Last week we produced two videos for our friends at Autocar.co.uk. The first, a piece looking at a modern BMW 3 series car and it’s 1979 equivelent to see if they have much in common was shot entirely on location at Longcross test track using our DSLR kit. We made extensive use of our custom made suction rig to get superb steady shots both inside and outside the car. Audio was recorded both to the camera and to a separate recording device and grading was done entirely in camera.

The video can be viewed here. Watch out for more videos we’ve shot for Autocar coming out soon.

Today would be Eadweard J Muybridge’s 182nd birthday. If you’re wondering who he is, well he was the first person in history to capture the moving image photographically and his work is the inspiration behind our logo and corporate image. In recognition of this event, for one day, Google has changed it’s search page in a nod to his genius.

If you are not aware of the man and his work, we thoroughly recommend you look him up. Not only did he start the industry that we now make our living in but he was also  a very interesting character!

‘Getting down to coping’ a video POV produced in association with the University of Surrey’s school of Health and Social care has been released on the University’s website. This is great news as until now the video was only available to men participating in a self-management programme run by the department.

The video has proved to be extremely effective in helping men who have had treatment for prostate cancer, understand and deal with the side effects they were experiencing after their operation.

Jane Cockle-Hearne, Research Fellow, said: “Showing how other men have coped and moved on with their lives will motivate men in the self-management programme to have self-belief and confidence to make a difference to their own lives after diagnosis and treatment.

Men have made specific requests to the team at the School of Health & Social Care to make the film widely available to men who are going through diagnosis and treatment. ”

The University have supported this request and the film is now available on the University website.

Well after telling everybody to grow up about FCP X, I preceded to try it in anger last September and found myself agreeing with those that had suggested it wasn’t ready for professional use. Whilst I love the fact that it harnesses all of the power of your computer by using all of the cores of your processor, I still found myself getting very frustrated with the basic interface. That coupled with the fact the software had a tendency to just disappear at times meant I estimated it took me somewhere in the region of three times the time it would have taken me to do the same project on FCP 7.

Since then Apple have released a couple of updates to the programme the most recent being the most interesting as it adds the elusive multi-cam functionality that so many editors complained was missing from the original release. Being glutton for punishment I decided to take the plunge on a recent project and give it another go. Part of the reason I thought now was the time was the project was shot with two cameras that needed to be multi cam edited together.

Well despite a few ‘disappearances’ whilst I was importing my footage, the software did work well. I still can’t work out how to easily fade in from black if I have a clip connected to my primary timeline – something none of the forums seem to answer satisfactorily either, but once I has set up my multi clip, it worked like a dream. In fact the process of setting up the multi-clip was amazing as well.

Last year I watched a Youtube clip that likened the multi cam functionality of FCP X to the ‘cut and paste’ functionality of IOS saying Apple didn’t release it right away but when they did, they got it right. Well I have to say I think they may have had a point. Apple have totally re-thought how multi cam works and frankly made it better than any other software I’ve used. Better than Avid and FCP 7. First of all, to create your clip all you need to do is record with some sort of audio on all your cameras then once they’re imported, just shift select and create a ‘New Multicam Clip’. FCP X uses Pleuralise type technology to sync your clips without the need for timecode and it did it really quickly with the hour long presentation I was working on. Not only that but I was shooting on a Z1 and I had a tape change in the middle of the presentation which FCP X dealt with perfectly, giving me just the one clip to edit with.

Secondly if you double click on your multicam clip you open the multi cam editor which allows you to see all your cameras in a timeline, rather like you would if you were using the old ‘stacking’ technique. This means you can adjust sync and colour correct a single camera all the way through. It also allows you to tweak the audio.

It’s also worth noting you’re not now limited to using clips that are all the same format in a multi cam clip intact you can even use still which the software apparently will sync up using the time stamps.

On the negative side, it would be useful to be able to batch export, it would also be useful to be able to export using Quicktime conversion but overall I’m pretty impressed.

The bottom line is I didn’t need to waste time doing a manual sync. I could just play my clip and live edit on the timeline. Had I not had to add slides, I could have probably done the edit in near real time. I can safely say this time FCP X was quicker than FCP 7 and I would definitely consider using it again for this sort of project. I still see it as another tool in my armoury rather than the only tool, but it’s getting better and better and I look forward to what else they are going to add to it.

POV’s sister company VoxXpress, launched this week at the industry’s biggest trade show, Broadcast Video Expo / The production Show. The new service allows video producers, editors, web designers and pretty much anyone else to choose and book a professional quality voiceover for Corporate videos, films, television, telephone answering services quickly and simply. They launched with a very strong lineup of voices including the voice of the talking clock, the voice of Gucci Flora and the veteran broadcaster Nicky Horne. To find out more and to check out the service, go to www.voxxpress.com.

Last weekend POV’s founder Leigh Emmerson teamed up once again with Basingstoke based film collective Pork Chop Pictures. Last time they worked together was on the hugely successful ‘Meat’ short film and spin off series of webisodes where Leigh acted as DOP. This time he was a the helm directing another comedy short entitled ‘Spooked’. The story follows our feckless hero Dermot who discovers his house is haunted. Penned by Pork Chop Pictures’ Mark Brennan, the film features flying remote controls, ghostly Doritos and promises to be an entertaining, if slightly quirky watch. The stars, Ryan Mercier and Hannah Aine Smith as well as the rest of the crew did a sterling job on what turned out to be a very long day’s shoot.

Watch out of the short in the next few months.We’ll keep you posted as to when and where there film will be shown.

Before Christmas we shot a video review of the new Naim in-car audio system for the Bentley Continental. The client was What HiFi magazine who wanted a high end look so we used our Canon 5D mark II kit complete with our set of custom modified Nikkor prime lenses. The video was post produced in house and it’s now live on the What Hifi? site.

The viral POV produced for THM Business Simulations last year went live this week. The video is titled ‘Teamwork and team building – It NOT rocket science’ and features real NASA footage as well as the launching of a homemade rocket made out of a lemonade bottle. Needless to say it was a fun project to work on!

The hope is that the video will follow in the footsteps of the company’s last viral ‘Customer Experience – It’s NOT magic’ which has racked up almost 20,000 hits and resulted some big contracts for the company.

Sweet TV’s latest broadcast production, ‘Rachel Allen’s Easy Meals’ starts this Thursday on Irish channel RTE One at 8.30 pm. POV helped out with some of the post production on the series and are very happy to be associated with it. In our opinion money was spent in the right places and it really shows on screen. If you don’t live in Ireland then there’s also a chance to catch the series on the Good Food Channel (Sky 249 / Virgin 260) who are also running episodes.

It’s a good watch and the recipes are indeed easy and also delicious! How do we know? Well after spending days editing these mouthwatering pictures, it would have been rude not to try cooking some of it at home!! Well done Sweet TV and Rachel!

As part of a recent project for one of our clients, we were lucky enough to get a sneak preview of the London 2012 Olympic Park in East London. This was all in the company of the legendary Lord Coe and a who’s who of sporting heros. We’re no experts but it looks to us like everything is definitely going to be ready in time and the sheer scale of the development is breathtaking. We can already see the massive positive impact the games are having to this deprived area of London and wish Lord Coe and the team all the best for next year and know it will be hugely successful.