For the past 2 months, I've been producing and directing an incredibly exciting fund-raising campaign film for the Courtauld Institute of Art. 

The Institute is pre-eminent in art history and many of it's alumni go on to hold some of the most distinguished posts as Art Historians, Curators, and Museum Directors at institutions across the world.

The Institute relies on a third of it's annual income from the generous donations of art lovers and philanthropists worldwide.  As you can imagine, a post graduate degree from the Courtauld Institute of Art doesn't come cheap, especially when you consider that to become a fully trained conservator for example takes around 7 years to complete! But without courses like these, our cultural heritage is going to suffer enormously, because many of these students that come directly from the Courtauld Institute of Art go on to work on and restore the wonderful paintings collections within the National Trust and English Heritage.

Without any kind of financial backing, it's be difficult for a young student to fund a course in art history at the Courtauld, particularly those taking MA's or post doctorate research.  While the money raised by this campaign film will of course be used to pay for the ongoing annual costs that keep the doors of the Institute open, it will also fund scholarships that will directly benefit a young student, who would otherwise may have not had the financial means to develop him/ herself in this way.

To find out more about the campaign and donate, please click here.

Since I am currently in the throws of putting the finishing touches to edit, I’m afraid I can't provide a link to the film as yet. But … my very next blog will provide a link and will look at how the final version of the film has been received by our very prestigious client.  What I can confidently say right now is that the film will really have the wow factor – it's not everyday that you get to film a Van Gogh in very close up detail!

Video production techniques are constantly evolving and I'm positive that a majority of Final Cut Pro editors haven't even picked up the selection of manuals shipped with the software. And even if they have, there's a big difference between being able to operate a piece of editing software, and being a good editor. As such, I've come up with a few video production tips that I hope will aid your filmmaking, and be useful across every type of project that you're editing.

Digital Cinema Preview

Especially when you don't have a second (or third) display for playback, this is a really useful feature for watching back videos in full screen. First make sure to go to VIEW, then EXTERNAL FRAMES and click on ALL FRAMES. You might find that this is ticked already, but worth checking anyway as it's key to making this work.

Following this, whilst still in the VIEW drop-down menu, click on VIDEO PLAYBACK and select DIGITAL CINEMA DESKTOP PREVIEW – MAIN. Your canvas will then fill the entire space of the monitor, allowing you to watch your work back in all its glory. This is also a great thing to do before delivery/completing any piece of work, because it's very easy to miss things in the canvas that become apparent once you blow it up to full screen.

Using Dissolves and Transitions Effectively

Just because you have a large amount of transitions to throw into the mix, doesn't mean you should. The best editors allow the transitions to seamlessly move the edit along without distraction, and at the points where you do see one, it's been put there for a good reason.

Noise Industries (FX Factory) do a great mix of funky transitions and effects in their plugins, but you would really only want to use these sparingly and with purpose. The last thing you want to do is pull the audience out of the experience by 'twirl' wiping the screen, or by throwing in paint splashes that do nothing but distract.

There's a good reason that simple dissolves are still so popular (and my most used transition), especially when it comes to showing a movement of time/setting in my edited piece. Whether it's a film, a corporate video or a music video, as an editor it's important to always be thinking about the purpose and target audience of the film, and reflect that in your work; in most cases, less is more!

Camera Moves & Static Shots

A really simple trick this... It's similar to the Ken Burns effect, and will help to add steady movement to a shot, that can be impossible for a cameraman to get without the right equipment.

To dolly forward/push/zoom a shot, firstly load your clip up into the VIEWER; a good example to test with might be a wide shot of a building or a room. In the MOTION tab, under BASIC MOTION, add a keyframe (by clicking on the diamond) next to SCALE. Then within the window, move to the end of the same clip and add another keyframe. Set the scale (which by default is at 100 to most clips) to 105 or 110 (depending on the length of the clip).

If done right, your shot will slowly move forwards. You can also reverse this by putting in the numbers the opposite way around, so that the shot 'pulls back' instead. A useful little trick for any form of video production, I'm sure you'll agree!

Make a Freeze Frame Still Image, and Export (optional)

In Post-Production, chances are you'll be asked to pull still images out either to use in your edit, or to export for a client. It's really quite simple, and there's a couple of ways to do it.

The first way is through Final Cut Pro of course, and this is particularly great if you want to freeze frame a shot. The first thing to do is position your playhead at the frame you would like to turn into a still; this can be done in any of the Viewer, Canvas, or Timeline. Then go to MODIFY, and then select MAKE FREEZE FRAME.

Your freeze frame will show up in the viewer window with a default duration of 10 seconds (unless you've set it otherwise). You can adjust the in and out point here, to the duration you want. For speed I typically drag the clip straight into my TIMELINE and trim from there.

With the same clip selected, you can also choose EXPORT, then USING QUICKTIME CONVERSION, and choose STILL IMAGE from the Format drop-down. This will save a still image to your computer as a JPEG for example) to use outside of FCP.

The second way, is more for those who want a still that they can use outside of the edit specifically. So for example when your client wants a few stills from their finished video. In that case I recommend purchasing DV Kitchen, which amongst other things  has a Timefreezer option where you can save a high quality still image to your hard drive, at your desired frame size. There's also a quality slider, which you can alter as per your ouput requirements.

Batch Export

A final handy tip, when you have lots of sequences/videos to export, and don't want to have to do it individually.

Highlight all the clips/sequences you need to export in your BROWSER, then right click (or CTRL+click) and choose BATCH EXPORT. Your videos will load into another window, at which point you'll want to select SETTINGS (at the foot of the window) and set the format, codec, aspect ratio as required. Once done, click EXPORT and you're away.

Worth noting that if you are exporting sequences marked with in and out points, you'll need to tick that option in the Batch Export settings.

If you're a Jedward fan, you can catch the first episode of "Jedward: Let Loose" tonight at 9pm on ITV2, a fly-on-the wall reality show which follows the brothers as they leave home for the first time. 

Here's the original video, filmed in Studio (1). Please click here for further information about our film studios or call direct on 0203 405 2260.

How Online Video Marketing Can Improve Your Business.

Last month Christiaan and I attended Chris Cardell's excellent 3 day Entrepreneur Summit to gain some insight into the latest business growth and marketing techniques. We're currently trading at 48% year on year increase in turnover – so we already know a bit about business growth. But although marketing has always contributed to our success, there's always more that could be done. You'll notice on this website that we're using video to promote ourselves and to humanise the site, and indeed over 45% of our video clicks belong to our home page player and the 'Meet the Team' page. Our new clients tell us that these videos are one of the reasons they chose to run with Spectrecom, so we know the videos work.

Now, I've been banging on about the benefits of online video since we started in business back in 2005, but as I sat and listened to Chris Cardell (and other speakers) promote the use of video as a major marketing tool, I thought how refreshing it was to hear how the far the concept has entered the mainstream. As it happened, it was Chris Cardell's own videos that persuaded us that we needed to attend the summit in the first place!

So what, from the speakers' point of view (they included Sir Bob Geldof, Gerald Ratner and Karren Brady) makes video an essential marketing tool? Well, I can't reproduce the summit here for you, but here are a few thoughts:

• It's now very cheap to produce and easy to put online
• Technology has evolved sufficiently to offer a great viewing experience
• It can be distributed across multiple video-sharing sites like YouTube and Vimeo, as well as an increasing number of trade directories that will to bring new visitors to your site
• It allows you to communicate personally with a much wider audience than you could ever hope to achieve with networking and face-to-face meetings
• It's available to view online, 24/7
• Compared to traditional advertising, it's effectiveness can be easily measured
• It's great for SEO
• It humanises your website

I could add to this list, but that's for another time. However, you'll see us increasingly use video on this site to promote what we do in a variety of different ways, and we'll be testing and measuring the success of each of those videos. To start with, I'm going to be presenting a series of video workshops to look at the effectiveness of online video for different types of organisation and I'll be starting with student recruitment for higher education. This will go online in September and I'll be pleased to share our results with new and existing clients. If you want to view any of these new video workshops, or if you have any suggestions for specific subject areas you want me to cover, please e-mail info@spectrecom.co.uk with the subject headline "video workshops".

Goldsmiths in south-east London is a globally-renowned arts institution, revered for its unconventionality, its high academic standards of teaching and for producing alumni who have changed the face of British art and design, such as Anthony Gormley and Damien Hirst.

Spectrecom recently delivered this student recruitment video to promote their prestigious Department of Art, which specialises in making, curating and writing about contemporary art and brings together students and researchers from all over the world.

Having worked with over 30 institutions, from small colleges to the most prestigious UK universities, Spectrecom is the UK’s leading producers of student recruitment videos.

To discuss your student recruitment video(s) or get a quotation, please feel free to contact me at christiaan@spectrecom.co.uk or call on 0203 405 2260.

Take a look at the video below to see what happened!

The single is a cover of Blink 182's "All The Small Things" and is now available to purchase digitally in the UK.

It comes just ahead of the launch of their debut album 'PlanetJedward', due for release in the UK from July 26th.

It was a really fun day for everyone involved and we hope to see them here again soon. 

The Cumberland is renowned internationally for it's creativity, innovation and flair; and offers paying guests a hotel experience like no other. So ... to do the hotel justice, we knew we had to deliver a film with creativity and production values to match. 

Shot on a Canon 5D, the film we produced showcases many of the areas of the hotel including the lobby, which doubles up as one of London’s most exciting contemporary art galleries, the Michelin-starred Rhodes W1 Restaurant and the designer-industrial Carbon Bar. We hope you enjoy it! 

To discuss your hotel or resort's video production requirements or get a quotation, please contact Christiaan Harden at christiaan@spectrecom.co.uk or call on 0203 405 2260.

This video focuses on The Department of Media and Communications, one of the UK's leading institutions for both media theory and practice, offering a diverse range of undergraduate and post-graduate degrees. With over 700 students in the department, it's a lively and challenging place to study.

Having worked with over 30 institutions - from small colleges to the most prestigious UK universities - Spectrecom is the UK’s leading producer of student recruitment videos.

To discuss your student recruitment video(s) or get a quotation, please feel free to contact me at christiaan@spectrecom.co.uk or call on 0203 405 2260. 

To find out more about his amazing work and watch a whole range of other videos, you'll find his website here. 

Right ... now what I have done with my Etch-a-Sketch? 

Their aim is to provide one of the finest centres for the study and creation of theatre and drama in the country, through a reflective and critical contribution to innovation in contemporary production and performance practice.

Students come from a wide range of backgrounds and there are currently approximately 180 undergraduates, 80 MA and 30 research postgraduate students in the Department.

Here's Spectrecom's student recruitment video showcasing the popular department. 

Producing a series of student recruitment videos for Goldsmiths, University of London was always going to be a challenge.

Not because of a lack of content or great selling points - far from it - but due the fact that Goldsmiths is a globally-renowned arts institution, revered for its unconventionality, its high academic standards of teaching and for producing alumni who have changed the face of British art and design. Famous alumni include Lucien Freud, Damon Albarn, Anthony Gormley and Damien Hirst, to name but a few.  

We felt the best way to convey this would be with a high standard of individual video aesthetics. So ... the series of 6 student recruitment videos our creative team delivered feature rich and colourful HD imagery, imbued with a constant sense of movement and visual interest, in a way that we feel befits an institution that offers an unrivalled education in the creative industries.

Here's the first film, a short trailer showcasing student life at Goldsmiths. The remaining films focus on departments within the college and I'll be posting them to this blog over the next few weeks.

Having worked with over 30 institutions, from small colleges to the most prestigious UK universities, Spectrecom is the UK’s leading producers of student recruitment videos. To discuss your student recruitment video(s) or get a quotation, please feel free to contact me at christiaan@spectrecom.co.uk or call on 0203 405 2260.

Our Studio Manager, Jonny Franklin, chose Denis Bergkamp's last-minute winning goal for Holland against Argentina in the 1998 quarter-final and managed to bag himself and three mates tickets to the England vs Slovenia game in Port Elizabeth! This trip of a lifetime included flights, transfers, 4* accommodation, match-tickets, VIP hospitality; and fortunately a 1-0 win for England. Take a look a winning video above.

So ... even though England have now crashed so disastrously out of the tournament, there's still something to cheer about here in the Spectrecom offices!

He even brought me back a vuvezela, which I plan to inflict on friends and family for the 4 remaining matches. 

Fantasy Football with Baddiel, Franklin & Skinner

Sir Terry had been spending a week or so on board with his charity TOGs - Terry's Old Geezers & Gals. They managed to raise a staggering £83,000, which will all go to help children in the UK.

For more information about the voyage and Terry's Old Geezers & Gals, click here.

Spectrecom were asked by Infracharge Technologies Plc - the parent company behind the POD Point charging unit - to produce a short, presenter-led film to support their launch of two brand new electric vehicle charging products, FastCharge and HomeCharge. Here's the result. 

Given that the premises was still essentially a building site and that the hospitality areas were rudimentary to say the least, we refrained from publicising the studios beyond the pages on this website. However, there's been a steady stream of clients using the new facilities - despite the limitations - and the good news is that we're almost there. Studio 2 became operational in mid-February and Studios 3 & 4 soon followed. The kitchens are finished and the 3 green rooms comfortably furnished. 

We're now making good headway with Studio 1. At 2,000 sq ft, this is the largest studio and we've had to put in a new concrete base to level off the sloping floor (the image of a camera crew riding on a track & dolly, and hurtling down-hill into the cyc wall, just didn't bear thinking about!). So, like the other studios, we're building a 'U' shaped cyc wall, sound-proofing the walls and ceiling, and installing a lighting grid. This studio though, will also have a viewing gallery, and finally, with vehicle access through a shutter door, it'll need two giant steel-framed doors to be specially constructed. The first shoot for Studio 1, running for 5 days, is set for 7th June and we're comfortably on schedule.

To those clients who have already hired one of our studios, thank you for your patience and tolerance as we've continued to build (quietly, I hope) around your shoots. And if you haven't yet visited us, we're ready to welcome you and give you the guided tour.

And no, you won't need to bring your hard hat!

Here's a fantastic viral video created by Kamp Grizzly - a marketing studio in Portland, Oregon - for Johnny Cupcakes. Having built their own bespoke cupcake cannon (you can't get them in the shops), the team from Kamp Grizzly blasted cupcakes directly into volunteers faces and filmed the ensuing carnage at 700fps using the Phantom HD Gold. Enjoy!

Microsoft went back to basics and produced a video featuring a hidden camera prank. OK ... so there's nothing particularly original there, but it's actually pretty entertaining and certainly a far cry from some of Microsoft's other much-lamented efforts. It has absolutely nothing to do with the product that it's trying to promote, Microsoft Office Ultimate software since you ask, but it's engaging, funny and surprisingly watchable. No wonder it's doing so well.

Google has taken a different approach entirely to show us exactly how fast their new-web browser Chrome is. Their new video is slick, clever, beautiful and unique. There's even a bit of humour thrown in too. It features original, intriging and completely unexpected ways to show viewers just how quick the browser is, including comparing it against lightning and even a potato gun! A massive amount of work (and money) has clearly gone into producing this video, but the result is perfect! Something that you could watch again, again and again. No wonder it's had 1.5million views already

Filmed on location at Fincantieri's Monfalcone shipyard in Italy, the video is presented by Alastair Greener, Entertainment Director for Cunard Line; and features the first half of ship's "Float-Out" ceremony

For CUNARD and the dedicated construction team involved, this freezing cold day in January was a truly momentous occasion.

To coincide with this release, Samsung is launching an £8m advertising campaign, combining TV, press, outdoor and online advertising over a three-month period. It will begin with advert below, due to receive its broadcast premiere the very next day during the Champion's League semi-final on ITV1.

Created by the ad agency CHI and masterminded by the electronics manufacturer's marketing director, Mikah Martin-Cruz, the advert "took eight months to produce, required 81 crew members and used 1,256 TV sets to create effects including a three-storey-high cat and what appears to be South America's Iguazu Falls plunging into a city centre".

"The campaign really captures the spirit of 3D TV and brings to life the amazing experience the technology can deliver," said Martin-Cruz. "The launch of the first 3D TV in the UK is such a culturally significant event, we needed to do it justice with a visually exciting campaign that captures the audience's imagination and feel we have done exactly that."

Take a look and see what you think.

Shot on location in New York, watch as the Big Apple is invaded and devoured by 8-bit video game creatures like Pacman, Space Invaders and Donkey Kong!

It's imaginative, well-conceived, brilliantly executed and won't fail to brighten up your day.

Broadcast live "from the top corner of Ealing Film Studios", the event attracted viewers from around the world including the UK, Ireland, Canada, USA, Australia, Spain and Mexico.

And judging by the feedback, it seems the inaugural show was a huge success, particularly the live chat window which incredibly hugely popular. Click on the video link below and you can watch the whole episode in full. 

To tune in for the next show, visit Guerilla Film on Live Stream on Thursday 22nd April @ 19.30 GMT.  

We have produced a wide variety of films and video projects for them including dramas, training films and music videos. Here's a short promo we've just delivered featuring material from many of these projects, showcasing the tremendous work they do, which touches and changes many people's lives.

Heart n Soul grew out of working together and experimenting. Musician Mark Williams, now Director, wanted to explore new ways of music making and using art to make a difference. In 1984, he started running creative sessions in a local music academy for a group of people with learning disabilities who went to the local day service, The Mulberry Centre. Once the group was given the chance to make music together with Mark, original songs flowed out. The Mulberry Crew moved into The Albany where it is still based today, re-naming itself Heart n Soul (the title of one of its new songs). 

Mark was recently awarded an MBE and we are very proud to support and promote the work that he and his dedicated team do.

Fortunately the good people at Blendtec have found out for us.

This video is just the latest release in arguably the most successful viral video marketing campaign of all time and has already generated over 5,000,000 views online.

But if you're one of those people who love Apple products more than your own friends and family, you might find it slightly uncomfortable viewing.

Well ... thanks to Samsung, who have created this fantastic advert for their new 3D TV ... your wait is finally over! 

The video also reveals some surprising "truths" about familiar old masters such as Seurats' Bathers at Asnieres, A Bar at the Follies-Bergère Édouard Manet and the Vitruvian Man (or men).

Enjoy. 

Three friends from my university days, Sarah Aynesworth, Steve Milton and Steve Ryan, helped me form the company. From the outset our idea was to combine a corporate video production company with a studio operation. It was an unusual business model but it stood us in good stead. In that shaky first year, whilst we were slowly building up our corporate video client base, when we could barely afford the coffee bills, the studio accounted for over 50% of our business and kept us going.

Steve Ryan left Spectrecom in 2007 to focus on his own special interests in Bristol, but Sarah, Steve Milton and I remain. Over champagne to celebrate our anniversary, we rather un-modestly agreed a few achievements that I thought worth recording here.

We felt that by and large, we'd succeeded in our intention to put corporate responsibility at the heart of our business, leading to very positive and tangible environmental benefits and training outcomes. For example, we were thrilled when one of our trainees, Georgina Studd, won at the First Light Movie Awards last year.

Something else worthy of note, we've retained our core staff from the early days, and we're delighted that Ben, Christiaan, Pearl and Jonny are still with us.

We made a success of the video / studio model too, resulting in our recent expansion to new studio premises in central London here at Waterloo.

Of course, a business is nothing without it's customers. Over the years we've built up a fantastic client base, won some major awards (including IVCA Gold) and become the UK's undisputed leading producer of University Recruitment Videos. So to all of those clients who have helped Spectrecom become what it is today – a big thank you!

Naturally we recorded quite a few more achievements, but by the time we'd got onto celebrating the upgrade to a much larger stationery cupboard here at Waterloo (it really is spacious), it was felt we were scraping the barrel somewhat. So finally, we toasted Byron Barrett who took over the Faircharm Studio operation from us (now Live Vision Studios). Byron is starting out exactly as we did 5 years ago, combining studio operations with corporate video production, and we wish him the very best of luck.

Where it all started! Andrew's and Sarah's desks at the Faircharm Studio on 1 April 2005.

Here's a great little video from Brian Stark which employs stop motion animation, cut to "Up the Spout" by Mateo Messina. Enjoy.

Google has just released a brand new App - Translate for Animals - which promises to "bridge the gap between animals and humans".

Translate for Animals is an application for Android phones that recognises and transcribes words and phrases that are common to a species, like cats for example. To develop Translate for Animals, Google worked closely with many of the world's top language synthesis teams, and with leaders in the field of animal cognitive linguistics, including senior fellows at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Watch the video above to find out all about the revolutionary App and take a tour about the product here.

An unnamed source at Google stated that "we've always been a pet-friendly company at Google, and we hope that Translate for Animals encourages greater interaction and understanding between animal and human".

If you haven't guessed already, this is of course an April's Fools prank from the guys at Google. And a pretty decent one too.

Inspired by "numbers, geometry and nature", I wasn't convinced by the film at first, but the beautiful motion graphics, accompanied by a perfect choice of music, soon drew me in until I was mesmerised.

Artists and architects have used geometrical and mathematical properties since ancient times, but these properties and sequences are also found in nature too - a phenomenon communicated brilliantly in Vila's short film.

For more information surrouding the theories - The Fibonacci Series & Spiral, The Golden & Angle Ratios, The Delaney Triangulation and Voronoi Tessselations - go to www.etereastudios.com. There are lots of free training materials and 3D workshops, too.

Mental health nursing courses are offered at BSc, diploma for graduates and diploma level. Further information can be found here and here. 

Having worked with over 30 institutions, from small colleges to the most prestigious UK universities, Spectrecom is the UK’s leading producers of student recruitment videos.

To discuss your student recruitment video(s) or get a quotation, please feel free to contact me at christiaan@spectrecom.co.uk or call on 0203 405 2260.

The Open Video Alliance - a “coalition of organisations and individuals committed to the idea that the power of moving image should belong to everyone” - has just launched a new online campaign to “bring video to Wikipedia”, the biggest site yet to implement fully open video.

They argue that although Wikipedia is a fantastic source of information, a text article can only convey so much; and that video can “explain, clarify, and engage like nothing else”.

As part of their campaign, run in conjunction with Miro and Mozilla Drumbeat, they’re providing support to both individuals and organisations who wish to contribute to their vision, including easy-to-follow tutorials on how to post a video, along with a number of community-based projects to support collaborative work.

Find out more about the Open Video Alliance. 

The Academy will provide access to relevant, industry-recognised development, covering the technical, business and interpersonal skills the IT and telecoms workforce needs now, and in the future.

Craig Wilson, Managing Director / Regional Vice President of HP Enterprise Services UK & Ireland, sees the new Academy as ...

     "playing a vital role in helping to create the skills environment the UK needs, particularly by enabling the recognition of skills and endorsement of training which is valued by the sector."

Having worked with over 30 institutions, from small colleges to the most prestigious UK universities, Spectrecom is the UK’s leading producers of student recruitment videos.

To discuss your student recruitment video(s) or get a quotation, please feel free to contact me at christiaan@spectrecom.co.uk or call on 0203 405 2260.

A successful video viral that captures people imagination can result in enormous commercial benefits, for even the smallest business or organisation. Take Blendtec. Their delightfully engrossing viral video series “Will It Blend?” did wonders for the manufacturer’s brand awareness and led directly to an increase the sales. There are however, a number of commercial marketing videos that have “gone viral” for completely the wrong the reasons, damaging well known brands.

Johnson & Johnson released this video to coincide with “International Baby Wearing Month” to promote Motrin pain relief capsules to mum’s suffering ache and pains, but the video also insinuated that many carry their baby’s in slings or pouches as fashion accessories. This implication, real or perceived, led to hundred’s of mums around the world flooding messages boards, social networks and blogs with their thoughts about the pharmaceutical giant. Spoof responses were posted to Youtube and angry mothers threatened boycotts. This was a huge PR disaster for the Motrin brand that seriously challenged the old adage - no such thing as bad publicity. They were ultimately forced to take the ads down and apologise. Here's just one of the re-edited responses;

Hong Kong’s Langham Hotel also fell victim to a very badly misguided viral video campaign. They created a series of three videos entitled “Visiting Hong Kong Is A Big Deal” which featured supposed tourists (actors) having an unpleasant time out-and-about in Hong Kong, returning the sanctuary of the lovely hotel, away from the locals and nasty food. The videos prompted almost instantaneous outrage online from hundreds of mainly Hong Kong based bloggers who found the series offensive. The videos were take down very quickly, but according to one of the actors her scenes “involved acting as a tourist new to Hong Kong, expressing distaste at being served chicken’s feet in a local “dai pai dong”, then eating a spring roll in the restaurant at the Eaton Hotel (part of the Langham group)”. It’s no wonder really then that this video also went “viral” for the wrong reasons. You can read the rest of her story here. This is part of the statement Langham Hotels reportedly released in the aftermath;

 “While we’re pleased that we’ve generated discussion in the forums with the videos we’ve created, we were disappointed that the satirical tone of the videos was misunderstood in some circles. As a result of the potential to magnify the tone in a direction that was not intended, we have decided not to continue with this campaign.”

Sony’s 2006 viral video campaign didn’t cause damage to Sony’s brand because it was misguided … the problem here was deception. In an attempt to sell their Playstation Portable (PSP), their hired viral marketing “specialists” in Zipatoni to produce a fake blog written by two imaginary teenagers, which featured a rap video about how much they wanted their parents to buy them Sony’s struggling product for Christmas. A shrewd blogger soon worked out it was fake and the backlash forced Sony to take the ad down. The dishonesty didn’t put the company out of business, but it certainly did a lot of damage to the Sony brand.

On Wednesday, Greenpeace re-released a pretty shocking video on Youtube attacking snack food manufacturing giant Nestle. The video is a high-production value parody of a well known Kit-Kat ad, but instead of a lovely piece of chocolaty, crispy goodness, an office worker finds an orangutan’s finger.  He then proceeds to chomp down it with a sickening crunch and dribble blood onto his keyboard. It’s pretty nasty.

The video is intended to draw attention to Nestle’s use of palm oil as a key ingredient in many of its products, destroying the rainforest habitat of some the world’s last orangutans in the process. Initially removed at the request of “Societe des Produits Nestlé S.A” due to a copyright complaint, the video has now been re-posted.  Interestingly though, a Nestle spokesperson has recently stated;

"We notified YouTube about the campaign video's infringement of the visual identity of our Kit Kat brand. The video is now back up and we will not submit the form again",

A smart move really. Even though it has an estimated 300,000 views so far, who knows how many people would have seen it if Nestle had come out all guns blazing against Greenpeace’s deliberately provocative stunt.

So … you came up with a great idea for a video to market your business, filmed it, edited it … but the internet has millions upon millions of videos vying for people’s attention, so how do you get your video noticed?

Here are a few tips and tricks to help your video “go viral”.

Video SEO / VSEO – Since Google’s introduction of Universal Search in 2007, which displays blended results from multiple databases, videos now appear prominently in standard Google searches. So make sure you incorporate a video site-map in your website’s HTML code and that you give your video an engaging, keyword rich title.

YouTube & Other Video-Sharing Sites – While Youtube remains the most popular video-sharing on the Internet by some way, there is a plethora of other increasingly popular video websites such as Vimeo and Daily Motion, so make sure you upload your video to as many of them as possible. To help create a buzz online, try to do this simultaneously and not over an extended period of time.

It’s also very important that you optimise your Youtube video correctly. Give it an attention-grabbing headline, include a description loaded with relevant keywords and choose the most relevant tags to your target audience.

An enticing thumbnail is also crucial! Youtube gives you the option of a frame at ¼, ½ and ¾ of the way through your video, so pick the best one. Or why not make sure that your editor places a shot you want use as a thumbnail at any one of these points?

Perhaps most importantly, make sure you check the videos settings, so sharing, downloading and embedding are allowed! The easier your video is to share, the more likely it will become popular. Sharing is what viral marketing is all about. Everything you do to make that easier is going to improve your campaign.

Get People Talking About It - E-mail a link to your video to as many relevant websites and blogs as you can. Sometimes all it takes is a single blogger to get your video moving.

Don’t just upload your video and forget it about it either. Comment on it yourself and start a conversation. Why not start new threads about the video on relevant forums too? You can also post the URL of your video as a response to other relevant videos that will be there for all visitors to see. Be as creative as like with the association.

Become part of the community.

Promote, Promote and Promote Some More – Send a good old-fashioned e-mail with a link to the video to everyone in your address book and encourage them to share it with their friends too.  Post a link to bookmarking sites like DIGG and promote it on your social networks like Facebook and Twitter. If you don’t have profiles on these sites, then sign up asap.

While there are no guarantees that your video will “go viral”, if you invest a bit of time and follow these steps, you give your video the very best chance possible.

Good luck! For a little inspiration, here's a great little video about "Extreme Recycling" currently do well online.

Produced by American comedy-duo BriTANicK - "Two Guys Wasting Thier Degrees" - this 3-minute video brilliantly sends up The Oscars, cliched movie trailers and the entire Hollywood film industry.

With nearly a million Youtube views and counting in just a week since its release, the video is currently riding high in every video viral chart. Click play to see why. 

To view some of their other funny videos and short films, click here. 

As discussed yesterday, a "viral video" is simply a video that becomes popular through the process of Internet sharing. There are no silver bullets to ensure your marketing videos “go viral”, but there are definitely a few golden rules.  Here they are.

Target Audience – Think carefully about who you want to watch your video and what action you want them to take having done so.  It’s crucial that you tailor your video’s style and content to appeal to the right people.  Consider age group, gender, location and tastes of the audience you want your video to connect with. 

Keep it Short – Successful viral videos are almost always short, usually just 1 or 2 minutes in length, if that. Online viewers have notoriously short attention spans, so keep it punchy to grab their attention.  If you do, they are likely to share your video across multiple social networking sites, quickly generating good momentum and potentially millions of views for your video marketing campaign. 

Make It Funny – Humour is often key to a successful video viral. Many of the most effective video viral campaigns have been driven by making people laugh.  People like to be entertained. There’s only one thing they like more – entertaining their friends. Make somebody laugh and the chances are they’ll want to do the same for their friends and will share your video with them. 

Distribute it Properly – So … you’ve made your video, but how do make sure it gets noticed in a crowded online world? If you put the video on your own website, even on the homepage, the chances are that unless your site already has a loyal following of thousands, it probably won’t get picked up by the right people. What you need to do is propagate the video across the Internet’s many video-sharing platforms. There’s a lot more out there than Youtube you know! You should also be posting news of the video’s release to you or your company’s blog, twitter feed and social networking profiles like Facebook.

No Hard Sell  - People watch videos to be entertained, not to discover information about a company’s products and services. They have to want to watch the video for its own entertainment value. If you give them the hard sell and bombard them information, you might as well not bother. They probably won’t watch it to the end, and are very unlikely to share it. 

Production Values – Don’t worry too much about production values. Your video needs to been watchable, with decent sound, but a good idea far outweighs shooting on a REDONE.

You can never guarantee that a video will “go viral”, but if you follow these guidelines, you’ll give it every chance. If it does, viral video marketing can be one of the most cost-effective online marketing solutions around. But don’t put all your eggs in one basket though, viral videos should be one element of comprehensive marketing strategy, and not the main focus of it.

The real beauty is that viral videos mean that even the smallest business can compete online with the largest corporations. There are plenty of video production companies out there who will produce videos for you and many of them are worth working with, but if you have a good idea and video camera, you can do it yourself.

I hope you found this article useful, come back tomorrow for some top tips on how on how to get your video noticed online. In the meantime, here's a great video from BMW that's currently doing well very online. 

Commercial marketing videos that “go viral” can bring companies and organisations a huge amount of PR value, in the form of online visibility, brand recognition and website hits, often for a very small cost. But how does a marketing video “go viral” and why are some videos more successful than others?

A "viral video" is simply a video that becomes popular through the process of Internet sharing and to understand how they work, it’s important to look at how they began.  Viral videos predate video sharing sites like Youtube that we are all now familiar with and began with inbox-to-inbox e-mail sharing. 

One of the first known examples was “Dancing Baby” (above), when in 1996 animator Ron Lussier forwarded a video he'd created around his workplace, which was then circulated widely across the Internet via e-mail. Today however, sharing videos via e-mail still happens, but it’s been dwarfed by the sharing of videos across social networking websites like Facebook or Twitter, and the many video-sharing sites that have sprung up since the inception of Youtube.

The fundamental premise of viral marketing has in fact been around for much longer than inbox-to-inbox sharing: word-of-mouth. All that’s changed is the conversations are now happening online and across a much larger geographical area. Every good marketer knows that word-of-mouth can be an incredibly powerful marketing tool and what the web does is amplify that power, potentially many times over. Videos are simply a strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message’s exposure and influence; and hopefully driving people to your website where they can learn more about what it is your offering.

If somebody enjoys watching your video, the chances are that they’ll immediately share it with their friends, who in turn, will share it with their friends too.  If the video really captures people’s imagination the process becomes self-perpetuating and creates a real buzz online, quickly becoming part of multiple online discussions. Here's a great example of marketing video that instantly went viral from Honda:

An integral element of the process is that when somebody shares a video, the people they share them with are usually part of a broadly similar demographic, in terms of age, gender, interests, purchasing power and taste. This means that the video is being seen by exactly the right people, who are also likely to have an interest in your company’s products or services.

Many videos will “go viral” unexpectedly and / or organically; and one video is usually more successful than another simply because it strikes a chord and captures people’s imaginations. However today, successful viral video marketing campaigns often rely upon a carefully planned distribution strategy too (something I'll be going into more about later in the week); and an entire industry has also evolved over the last few years, which produces and distributes “viral” videos on behalf of business and organisations.

It's a scene where a girl punk rock - played by Rachel Bright (Kelly), Victoria Gaskell-Watkins (Roxy), Eleanor Lawrence (Dixie) and Roxanne Saili (Trisky) - perform a song called "Woman Killer, recorded 'live' by the cast with a little help from Simon Duckworth.

Mark is a member of Spectrecom's creative team and has a fantastic track record in making highly original comedy films on a budget! He's been working on "Silly Billy" for the last couple of years. It's all in the can, editing is nearly complete and will be officially released at some point in 2010

Mark is currently selling credits and VIP perks on the film to raise some funds to complete the post-production.

To find out more check out www.sillybillymovie.com or take a look at his website: www.jacksonfilm.co.uk

York has established a national and international reputation for the quality of its academic programmes and its research since its foundation in 1963. The University ranked 9th in the 2008 Sunday Times University Guide, has been ranked in the top 10 for research in the recent 2008 RAE results, and has also been ranked in the top 100 of world universities by the QS - Times Higher Education Supplement rankings of the leading 500 world universities.

The overall strength of the University and the attractions of the City of York offer a strong incentive to choose York - one of Britain's most successful universities. 

Having worked with over 30 institutions, from small colleges to the most prestigious UK universities, Spectrecom is the UK’s leading producers of student recruitment videos.

To discuss your student recruitment video(s) or get a quotation, please feel free to contact me at christiaan@spectrecom.co.uk or call on 0203 405 2260.

Mark is a member of Spectrecom's creative team and has a fantastic track record in making highly original comedy films on a budget!

He's been working on "Silly Billy" for the last couple of years. It's all in the can, editing is nearly complete and will be officially released at some point in 2010

Mark is currently selling credits and VIP perks on the film to raise some funds to complete the post-production.

To find out more check out www.sillybillymovie.com or take a look at his website: www.jacksonfilm.co.uk

A slobby couch potato football fan runs all the way to South Africa - getting himself in shape on the way - ending up in Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium where he sprints onto the pitch and scores a winning goal.

The shoot took nine days across various locations in Morocco and South Africa - home country to both Smith and Santana; and the hero is actually played by three actors - one lead and two body doubles.

Apparently, the production team also had a movement specialist on set who taught the actors how to run correctly and in the same way to make it look seamless.

Take a look and see what you think.

LIQUID's brand new music video featuring female vocalist Meina Symone. Produced by DJ Naya, G.A.N.G Records UK & Flipside Inc, the track is due for release nationwide in Summer 2010.

You can forward your own instrumental to G.A.N.G Records, by submitting a contact via their website.

OK ... so it's dogs in slow-motion catching treats in mid-air, but what could be better on Friday afternoon!

Have a great weekend

Directed by James Frost, OK Go and Syyn Labs, the video begins with the band member pushing a red truck into pile of dominoes, which starts off an incredible chain reaction of random objects hitting each other, until finally a cannon shoots paint at the group.

The video for "This Too Shall Pass", from the album "Of the Blue Colour of the Sky", was filmed in one take at a Los Angeles warehouse and took 60 attempts over two days to get it just right! 

Take a look and see what you think. 

Here's a link to the website where you can read all about it!

Mark's been working on the film for the last couple of years. It's all in the can, editing is nearly complete and will be officially released at some point in 2010. Check out this scene from the film entitled "Pulling", in which Billy hits the dance floor and tries to impress the ladies with his natural charm. 

Mark has fantastic track record in making highly original comedy films on a budget!

To find out more about him, take a look at his website: www.jacksonfilm.co.uk





Sussex are also determined that their UK students graduate with a world view, which is why one in seven of Sussex University's undergraduates spend part of their degree overseas.  

Here's a student recruitment video produced by Spectrecom showcasing what the University of Sussex has to offer international students. Click here for more information.

Having worked with over 30 institutions, from small colleges to the most prestigious UK universities, Spectrecom are the UK’s leading producers of student recruitment videos.

To discuss your student recruitment video(s) or get a quotation, please feel free to contact me at christiaan@spectrecom.co.uk or call on 0203 405 2260.

There's Rajeshwar Anand, the Operations Director at Kwiqq, a start-up social website builder company that provides online communities or "whitelabel Facebooks" to corporations and councils. Sussex provided Rajeshwar  with "the tools not only to programme software, but also to build a business"; and that "the University produces students with excellent degrees combined with the passion to make a differenc." 

Then there's Jeta Bejtullahu, a Communications Officer at the European Social Network (ESN), an NGO supported by the European commission.

As a former Sussex student you are automatically a member of the Alumni Network, and entitled to enjoy the benefits and services that this provides, including a subscription to the Alumni magazine.

Having worked with over 30 institutions, from small colleges to the most prestigious UK universities, Spectrecom are the UK’s leading producers of student recruitment videos.

To discuss your student recruitment video(s) or get a quotation, please feel free to contact me at christiaan@spectrecom.co.uk or call on 0203 405 2260 

In this video Alastair Greener explores what will eventually be a magnificent theatre right at the heart of the ship, continuing a Cunard tradition that started on Queen Victoria. The theatre will feature art deco flourishes, signature theatre boxes and will play host to a brand new repertoire of shows. 

Find out more about Spectrecom's corporate video production work.

So .. instead of a predictable student recruitment film with cliched shots of bedrooms and common areas, Spectrecom delivered a video that takes inspiration from "Cribs", a franchise reality television program on the MTV Networks that features tours of the houses and mansions of celebrities. Here it is.

Having worked with over 30 institutions, from small colleges to the most prestigious UK universities, Spectrecom are the UK’s leading producers of student recruitment videos.

To discuss your student recruitment video(s) or get a quotation, please feel free to contact me at christiaan@spectrecom.co.uk or call on 0203 405 2260 

Here's the 4th and final student recruitment video produced by Spectrecom showcasing courses, faculties and academic departments at the University of Sussex to prospective students.

Dr Graham McAllister is the Managing Director of Vertical Slice – the UK’s first video game usability user-experience company. He set the company up while studying Informatics at the University of Sussex and is building rich body of knowledge on how people interact with gaming technology.

To discuss your student recruitment video(s) or get a quotation, please feel free to contact me at christiaan@spectrecom.co.uk or call on 0203 405 2260

Here's the 3rd student recruitment video produced by Spectrecom for the University of Sussex showcasing courses, faculties and academic departments to prospective students.  

The University of Sussex is world centre of expertise on energy policy research and the international politics of climate change. In this film we meet Dr David Ockwell - a member of the Sussex Energy Group – and find out about his work on the transfer of green technologies to poorer countries.

Having worked with over 30 institutions, from small colleges to the most prestigious UK universities, Spectrecom are the UK’s leading producers of student recruitment videos.

To discuss your student recruitment video(s) or get a quotation, please feel free to contact me at christiaan@spectrecom.co.uk or call on 0203 405 2260

Here's the 2nd student recruitment video produced by Spectrecom for the University of Sussex showcasing courses, faculties and academic departments to prospective students. 

Francis Ratnieks is the only professor of apiculture in the UK. He’s based at the University of Sussex working on a 5-year-plan, compromising 4 separate projects, to help the reverse the decline in UK honeybees. In this film we find out about his fascinating and invaluable work.

Having worked with over 30 institutions, from small colleges to the most prestigious UK universities, Spectrecom are the UK’s leading producers of student recruitment videos.

To discuss your student recruitment video(s) or get a quotation, please feel free to contact me at christiaan@spectrecom.co.uk or call on 0203 405 2260

In March 2009, Spectrecom was commissioned by the University of Sussex to produce a series of short student recruitment videos showcasing courses, faculties and academic departments to prospective students. The marketing department at Sussex knew they wanted to showcase the University’s prestigious doctoral research programmes, but were unsure about the most effective way to do this? 

The problem was that the research areas were often detailed, technical and complex, so to communicate the key messages in an engaging and accessible way, Spectrecom proposed producing a series of people-focused, story-based case studies – and not a series of films packed with facts, graphs and statistics.

Spectrecom researched a number of possible case studies, before settling on four stories. Each film was then shot in a distinct style to reflect the subject matter at hand.

Here's the first student recruitment video from the series. It's called "Happy Ever After" and features Dr Claire Langhammer, currently studying the history of love at Sussex using the internationally renowned Mass Observation Archive held at the University, which has allowed her to determine how conceptions of love change over time, depending on the historical context. 

This film features Gurmik Brainch, a BSC Information Technology student at the University of Kent, currently working as a Support Analysts at Select Software in Canterbury - a mid-market consulting, software and solutions provider.

To find out more about Spectrecom's work with E-Skills and view all 5 student recruitment videos, just click on the links.

Click on the link to find out more about Spectrecom's corporate video production work. 

The post included a short excerpt from the film, which features Chris Bonnington and gyro-stabilised aerial footage, however you now watch the entire 8-min film by clicking on the image above. Hope you enjoy it. 

"Spectrecom undertook a challenging brief for the University, to produce an anniversary film against demanding deadlines and a shifting perception of what was desired from the final product. The latter is illustrated by a storyboard which was still evolving a week before the film was premiered! Despite this, Andrew Greener and his team remained positive and highly responsive to our needs - both real and imagined.

It was a great pleasure to work with Spectrecom; I very much hope to have the chance to work with them again in the future. Apart from being highly professional and creative, they are a lot of fun and I developed a very good working relationship with them. The quality of their work speaks for itself. We felt we got extremely good value for our money."

Nick Fragel, Director of Alumni & Development, Lancaster University

Spectrecom are the UK's market leading producers of student recruitment videos. 

Here's the 4th student recruitment video of this series in which we meet Rob, a third year computing student at the University of Kent, who has been working at Kinetic Solutions, a UK based developer of event management and conference software, for over five months.

With centres based at King's College London, Imperial College London, Queen Mary and University College London, it is focused on supporting applications for funding from NHS researchers and those working in partnership with the NHS. Advice is provided free of charge and is available through use of online resource and consultations with experts. Click here to find out more.  

"From start to finish Spectrecom were a delight to work with their friendly yet professional attitude to work made the process easy and enjoyable. Creatively, I can't flaw them, we had a rough idea of what we wanted and they took that and made it into something that exceeded our expectations".

David Smith, Communications Manager, RDS London

Click here to view more of Spectrecom's corporate video production work.

Student recruitment videos are quickly becoming the most popular student recruitment tool among universities, colleges and training providers, not only across the UK, but around the world too.

Marketers understand that if you want to get your institution and its courses noticed, producing good student recruitment videos is the most powerful and cost effective way to do so. Video will engage prospective students far more than the written word ever can, helping you to compete in a highly competitive student marketplace and crowded online world.  

Thanks to falling video production costs, universities, colleges and training providers, large and small, can afford and benefit from creating student recruitment videos. Once produced, these videos can then be very easily incorporated into websites, propagated online via video-sharing sites and social-networks, and burnt onto DVDs for use at careers fairs and recruitment events.

However, it is a mistake to treat a student recruitment video, as you would a prospectus. That’s not to say that a printed or online prospectus isn’t a valuable tool. It is. But detailed information about an institution or its courses has very little place in a recruitment video.  Not if you want people to watch and remember it.

A video should be used to show prospective students what you have to offer, not just tell them about it. Prospective students want to see what the facilities, buildings and grounds look like; they want to meet the people they’ll be learning with, taught by and possibly living with; and they want get a feel for the place before applying. They might be seeking out information, but they don’t want to be bombarded with a list of statistics. 

Prospective students want the information to be presented to them in a way they can relate to and engage with. They have hundreds, possibly thousands of educational options to choose from and don’t have the time to be patronised or bored.  Also, as irritating as the saying might be, in this case it’s right. Less is definitely more. Online films over 5-minutes in length are very rarely watched all the way through, so it’s always better to produce shorter student recruitment videos.

Production values are important too. Amateurish videos suggest, well … amateurish institutions. A badly edited student recruitment video, packed with statistics, with no discernable narrative, poor direction and terrible sound quality, will always reflect badly. If the video is poor, prospective students will naturally expect the same of your institutions and courses. But producing student recruitment videos is a craft that requires experience, knowledge and technical expertise; so in most cases is best left to professional video production companies.

Long gone are the days when student recruitments videos took longer to load, than it did to read an entire prospectus. The vast majority of prospective students watch good quality online video everyday and their sophisticated tastes must be catered for. Just remember, the back button is not very far away.

Bad studio recruitment videos aren’t just a waste of time and money.  They can do serious damage to your reputation.

Spectrecom are the UK's leading producer of student recruitment videos.

Feel free to get in touch to discuss your ideas - christiaan@spectrecom.co.uk or call on 0203 405 2260  

Here's his latest video for a new single by Hammer - a popular London-based rapper and grime artist. The track "Mic Check" ft. J-Swizzy is taken from the forthcoming "Confidence 10 Million Project" and will be available from 8th March 2010 through iTunes.

You can view more of Mark's work right here. I'll also be posting some very exciting news soon and about his feature-length comedy punk musical, currently in post-production.

In this video Alastair Greener explores the bow section, one of two sections which is yet to be attached to the rest of the ship and meets Queen Elizabeth's Outfitting Manager, Emmanuelle Etrouant, who describes how the massive sections will be fitted together.

Three crews are a currently working around the clock to complete the ship on time.

View more of Spectrecom's corporate video production work here. 

The first Queen Elizabeth was one of Cunard’s greatest ships, and the new Queen Elizabeth will reflect her predecessor in interior grandeur, décor and style, but with a modern twist. She will depart for her Maiden Voyage on Tuesday 12 October 2010. This 13-night celebration will leave from the company’s home port, Southampton, and will call at Vigo, Lisbon, Cadiz, Las Palmas, Santa Cruz de Tenerife (overnight call) and Funchal.

View more of Spectrecom's corporate video production work here. 

In this video blog, you can watch various sections of the ship start coming together and Entertainment Director for Cunard Line, Alastair Greener, become the first crew member to step on board.

Over the next weeks, I'll be posting a video blog produced by Spectrecom and hosted by the Entertainment Director for Cunard Line, Alastair Greener, charting the construction of the gigantic ship, which will be joining the fleet in October 2010. 

I hope you enjoy it.

View more of Spectrecom's corporate video production work.

The Fish Police are a 3-piece band hailing from South London, mixing funk, punk and hip-hop, whose influences include Japanese TV, fast food, games, cartoons, hip-hop, scratching, punk, funk and fake tans! Check out the video above, produced by Spectrecom, to see them in action.

Comprised of Matthew Howe, Charles Stewart and Dean Rodney, the trio got to know each other when Charles trained Dean and Matthew as part of Heart ‘n’ Soul Youth, a charity that provides a creative outlet for people with learning difficulties; and who continue to support the Fish Police so they can write new songs. You can join them on MySpace here.

The band will shortly be going into the studio to record their debut album CheeseBurger Man. Here’s a review of one of their performances by Bill Bragin and another by Jo Verrant at Disability Online.

Click on this link to view more of Spectrecom’s film and video production work with Heart ‘n’ Soul and other UK charities.

Well ... here's a great article from Peter Wylie at Social Media Examiner that tells you exactly how to do it!

Do you want to squeeze as much value as possible out of your corporate video? Do you want to reach more people? Generate more leads? If so, then you really need to read this video marketing article. Enjoy! 

View Spectrecom's corporate video production work.

In it, Johnson talks to Linda L Briggs from Campus Technology about new ways in which technologies such as online student recruitment videos are being used to connect with students and parents - and how students use technology to find colleges and universities. Johnson also discusses why putting excess effort into a school's home page isn't necessarily the best use of online marketing funds.

Having worked with over 30 institutions, from small colleges to the most prestigious UK universities, Spectrecom are the UK’s leading producers of student recruitment videos.

Unfortunately, the 2' 17" second PowerPoint-style slide show of images around the University's campus, cut to an original song claiming that the school is "hot hot hot", inadvertently played into the stereotype that people from Appalachia are unsophisticated and out of touch. An editorial in the Appalachian State student newspaper criticised the video, calling it "so ridiculously tacky one cannot help but laugh when watching it," adding, "The jingle is horrible, the lyrics are absurd and the pictures make Appalachian seem like an institution stuck in the 1970s."

However, the video was not actually an official project and in the wake of the response is no longer used by the University. It was originally created for the Appalachian Family Caravan tour by Chancellor Kenneth E. Peacock and then posted to the University's website. Peacock described the video's role in promotion:

"It was used primarily for the Appalachian Caravan, taking it out with us on the road to show that Appalachian is a great institution and it’s hot in many ways. So in order to understand fully that video, you almost had to be at one of those Caravan events. I think they took it off the Web site because, without it being a Caravan event, it’s confusing. People don’t really understand what the message is with the song. It was all done in fun, to go and energize our alumni and say here are some things that are happening on campus, holding up the highlights of faculty, programs, accomplishments of students, and say ‘You know why this is possible? It’s because Appalachian is hot. It builds all around that whole theme." 

Take a look at the video and see what you think?

For quality student recruitment films with proven results, get in touch with Spectrecom. Having worked with over 30 institutions, from small colleges to the most prestigious UK universities, we are the UK’s leading producers of student recruitment videos.

In 2009, one of the world’s foremost Universities, Yale in the United States, decided that it was high-time they replaced their decade-old student recruitment video, which had become stale and outdated. According to Andrew Johnson, a Yale graduate now working in the admissions office and the creator of “That’s Why I Chose Yale"; 

“Students in the previous video were rollerblading around campus, others were wearing baggy shirts and high-waisted jean shorts. The fashion sense of the people in the video was noticeably different, distractingly different. What’s more, three of the people interviewed in the video had died and some of the professors had left the university.”

“In creating the video, we hoped to showcase the energy and community on campus in a novel way,” said Johnson. “We decided on a musical because we felt it would be entertaining enough to keep people’s interest, while also showcasing the vast reserve of willing undergraduate talent on campus.”

But Johnson’s videos was met with a mixture of derision and acclaim. And the 17-minute continues to divide opinion - either people love it, or they hate it.

It’s definitely attention-grabbing and will undoubtedly go some way to eroding Yale’s perhaps undeserved stuffy image, but there’s a very fine between self-deprecating tongue-in-cheek satire and silliness, which isn’t always easy to get right. Take a look at the video and see what you think.

Our creative team have just delivered a new student recruitment video for The Institute of Psychiatry. Click on the image above to take a look.

Opened in 1923, The Institute of Psychiatry is the only postgraduate institution in the United Kingdom devoted solely to the study and practice of psychiatry and related disciplines. It became a school of King’s College London in August 1997 and currently shares the same site as the Maudsley Hospital. The Institute is “devoted to establish the best possible care for people who experience mental health problems.”

Click on this link to find out more about Spectrecom’s award-winning student recruitment films.

Click on the link above to watch a little behind-the-scenes "making-of" video showing Director Steve Lennon and two of Harlequins' players making sure they get the "Big-Hit" right.

You'll be pleased to hear (or maybe not) that no traffic wardens were injured in the making of this video.

On Spectrecom’s last day of work before the Christmas break, our creative team braved freezing cold conditions to shoot an amusing video viral for Harlequins Rugby League. Click on the image above to check it out.

The viral marks the start of Harlequins RL’s 'Look Who's Been Watching' video marketing campaign, designed to demonstrate that a) Quins RL fans aren't just your typical flat-cap-wearing Northern blokes and b) you can always spot them because they're the ones who, because they've been watching maybe a little too much RL action, are prone to delivering Quins-style Big Hits as part of their everyday life!

The viral was played at half-time on the big screen at Twickenham and now the Club are inviting fans and members of the public to get their creative juices flowing and pitch their own viral ideas. The lucky winner will have their concept made into a Harlequins Rugby League advert and might even get to star in it!

Because advertising is subject to the restrictions of good taste and the English legal system, there are certain rules you'll need to follow, so check them out here. Think you can tackle it? Click on this link to send them a basic scenario of your ideal online ad and they'll pick a winner by the end of March 2010.

These are some of the ideas that they've already seen – some are brilliant, some are usable, some are neither. Make sure you come up with something different. And better. And hilarious!

Bank Robber - We see a middle-aged school mum outside a bank. Alarm bells ring as the masked robber exits, she body checks him and brings him to the ground!

New Year Sales - Action takes place in a department store. A scrum occurs around a 'dump bin' in the cookware department. A big burly man manages to grab the last Le Creuset cookpot. As he makes for the till, a gaggle of fellow shoppers converge on him and bring him down!

The Wingman - 2 guys are hanging out in a trendy bar and spot 2 girls on the other side of the room. One of the guys turns to his friend and ask if he'll be his 'wingman' and distract the 'not so attractive girl' whilst he tries to chat up the other one. His mate agrees but gets the wrong end of the stick, runs across the bar and takes out the girl with a huge 'Big Hit'!

Good luck! 

Many people have found Mindfulness useful, whether they have used it to help them deal with recurrent depression or anxiety, or as a tool to improve their mental wellbeing and help them deal with stress.

Kathy Andrews finds mindfulness to be the "piece that was missing from other kinds of therapy", which allows her to "deal with what is going on in the present moment."

If you want to find out more about Mindfulness and the MHF's campaign, click here to be taken their brand new microsite. Click on these links to view more of Spectrecom's charity marketing and charity fundraising videos.

You can also view all six films from the Mindfulness project right here.

Ed is an independent health writer and practices in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition. He is the author of Up and Running: Exercise And The Treatment of Mild To Moderate Depression In Primary Care, as well of the MHF's report on Mindfulness. www.edhalliwell.com

"Mindfulness" offers people a way of working with their minds, which will not only benefit their mental health but physical health as well. To find out more, check out the MHF's Mindfulness Website.

Click on these links to find out more about Spectrecom's charity marketing and charity fundraising videos. 

Today, even the smallest businesses can afford and benefit from commissioning a corporate video to promote their products or services. Here’s why:

Corporate videos mean that you can actually show potential customers your product or service in action, not just tell them about it

Corporate videos can be easily and inexpensively propagated online, enabling any business to reach large audiences at a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising. If consumers like what they see, corporate videos can also be easily, and very quickly shared via online social networks like Twitter or Facebook.

For a relatively small cost, corporate videos can be easily updated at a later date to reflect changes in a company’s products, services or brand.

Print brochures cannot.By eliminating inefficiencies and reducing errors, corporate videos can greatly improve the productivity and therefore the profit margins of any business. 

The bottom line is that a well-produced corporate video can be highly cost-effective tool in any organisation’s armory – delivering enormous commercial benefits, at a very low price.

As websites without video content begin to look increasingly archaic and the Internet continues to replace traditional advertising media, organisations across the public, private and charity sectors are falling over themselves to produce videos about what they do and who they are.

However, as the saying goes, fools rush in where angels fear to tread. That’s not to say that corporate video production isn’t important. It is. Extremely. In fact in 2010, if you want to compete (particularly online), a corporate video has become a virtual commercial necessity. But if you really want your video to be effective, it’s crucial that you get in right. 

A badly constructed corporate video with no discernable narrative, poor direction, terrible sound quality, mixed messages and amateurish production values will always reflect badly on an organisation. If the video is poor, prospective customers or clients will naturally expect the same of your products or services.

Despite what seems very obvious, from time-to-time people will tell me that they have decided to go “in-house” for their corporate video, which more-often-than-not means purchasing a cheap camcorder and a basic editing package. But good corporate video production is a craft that requires experience, knowledge and technical expertise; and in most cases is best left to professional video production companies.

Would you hand out a tatty, photocopied leaflet to promote your product or services? Or would you prefer a glossy, attractive, professional-looking document? Which one do you think is most likely to be effective? Which one would you be embarrassed to hand out?

Long gone are the days when watching video online was a frustrating, time-consuming experience. Today, consumers on the web are bombarded with information, they’re used to watching good quality video content and expect well-crafted films with decent resolution. If not, the back button, or a competitor’s website, is not very far away.

A bad corporate video isn’t just throwing away money. Much more is potentially at stake. 

You risk throwing away your reputation.

This video features US comedian Ruby Wax - a well known sufferer from depression - talk about how 'Mindfulness' helps her cool down when she is feeling pressured or anxious, describing the technique as "by far the best tool I have to calm me down and take the heat out of my thoughts and feelings". 

Click on the link for more information about Spectrecom's charity marketing work and charity fundraising videos.

Thanks the rise of the Internet, particularly the revolution of social media networks and online video marketing, consumer interaction has changed drastically over the past few years.

Here's a brilliant animation from Michael Reissinger that illustrates exactly how this relationship has changed.

In this video you can watch Dr Andrew McCulloch, CEO of the Mental Health Foundation, talk about the research that his Foundation has undertaken around Mindfulness as a treatment for recurrent depression and the campaign to increase availability of mindfulness treatments on the NHS. 

To find out more about the MHF's Mindfulness campaign click here: http://www.bemindful.co.uk/

Continuing our video production work with the charity sector, the Mental Health Foundation has just released a series of short films produced by Spectrecom to help promote it's "Mindfulness" campaign and raise awareness about its benefits. 

"Mindfulness" helps people change the way they think, feel and act. It helps them to break free from a downward spiral of negative thought and action, and make positive choices that support their wellbeing. It can also help with recurrent depression, anxiety disorders and addictive behaviour – and other mental and physical problems including stress and chronic pain. Anyone can learn Mindfulness. It’s simple, you can practice it anywhere and its effects can be life changing.

The full series of videos can be found here on the MHF's Mindfulness Microsite and in the video above, you can watch Professor Mark Williams talk about mindfulness meditation as an alternative treatment for depression.

I'll also be posting a video from the series right here on Spectrecom's blog everyday this week.

If businesses want to compete in 2010, they will have to do so online. And to do so effectively, they will have to settle their prospective customers’ and clients’ increasingly huge appetites for online video. While print and television advertising are on the wane, corporate video production and online video marketing are on the rise.

No longer is corporate video seen as mere frippery or regarded with disdain, nor is it reserved for only the largest corporations. Today, businesses large and small, are benefiting enormously from good corporate videos and online video marketing. They’re enjoying greater reach and better margins; and advertising research suggests that they will commission more corporate video in than 2010, than ever before.

As a result, companies without video content on their website this year will soon find themselves behind the competition and struggle to get noticed. It is said that a company’s website has become its shop-front. Would you enter a shop with nothing in the window?

A good corporate video, formatted for viewing online, showcasing who you are and what you do, is fast becoming integral to commercial success - but bad corporate video, should never be a substitute for none. A badly produced video sends out completely the wrong messages about any organisation, its service and its products; and can destroy a company’s hard-earned reputation.

Internet users are also extremely fickle and poor quality material with low production values will soon have them tuning out, reaching for the back button and most-worryingly browsing a competitor’s website. As camera technologies and Internet bandwidth continue to improve, so too will the importance of quality, watchable, engaging, well-crafted video content, which is why in most cases it’s best left to professional video production companies.

In the right hands, corporate video production can be a very powerful tool in today’s marketing arsenal, so make sure your business has a clear video marketing strategy in place for 2010.

Your prospective clients and customers are demanding video.

You must supply it. 

These awards are Europe’s largest and most prestigious celebration of the best in corporate video production and public sector communication, and winning an IVCA Award brings with it national and international recognition. There is simply no higher corporate video production accolade for creativity, originality, production expertise and sheer effectiveness in communication!

The gala Awards Ceremony will be held at the Grosvenor House Hotel, London, on the evening of Friday 26th March 2010. Tickets will be made available soon.

A percentage this high clearly suggests that online video marketing is here to stay and that the reluctance of smaller companies to embrace video technologies is futile. It's also reflects a renewed sense of optimism among small business owners about the direction of the global economy, combined with the increased affordability of corporate video production and video adverts. There is nothing to suggest that this trend won't continue apace. 

Here's a video that Spectrecom produced nearly three years ago for Coleshill Organics, who were clearly well ahead of the game.

Here's a link to a brilliant illustration on the Alfa Bravo blog - an online media consultancy & business development company in Stockholm, Sweden, founded by Henrik Ahlen - that lays out the many, many applications of corporate video production, from glossy commercials and large company presentations at one end, to video blogs and customer testimonials on the other. Enjoy.

So, 2009 is over and a new decade is finally upon us, but what will 2010 mean for corporate video production and online video marketing? Well … all the signs suggest that it looks set to explode! Here’s why.

Long gone are the days when watching video online was a frustrating, heavily-pixellated experience. Thanks to the ubiquity of the Internet and ever-increasing bandwidths, we are all watching more online video than ever before. Youtube has become the 2^nd biggest search engine, Google now incorporates video directly into its search results and websites that don’t contain video are beginning to look positively archaic.

As a result, businesses (large and small), charities and public sector organisations in 2009, began to really embrace corporate video production and online video marketing.

In the cluttered, information-overload world of the Internet, they realised that not only does a well-produced short film or video advert have a much better chance of being watched, than long pages of static text do of being read, but also that people tend to believe what they can see and hear, far more than what they read. They also understood that video can have an emotional impact with a viewer way beyond that of the written word.

In 2009, even the smallest local businesses started to commission video production companies to produce short promotional films and online video adverts. And with more and more online business directories incorporating videos into their listings, corporate video production becoming more accessible, social networking becoming more popular and search engines becoming more sophisticated, there is simply no reason to think that this trend won’t continue apace.

However, businesses in 2010 won’t just be using video online. The effectiveness, versatility and most importantly the increased affordability of corporate video production means that more and more businesses will start or continue to use video for an increasingly wide range of applications, from training staff and sales presentations, to recruitment, internal communications, video conferencing and even the promotion of CSR credentials.

It was not so long ago when corporate video and corporate video production was frowned upon by many, but thanks to the continued development and expansion of the Internet, it has become a commercial necessity. The future of corporate video production and online video advertising looks very bright indeed!

However, as our business has continued to expand, we've outgrown our space and recent visitors have seen just how cramped our offices and studio facilities have become. Small picnic tables have become an all-too-regular supplement to our office desks! So I'm very pleased to announce our relocation to much larger premises in Waterloo on 4th January 2010. Construction work has already begun and soon we'll be able to offer our clients:
•    4 x sound-proofed studios, 2 with drive-in access
•    4 x green rooms
•    3 x make-up rooms
•    3 x wardrobe rooms
•    3 x production offices
•    2 x kitchens
•    Shower facilities

I believe that our studio at Deptford was so successful because not only were the hire rates attractively low, but we also kept the pricing structure as simple as possible. The support facilities, lighting, studio manager – all were included in the basic hire rate. And of course, we had a memorably striking green room. So we'll continue the successful format with our new studios. Although yet to be confirmed, I expect that we'll be able to hire the smallest (420 ft²) for less than £400 per day, and the largest (2,100 ft²) for under £900 per day. And all of this just 5 minutes walk from Waterloo Station. We'll be publishing full specifications, studio images and prices on this site in January. 

New Waterloo Studios

And what of our studio in Deptford? It remains open for business in the short term, although we plan to re-assign the lease and sell on the basic contents as a going concern once the Waterloo Studios are fully operational. We'll be happy to consider any reasonable offers from interested parties.

In the meantime, may I take this opportunity to wish all of our clients and friends a very Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year!
 

Arora said that although "advertisers are still figuring out how to take advantage of the online video phenomenon, many companies are already shifting ads made for TV to the Web. And as marketers become more sophisticated at targeting consumers interactively,  ad formats for online video will inevitably evolve and improve, making video a more attractive way for brands to pitch their products." 

Google made a big bet on online video with its 2006 acquisition of YouTube for $1.65 billion. If currents trends continue, it looks like that bet will have paid off!

Visibility is absolutely crucial to the travel industry and if a hotel really want to get their messages across to as wide an audience as possible, video needs to be an integral component of its online marketing strategy. If not, even good quality hotels will struggle to get noticed online and soon find themselves behind the competition. Here’s why;

(1) Internet shoppers are becoming increasingly savvy and have come to expect an abundance of information about a hotel before making a booking. Video is the perfect medium to deliver this information because it allows potential guests to view a hotel’s rooms and facilities in action, providing much greater insight than still photos and / or static text, greatly increasing the possibility of a booking. 

(2) By featuring its staff, video offers a fantastic opportunity to provide any hotel with a much-needed human face. People connect with people. 

(3) By providing an authentic, engaging and realistic portrayal of hotel, video can have an emotional impact that the written word struggles to match.

(4) Videos are far more authoritative than the written word. People tend believe what they can see, far more than what they read.

(5) The human mind is programmed to remember pictures and images far better than the things we hear or read.

(6) Video improves the 'stickiness' of a website and increases conversion rates.

(7) Video streamed online is an environmentally friendly communications tool. It reduces paper usage, as well as the enormous carbon footprint associated with large scale mail-shots.

(8) Videos are great for SEO. They can be repurposed and propagated online, driving highly-targeted traffic to a hotel's website.

(9) Video production is increasingly affordable and accessible. A high quality video can be made for a relatively small amount of money



(10) Videos are incredibly versatile and therefore highly cost-effective, allowing any hotel to make its marketing budget go further. Videos, for example, can be streamed online, included on e-mail signatures, duplicated onto DVDs, used in one-on-one meetings or at large scale events. The right video can serve a hotel's needs for a long period of time and the footage can also be easily re-edited for use in future productions. 

    

(11) Free hosting websites continue to emerge and when used in tandem with these sites, videos can become even more powerful marketing tools. 

(12) The viral potential of videos means that information can be distributed much quicker and much farther than conventional methods. 

(13) Videos can be specifically tailored to appeal to hard-to-reach demographics.

However, to capture the attention of an online audience notorious for its short attention span, it is very important to produce unique and creative videos with production values that mirror the standards of service on offer. That's why it’s usually a job best left to the professionals.

Spectrecom produce videos for a wide range of hotels right across the budget spectrum; and our clients include SAGA, Cunard and Best Western.

To find out more about our work with hotels and view a selection of videos produced by Spectrecom, please click on this link. You can also view a film about SAGA's Coastline Hotel in Malta by clicking on the link above.
 

Shot over two days in Antony's home kitchen, the videos are currently being hosted on a specially created Youtube Channel - "Cook at home with Antony Worrall Thompson & Breville" - and show viewers "how to carve turkey like a pro", "the secret to perfect roast potatos" and reveal Antony's "ultimate stuffing recipe".

For more information about Antony Worrall Thompson's range of Breville products, just click on this link.

And good luck for Christmas dinner this year! Hope these videos help.

]]> http://www.spectrecom.co.uk/newsblog/entry/114 Fri, 04 Dec 2009 11:24:10 GMT http://www.spectrecom.co.uk/newsblog/entry/114 Here's the third and final CHANGEit Awards film produced by Spectrecom for Common Purpose.

Christina, 16, has been volunteering in Sheffield with the Action for Stannington group since the age of 12 and has revolutionised the way young people perceive their surrounding environment. Zumming up and down Stannington on her 50cc scooter, Christina helps organise activities and tasks, keeping her peers out of boredom.  Jobs such as gardening for older residents, looking after the local park, art and craft, recycling or simply chill out afternoons are often led by Christina and her dedication hasn’t gone unnoticed!  Christina has had the opportunity to meet every Sheffield’s Lord Mayor for the last four years, the Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police, Nick Clegg MP, South Yorkshire’s  Lord Lieutenant, South Yorkshire’s High Sheriff and HRH The Duke of York.

Same as any other young volunteer in Action for Stannington, Christina comes from a socially disadvantaged background, yet she has been able to put her energies and enthusiasm to good use.  The photograph submitted to CHANGEit was taken, alongside others, to prove to anybody that the work in Action for Stannington is real, truly grassrooted and task focussed.  Christina was the winner in this year's Photography category.

They're a group of young people, aged 13-18 from York, with varying special needs. Though many go to special schools, some have attended mainstream schools in the past and felt that there are a number of very small changes schools can make to ensure that there is better access and inclusion in the school atmosphere. They toured a number of schools and created a DVD and booklet to help schools think about simple, inexpensive changes they can make, from changing paint colour to putting in ramps.

Here's a video showcasing their brilliant and inspirational work.

The Friends of Heriot Grange are six year nine pupils - Ami, Jamie-lee, Jayde, Danielle, Jake and Callum - from Manor College of Technology in Hartlepool. After their school sponsored a visit to a local home for the elderly, the 14 year-old school students decided that they wanted to visit the home more often and help bridge the gap between young and old.

They now visit Heriot Grange once a month to share stories, play games and have fun with the residents, and are hoping to start organising trips out as well. They also want the elderly residents to visit their school to help younger students with their reading and are trying to establish a group so when they leave, each year other students form the College will carry on the visiting the home.


They were declared winners in 2009 CHANGEit Innovation category!

In collaboration with Deutsche Bank, Common Purpose also run the the CHANGEit awards, designed to recognise the achievements and ambitions of young people, between the ages of 11-18, who want to speak out and create positive change. The awards have nothing to do with academic achievement or exam grades, but everything to do with good citizenship and positive action.

Spectrecom were delighted to be asked by Common Purpose to produce series of short films showcasing some of this years winners in the "Innovation", "Performance" and "Photography" categories. Everyday this week I'll be posting one of the films to this blog, but for now, here's an overview film about the awards with Ben Shepherd. 

This one focuses on post-graduate study, showcasing Sussex's dynamic and thriving research culture, it's superb resources and it's unique, award-winning faculties.

For further information about postgraduate study at the University of Sussex, please click on this link.

Nestling between the South Downs & the sea on Britain's stunning south coast, Brighton is one of the most vibrant, colourful, creative cities in Europe and a fantastic place to study.  Cosmopolitan, compact, energetic, unique, fun, lively, historic, young, exotic and free-spirited - it's a city like no other.

This film showcases some of the key attractions popular with students, such as the easy-going vibrant culture, local entertainment and events, the seafront and the City's legendary night life.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

Here's a link to an exellent article on the Wistia blog detailing five separate applications for "corporate" video. It details how video can be used for product demonstrations, customer testimonials, training purposes, help & support in the form or video FAQ answers, and even as alternative to cold-calling!

As the price of high quality video to fall and distribution technology advances, this trend looks set to continue apace.

In this video, we meet Thomas Coles, who is currently working at Network Rail, inbetween studying for a BSC in Information Management & Business Studies at Loughborough University.

If you would like to learn more about the progarmme, you can contact the e-skills internship team by email at internship@e-skills.com or by phone on 020 7963 8920. 

This is the second in a series of 3 videos produced by Spectrecom for E-Skills UK. The final film about a placement at Netrail will follow tomorrow

The target audience are prospective undergraduate students and the videos will soon be made available through the BigAmbition website, as well as other online platforms such as Facebook and YouTube.

Here's a sneak preview of the film about the taking the internship at IBM. 

The track was performed and recorded live by the great and the good of the music, radio and TV industries at Abbey Road Studios and is part of the album BANDAGED TOGETHER.

Due for release on November 9th, the album will be available through the Charity Goods website and will retail for £12.00 (inc p&p) - £6.50 of which will benefit The BBC Children in Need Appeal. You'll also be able to buy the single from HMV and Tescos from same date. 

Here's a link to the video on Youtube: 

All of them are valued, respected and supported, and offer a chance for people with learning difficulties to develop skills, confidence and careers. For some people they also a way of moving towards independence – off benefits and into a job.

Spectrecom were asked to produce a film to raise awareness of the initiative and communicate the benefits of employing somebody with a learning disability, to both the employee and the employer.

The launch was hosted by The Beautiful Octopus Club, which is a major arts and cultural event run by Heart'n'Soul that showcases music, theatre and dance by artists with learning disabilities. The club has become something of an institution in the learning disability calendar and Spectrecom were there to film the evening's proceeding, including a stunning performance by Lizzie herself.

On Wednesday July 8th,  APU (American Public University) - an accredited higher-education institution in the US offering undergraduate and graduate degrees online - hosted hundreds of prospective students in a cutting-edge virtual reality environment.

At APU’s EduFair, the first-ever virtual university admissions event, students discussed academic and career plans with faculty members in real-time; explored financial aid options and transfer credits with admissions representatives; and were able to access a library of rich media aimed at helping them take the next step in their education. This innovative event not only allowed perspective students to gather relevant information, but also to get a real feel for the University without ever having to visit.

In an increasingly competitive global marketplace for the best and brightest students, I can see many other institutions following their lead, particularly as high-quality promotional videos become even more accessible.

The film was recently screened at the University's 45th Anniversary Dinner on September 21st to a large crowd of dignitaries, with guests of honour including past and present Chancellors, HRH Princess Alexandra and Sir Christian Bonington CBE DL. For the full story, please click here: and to view a 5-minute excerpt from the film, please click on the image above.

The full 8-minute film will be made available shortly.

The article describes how video production can be used to enhance a company's branding and visibility in an engaging way; how video production can  generate interest in products and services; and finally how longer form videos can be used to "support prospects at the evaluation stage by offering more in-depth information and emphasising the real-world applicability of a product".

In its recent B2B Technology Collateral Survey, analysts at Eccolo Media point out that that the selection of video as a form of collateral nearly doubled between 2008 and 2009!

Lizzie is a member of the arts charity Heart n Soul, which gives a creative outlet for people with learning difficulties and the event on the South Bank is the culmination of 10 years hard work. Sponsors attracted 700 people to witness Lizzie perform live and the premier of hew new video "Hard Love". The video, which can be viewed by clicking on the image above, showcases one of Lizzie's finest songs and is testament to her drive to overcome huge personal difficulties to enter the UK music mainstream.

Produced by Spectrecom and directed by Jonny Franklin, the video was sponsored by the Deptford Challenge Trust as the conduit for a valuable training project run in partnership between Spectrecom and Heart n Soul. Last week, Lizzie also featured on Radio 4's Today programme and you can also watch a video of her on the BBC website.

Spectrecom has been supporting Heart n Soul since 2006. You can find out more about them here - www.heartnsoul.co.uk

He made the comment as the DMA launched a new report which highlighted new trends and advances in online video and said: "As digital TV and online converge we are able to use the assets of each channel to produce adverts that use full audio visual stimulus to engage audiences, with the added ability to target, personalise and, importantly, track audience behaviour with online metrics". 

His comments back up research released last week by comScore, which revealed that more than 25 billion videos were viewed online in the US during August, with Google sites accounting for around ten billion. 

Online video is clearly here to stay.

Take a look at this interview with Kevin Ryan, CMO of WebVisible, in which he talks about the importance of branded Youtube Channels, controlling your video messages and maintaining control over your videos by hosting on your own site. Ryan still refers to the space as the “Wild Wild West” but says we are starting to see inklings of what it could look like in the future.

The entire series can be found here on Best Western's YouTube page. And here's a film of Ste Myers, head chef at Best Western Walworth Castle Hotel in Darlington, showing us how to make his signature dish - cinder toffee and ginger cheesecake with cracked black pepper ice cream.

It will soon be auctioned off on eBay with a reserve price of £1,000 and was commissioned by the Dr. Beckmann cleaning company in response to research that found that more than a third of women would toss a stained clothing garment away, without even trying to clean it. 

Spectrecom were asked by Brazen PR to produce a short promotional film about the shirt and here it is;

Post-production was completed in the US and the result is a highly imaginative video that has entered MTV's music video Top 40 at number 18.

Here's a link to an article about the video in Rolling Stone magazine; "Muse Nod to “Ghostbusters” in Explosive “Uprising” Video" 

He was in shooting an advert to promote the special limited edition Dizzee Rascal Air Max 90 'Tongue N' Cheek' trainer and his new album Toungue N Cheek.

The advert features the new track 'Chillin Wiv Da Man Dem'; and the trainer was created in collaboration with Ben Drury a designer at Nike and Dizzee Rascal's long time creative director.

Here's the result; 

The last few weeks have seen me involved in a number of very different but personally rewarding projects. At the end of August I was directing the last day of filming for a video celebrating the 45th anniversary of Lancaster University. The video was hosted by the university's charismatic chancellor Sir Chris Bonington and the university team, led by Nick Fragel, have been a dream to work with - model clients who know what they want, and who have worked diligently and thoughtfully with us to help shape their film into something quite special. Were it always thus!
Two days later I revisited one of my original filmmaking roles to work as first assistant director on a studio shoot for a music video. Spectrecom was asked by New York-based Humble TV to produce the UK shoot for the official video of The Uprising, the latest hit single by Muse. The video was completed in the US and the result is a highly imaginative video that you can catch here on YouTube.
 
A week later we were shooting at Abbey Road studios to make the video for the song, All You Need Is Love for BandAged / TOG’s, Terry Wogan’s fan base. And two days after that, I managed to fit in another role, this time as camera operator on a one-man job. I was in Venice to film Cunard’s Queen Victoria sail in, and then off to the Fincantineri shipyard at Monfalcone to record the building of the new Cunarder, Queen Elizabeth.
 
 So, a number of different roles and projects, and the chance to get out and about. And to produce this shamelessly name-dropping blog. But it's now back in the office, overseeing installation of a new CRM, preparing for sales exhibitions and a seminar to be hosted here in the studio next week, and planning for next year. I'm very definitely back to working 'on' the business.

Businesses, large and small, must take advantage of this increasing propensity for sharing by leveraging online video opportunities properly. If not, they'll soon find themselves behind the competition.

Working for Spectrecom has been a truly wonderful experience.  We've seen huge successes in a time of economic woe and with a fun working environment, brilliant colleagues and an exciting field of emerging business, I could hardly have asked for a better place to work since April 2008.  The usual mentions of having grown in many ways here must not go unsaid, and I will always treasure the opportunities provided for me here.

So, a big hello and goodbye to all of our clients, affiliate partners, freelancers, suppliers and networking buddies who have all contributed to Spectrecom's most successful year of trading so far.  I will truly miss my associations here and wish the ever-growing team continued success in all their endeavours.

I'll be moving on to explore a number of freelance and consulting positions. You can find me easily on LinkedIn if you want to keep up with progress on that front.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Cheers,

Matt
matthewcarrozo@hotmail.com

What's interesting to us is that almost a quarter (24%) of executives indicated a preference for retrieving business information via video.

Whilst Business to Consumer video marketing has been growing in line with the explosive growth of YouTube and the iPlayer, B2B - corporate - video has been going for a lot longer. 

But such a strong preference amongst executives for video content also means that corporate video has come a long way from something like this.  Really.

Their study, in association with advertising measurement firm Vizu, found that while "viewers need to be exposed to an internet video advert for a certain amount of time to be effective, exposing the viewer to the same ad for too long turns viewers away from the brand advertised."

The study showed that "a measurable increase in a person's intent to view begins after 17 seconds of exposure to an ad, peaks at 76 seconds, and significantly degrades after 225 seconds". For any single ad, the "impact is felt after 2.4 seconds of exposure, reaches its peak at 40 seconds, and degrades after 113 seconds".

You can guess why we think that's important!  Most of our work expressly aims to put a human face to companies and organisations, because that's who consumers, clients and members will be working with.

The research also points to consumers increasingly putting internet research and opinion sharing online at the top of their agenda - nearly as many (78%) feel that this is a very important part of the shopping experience - even when purchases are not made online.

Food for thought when considering using video on your site and beyond!

That means in the last 24 hours, over 3 years of video footage was posted.

Computer says yes.

Read more from the Wall Street Journal here.

In the report, we learn that:

• the unique audience for online video production surpassed that of email in November 2007.
• usage of online video destinations has risen by a staggering 339% since 2003.
• time spent on these sites has exploded by almost 2,000% in the same time frame.
• in the past year unique viewers grew by 10%, number of individual streams by 41%, length of these steams grew by 71%.

 3) Websites and Forums
Even if you're a confident user in Final Cut Pro, you might occasionally find yourself stuck with a problem that just won't go away; it might even be as simple as wanting to know what the easiest way is to perform a particular task. One way to get a quick answer is to visit a popular forum, where users are more than willing to share their knowledge with you. Creative Cow is a great place to start, as well as Apple's own discussion threads.

Further to that there are many other post production news sites/blogs that have regular videos, in various areas, that can be accessed for free. DVCreators.net and Provideocoalition.com are worth visiting, and can direct you in the way of many other communities who are willing to share their tips and advice with you.

Finally it's worth glancing over a few of the beginners videos on Apple's main site, which include some great case studies on the software in action within the industry.

4) A Certified Training Course
I can't vouch for this method of training, and my one experience with the company mentioned below was not a good one, but it does work for many people and gives you a qualification at the end of it. As such, it's a much more expensive way of learning, and might only be considered by professionals. London based Soho Editors offer courses such as these, though you should be able to find a number of companies offering these Apple certified courses in a number of places. It should certainly fastrack you towards knowing the ins and outs of the software, but many people will be turned off by the price if they are wanting to edit more as a hobby rather than a career. 

 
Continued tomorrow...

Read part 1 here.

Continued tomorrow...

Here's some pictures from the day;

Compared to the United States, only a relatively small minority of UK law firms currently host video on their website, but with statistics emerging like these, firms who continue to rely on traditional marketing methods alone will be missing out on a proven, high-impact marketing tool and will soon find themselves behind the competition. But why is video so persuasive and such an effective conversion tool for law firms?

Primarily, it's because a well-crafted, professional video, which captures the true character of a law firm and its people, enables potential clients to get to know a firm's staff in person, prior to making any commitment. Visitors want information before they pick up the phone or fill out a form and if done correctly, video is by far the most compelling and efficient way to do this. Videos can also help inexperienced prospective clients overcome the intimidation factor of contacting a law firm by taking some of the mystery out of the legal process. In an increasingly crowded online marketplace for legal services - where hundred's of websites are vieing for people's attention - video is also a great way for any law firm to stand out from the crowd.

However video marketing also offers a number of other benefits. In addition to providing information for your site visitors and adding a human face to a website, videos can also be optimised for high visibility on video sharing sites like YouTube, Google Video and Yahoo Video. The content will then be viewed by a multitude of online viewers and can act as an extremely powerful element of any marketing strategy. Also with the introduction of “Universal Search”, videos rank consistantly high in normal Google search results, as well as Yahoo, AOL and Ask, whose searches also now incorporate video.

Put simply, video can deliver a level of confidence in any law firm, large or small, to trump any other marketing effort and it should always be considered for inclusion in any firm’s marketing plan. 

In my next blog entry, I'll be looking exactly how to produce and propagate an effective fundraising video.

Durham University also run a popular YouTube Channel, which drives enormous numbers of potential students and parents to the university's main website. "We're experiencing a 12% increase in overseas applications at the moment and are really excited about the part that our online presence has played in this. Much of the research on courses, student life and the local area is now of course done via the web.   Statistically, our video portal has been receiving up to 40,000 clicks per month and we're continually hearing that it's been one of the best conversion tools we have for applications, particularly students from overseas, who often have to make the most educated decision on where to apply based on what they see online and in prospectuses", explained Durham's Web Marketing Officer, Claire Croft.

Westminster University and the University of Plymouth prefer to concentrate their attentions on Facebook. Both of their profiles contain a number of videos about life at the University:    

Here at Spectrecom, we're the UK market leaders in education-recruitment video marketing, and have worked for years with some of the biggest names in higher and further education to recruit new students and manage institutional reputations. To find out more, please visit of the Education Recruitment page of our website.
 

1. Nobody likes to read dry lengthy reports, packed with statistics.
2. The human mind is programmed to remember pictures and images far better than the things we hear or read.
3. Video can have an emotional impact that the written word struggles to match.
4. Videos are far more authoritative than the written word. People tend believe what they can see, far more than what they read.
5. Video production can help bridge a communication gap between the generation that spawned corporate social responsibility and the younger generation whose responsibility it will be to sustain it.
6. Video provides a human face to an organisation. People connect with people.
7. Video streamed online is an environmentally friendly communications tool. Not only does it cut down the need to travel for presentations, it reduces paper usage and DVD production.
8. CSR videos are great for SEO. They can be repurposed and propagated online, driving highly-targeted traffic to your website.
9. A range of new online platforms are emerging to provide your film and your organisation with the visibility and the reputation it needs ( www.csrtv.co.uk, www.csrtube.net)
10. The video production process can inspire employers and employees to take part, helping to improve team cohesion. 
    

Our intentions at Spectrecom over the coming months, is to fill out the website with as much video content as possible. We aim to have as many of our video productions available to view as possible, whilst producing very specific edits for the 'Budget', 'Sector' and 'Type' pages of our website. Of course, if any readers have any other suggestions on how we can improve our website please let us know.

 ben@spectrecom.co.uk

This happened to me recently on a shoot where the client asked me to conduct a “quiet” sit down interview, in what appeared to be the noisiest room on the planet!  My immediate instinct was to request another room, but the client explained there was nothing else available and there were no other options.  Other than the fact that we were sitting right under the flight path of nearby Newcastle airport, the big problem in the room was the air conditioning.  We could deal with the noise of the aircraft passing over easily - by restricting the length of our takes and cutting when they were right overhead.  But the air con was another matter entirely as we were unable to find the controls to turn it off, and with the clock ticking and the clients foot tapping nervously I could see that we were all out of options. 

Needless to say the resulting interview material looked great,  but….to be honest sounded, well… pretty ropey!  It’s not the ideal scenario but my view is it’s better to have recorded something and give the client the option in the edit that to come away empty handed.  And actually, I have to say that I really surprised myself in the edit as I found that the problem was quite simple to fix!  I’d recently attended a Larry Jordan seminar on Soundtrack Pro audio editing. 

If you don’t know Larry Jordan and you want to learn Final Cut Studio 2 (which incorporates Soundtrack Pro) you won’t find a better trainer than Larry -  he really is the Final Cut guru!  Larry told me about a noise reduction technique within Soundtrack Pro that’s simple and incredibly effective.  All you do is sample the pure noise (just a bit of air conditioning wild track taken from your shoot) and tell Soundtrack Pro to remove the noise at those frequencies only, whilst leaving the rest of the frequencies, which register the human voice intact.  In the words of Larry Jordan himself it’s “very cool”.   Obviously if you’ve got the time to sort out a quieter room on your shoot that would be better, but this is certainly a good option for sound when all else fails.   If you’d like to learn more about Larry Jordan’s audio editing and mixing tutorials check him out on his website here: http://www.larryjordan.biz/ 

s.milton@spectrecom.co.uk

 

Guest blog article written by Lindsay Milone.

It was the fastest growing sub-category in all web-based advertising, easily outstripping search engine optimisation's 20% increase in the same time period.

It's a rosy report, showing that overall, web advertising in the US grew by more than 10 per cent.

matt@spectrecom.co.uk

Here's a great video of comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni saying that in studying some 2 million individuals, his organisation has detected that exposure to online video advertising can lead to a 40% increase in buying a product or service. 

Find this story and more on the rapid emergence of online video and its impact on industry and society at the Beet.TV website.

Consolidating some old files into handsome new folder hierarchies, and came across this image of Andrew and Sarah (next to camera) filming an interview with Lord Sebastian Coe, as Chairman of the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games.  It was done for a project with Sunderland University, and this photo appeared in a Guardian photoessay featuring Mr. Coe.

matt@spectrecom.co.uk

Star Wars vs. Rush Hour
Movie Mashups are becoming quite a big thing on YouTube, and this is one of the funniest I've seen. The idea is essentially that two very different films are blended together, by using the visuals of one, and the audio of another.

Watchmen as a Saturday morning cartoon
I think many of us can relate to the great Saturday morning cartoons of the 80's, and this video shows very cleverly what we might have had, if Watchmen had appeared in this format.

Windertech E10
I loved this video from the Funny Or Die crew.

VCR Hack
Another VHS related viral, but equally as funny.

Ricky Gervais Meets Elmo
Out of all the videos posted today, I'd say this is my favourite.

Impressive to be sure - especially when put into context, this accounts for a full 80.1% of the total UK internet audience - but the UK has always lagged slightly behind developments in America, where everyone from used-car dealerships in the mid-West to dentists on the West Coast have been using web video to market their small and medium sized businesses online.

YouTube, the iPlayer and a myriad of other video destinations have driven much of this growth, to be sure, but as the format's popularity rages on and acclimatises Joe Bloggs to an internet full of moving pictures, what will the effect on your site be?  Will you be lost in the ether of non-dynamic websites?

The truth is, since we've shed our old, static website like crackled snakeskin, we've seen a staggering surge in all sorts of metrics.  The average timespend by all users on our site over the past two months has been in excess of 6 minutes (up from about 2:30)!  No doubt, it is largely down to the prominent video content we have on nearly every page across the site, averaging about 2 minutes each. 

What's great about this is it means eyeballs are not only watching our videos, they're paying more attention to the rest of the page - much like the increased awareness one has of the adverts on a cramped Northern line train at rushhour. 

And frankly, we like to think our videos are a better prospect than being sandwiched between post-workout, sweaty City workers and a horde of French primary school students!

matt@spectrecom.co.uk

Further reading
http://www.artofthetitle.com/
http://mmbase.submarinechannel.com/titlesequences/index.jsp

Both cameras make use of solid state memory cards – a 16GB one will generally allow for 45 minutes of full HD recording time – which is a fantastic benefit for no other reason than having instant, high quality playback at the push of a button.  Not only is it great for the client who will tag along for the long shooting days, but also for maximising the productivity of the time spent shooting.

As there's no tape, the camera is instantly ready for further recording without having to worry about recording over something you've already shot.  At the end of each day, I'd transfer the rushes onto two separate mirrored RAID1 drives, ensuring there were master and back-up copies.  And without hours of tape transferring into a computer, I was  assembling rough-cut edits at the end of the day to get an idea of how things would shape up in the final piece - in the middle of the shoot!

I've detected a general reluctance amongst my peers in the business to want to take the plunge into a tapeless workflow.  I recently attended an event at Envy Post on the benefits of going tapeless and was agog when I was one of only three people in a room full of dozens of industry professionals to say I had worked in the format.

What it really comes down to is the perceived security of having a tape sitting on a shelf somewhere, “just in case.”  The tide is turning, however, as the higher quality, lower physical storage space, and ease of accessibility and attaching metadata are making more and more realise the future of tapeless is now.

If, like me, you are relatively new to tapeless workflows, CVP Mitcorp have an excellent series of videos that give a great introduction.

Oh, and there's also a clip from the film itself here!

s.milton@spectrecom.co.uk

a.greener@spectrecom.co.uk

Driven by the ever-growing YouTube and an explosion of professional video content from TV networks through sites like the BBC iPlayer and Hulu in the US, the older age groups makes up a majority of the more than 10 billion video views now registering every month.

Yet more proof that internet video is probably one of the few things expected to grow in the economic downturn.

matt@spectrecom.co.uk

a.greener@spectrecom.co.uk

 In some cases there may be a fee (payable through Google Checkout) and it's worth mentioning that there are already a number of ways of (illegally) pulling YouTube videos from the website. But it's great to see a legitimate way is being offered now to viewers of the video content, even if the appeal is (arguably) limited.

 ben@spectrecom.co.uk

 christiaan@spectrecom.co.uk

s.milton@spectrecom.co.uk

It seems incredibly optimistic, and 3D televisions need to be circulated in a major way within the next couple of years. Still, it's got me all excited, especially about the prospect of having a Premiership footballer virtually smashing a football into my living room on a weekly basis.

ben@spectrecom.co.uk

I've just seen David Fincher's latest, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and although I enjoyed it immensely it seemed altogether very familiar:

• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall
• The Dark Knight - Lee Smith
• Frost/Nixon - Mike Hill and Dan Hanley
• Milk - Elliot Graham
• Slumdog Millionaire - Chris Dickens
  

The Bourne Ultimatum won last year, and deservedly so. Quantum of Solace could only but try match it, and then failed to do so in what turned out to be more of a distraction than an attempt to serve the story. There’s nothing quite on par with that this year (‘Bourne’ had 37 cuts in the first minute), but it’s an interesting list.

Out of the nominees, I think any of the films could really pick up the award. Each were edited as well as you’d expect a major motion picture to be, and in the case of Frost/Nixon a potentially slow political (stage-play) drama was turned into a very exciting and intriguing story.  However, I do expect this years most adored film – Slumdog Millionaire – to be the one that runs away with it. I’m sure Danny Boyle shot a lot of street footage, which would have meant that the editor was given a lot to work with. However I also know David Fincher shoots as many takes as necessary, in order to get the performance he wants for his film. That could mean that he knows what his favourite take is during shooting, or that the editor has many options in post-production. From previous reading on the (admittedly brilliant) Director, I imagine there’s an awful amount of micro managing during the entire process. ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ is a long film though, and as great as it is, could have arguably been trimmed a little to bring the running time down to something a little more manageable. I’m sure David Fincher has a lot to do with that though, so I wouldn’t want to hold it against the editor(s) too much!

Milk was a very interesting film, and clear awards bait, but it’s editing didn’t particularly resonate with me in a way that I felt it was deserving of an award. My personal favourite from the list is The Dark Knight. It's a a fantastic film, and probably the underdog in this competition. The action scenes really fizzed and the tension raised dramatically during key moments thanks to some great intercutting between the unfolding drama - particularly during the Dent/Dawes explosion scene. I’d be pleased to see this win, though I don’t see anything within the list being particularly undeserving (like when The Golden Compass won the ‘Best SFX’ Oscar over Transformers). 

Who I would like to win – The Dark Knight
Who will probably win – Slumdog Millionaire

ben@spectrecom.co.uk

 
It all looks like great (albeit gory) fun, even though reviewers have said that there's no real reason to see this film outside of a 3D auditorium. You also have to wonder how successful it will be on the home video market. Indeed it's been a good while since a 3D horror hit the big screen (though I do recall trying to watch Friday the 13th: 3D at home), and it's undoubtedly going to bring in a massive audience, based on the clear novelty factor of people wanting to be in a cinema where they are able to dodge the flying blood and guts. But if cinema is to pick up 3D and run with it, it needs to be done less as a gimmick and more so as a natural progression. People didn't think that the talkie "The Jazz Singer" would catch on, and then two years later silent movies were more or less dead. Though it's not a direct comparison it clearly shows that predicting what will and won't work on the big screen isn't necessarily a science.

That said, CEO of DreamWorks Animation, Jeffrey Katzenberg, mentioned in an article in The Guardian  last week that "in five-to-seven years, all films will be made in 3D". With only 100 or so UK based 3D screens, and only 1000 in the US, it might seem a little optimistic but with the prospect of major movies like Pixar's "Up ", "Toy Story 3" and James Cameron's forthcoming "Avatar" using 3D, it's surely only a matter of time that it's rolled out across a majority of screens. Cameron himself might just be the biggest player in the whole thing, as he is looking to use it less as a gimmick, but moreso as a way of storytelling. His movie is expected to do fantastic business, especially with elevated cinema ticket prices, and could just be a defining moment in the history of cinema. But just how good is 3D cinema?

Well thankfully the day of dual colour lensed glasses is gone - at least outside of the home - and although you might look a little silly in the specs they give you, the effect is incredible. Having been to the IMAX and seen 3D films (like Beowulf), I have been wowed by the format. On my travels last year in Florida the technology was being used to great effect by Disney and Universal in their parks*. But again it was being used as a novelty, which is the primary reason that many think it will never catch on in cinema. The biggest problem of all however, in the fight to get 3D into our lives wholesale, is one that is affecting us all at the moment. The recession. Paramount themselves are trying to help matters, by paying for print fees, and indeed ticket sales this February for the aforementioned "My Bloody Valentine" could help persuade more studios to greenlight 3D flicks, but it's an interesting development and one that's clearly got legs. Lets just hope that whatever happens, it's for the benefit of cinema and us the moviegoers.

Further reading:
http://www.reelzchannel.com/article.aspx?articleid=816

*If you ever go, please check out the Spider-man 3D ride, with its virtual 400 foot freefall. Then collect your stomach afterwards.

ben@spectrecom.co.uk

So with our new website we wanted show how videos should be used on a website by our clients. We decided to place video about ourselves right at the heart of the site. That's something that visitors can see working for us, and that they can copy.  In my next blog, I'll be talking about how we made those videos about ourselves. 

a.greener@spectrecom.co.uk

jonny@spectrecom.co.uk