and programmes it certainly would appear that for a guaranteed viral video success, making use of the video games market is a profitable way to go.

This recent ad for the Playstation shows is a perfect example of a great viral ad incorporating the gaming conventions and characters that players and fans really appreciate, incidentally it has amassed just under 10 million views in a month :

If you want to get the best out of your video production talk to our creative team about creating a viral video for your website.

Well, that’s the idea anyway. Online video might be the preserve of YouTube. Keeping tabs on friends may be the domain of Facebook. But Twitter has got micro-blogging all sewn up and it is determined to notify all and sundry as to what a life-altering difference a tweet can make.

Hence Twitter Stories, a positivity-radiating new service which is all about generating warm ‘n’ fuzzy feelings amongst those who come into contact with the all-conquering micro-blogging service.  

Via blog entries and web videos, Twitter Stories recounts true-life tales, each telling how a single tweet made a positive difference in the real world – whether the person involved be a celeb (veteran film critic Roger Ebert, praising the impact of Twitter after cancer surgery left him unable to talk) or a normaloid (the guy whose tweet saved his mom’s Portland bookstore from closure). Twitter users can submit their own tales via @twitterstories, or by using the hashtag #twitterstories.     

Admittedly those perusing the site (stories.twitter.com) might begin to suspect that some money has changed hands somewhere along the way (‘Luxury brand Burberry created a fashion first at London Fashion Week this fall by tweeting pictures of every look before the model went down the runway’), but y’know, Twitter is just spreading a little love in our cold, uncaring world.

And if it gets some promotion into the bargain, well, isn’t that a price worth paying for making a difference? Don’t answer that. Just watch the bookshop video instead.   

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