New video for Solent NHS Trust

Solent NHS Trust are currently running elections for 14 new Public Governor seats in Hampshire, Portsmouth and Southampton. The elections are open to all Trust members, and the Trust needed a video aimed at members who may have difficulty understanding the written information they receive in their voting pack.

I was approached by the Trust a few weeks ago, and working with their Membership and Community Participation Manager, I arranged to record the voting process last week at St James’ Hospital, Portsmouth. After a quick run-through with a Speech and Language Therapist and a Trust member with communication difficulties, I found a suitable location in the hospital, and recorded the Therapist talking through the voting process and showing the various stages. I was particularly concerned to record as closely as possible what would happen in a real situation and clearly illustrate the voting stages.

Including rehearsal, filming this 10 minute video using two cameras to record the action twice from different angles, took about 5 hours.

Because I had prepared graphics (including a small amount of motion graphics) in advance of filming and had plenty of coverage from the two takes and two cameras, editing the first draft was very straightforward  and took about 6 hours to complete.

My client was very happy with the finished video and requested that I upload it to my Zemedia Vimeo account. They have embedded it in their ‘Voting in the Elections’ webpage (scroll down to view) where it will remain online until the end of August. [Update: the video is available to view on Zemedia’s YouTube channel.]

The video was shot on my Sony Z1E and Canon 60D cameras, graphics were prepared in Abode Photoshop and After Effects and it was edited in Avid Composer.

Recording a keynote address

Last week I was asked by Dr Eric Herring, Deputy Director of the Global Insecurities Centre at the University of Bristol to record his keynote address for the People and the Planet: Transforming the Future conference. The conference is being held this week at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, and Dr Herring was unable to attend, hence the need for the recording.

Dr Herring’s talk, entitled: “Transforming insecurity through the co-production of knowledge in nonviolent grassroots networks”, was concerned with encouraging academics to find new and innovative ways to communicate with grassroots activists around the world. In his address he refers to examples from his own practice – researching the effect of sanctions on Saddam’s Iraq, and developing new methods to counter suicide attacks in Somalia.

I recorded Dr Herring’s talk last week using my Sony Z1E camcorder, edited it on Avid Composer, checked the edit with my client via Vimeo, and sent the finished HD video to him and the conference organisers via Wetransfer. The video arrived with two days to spare (allowing the organisers sufficient time to test the video on their system), and  it was played to the conference delegates earlier this afternoon in Melbourne (about 4 am UK time).