Round 3 of the BKSA Freestyle Kitesurf Championships took place in Hunstanton, Norfolk over the weekend of the 1oth and 11th July. Unfortunately the event clashed with the filming of the Cannonball Run Europe, but luckily James Boulding was in attendance to film the event and post the tapes down for a Blue Juice edit – cheers James!
Looking forward to Round 4 in Barrow already!
We have just got back from our 9th Cannonball Run, the last 5 of which we have been responsible for all web, video and photography work as the rally roared across Europe.
The event is best described as a rolling party, where petrol heads from around the world come to drive on some of the best roads and track Europe has to offer, staying in some of the most luxurious hotels in beautiful destinations. This year we took in the sights and sounds of Portoroz (Slovenia), Rappalo, the Monza F1 track, Milan and Versailles.
The biggest challenge for us is the incredibly tight deadlines and quick turnaround on our work throughout the week. Each day the event website was updated with photos and a blog from the previous day. Every evening the video tapes from two cameras where logged and transferred to our mobile editing suite. During the day we edited, colour graded and mixed an appropriately pumping soundtrack, all while travelling between checkpoints. In 6 days we covered 2500 miles, captured and processed 18 hours of high definition video footage, took over 1200 images and edited a 15 minute video which received a standing ovation when it was shown at The Grand Hotel, Brighton, during the final night party. Oh, and we got to party a bit too!
The event is now over, but our work has really only just begun – we have now started work on editing a 50 minute documentary of the event and syndicating video content to various TV and News channels globally. And by the time we call ‘that’s a wrap’ on this years event, planning will be well underway for 2011!
Over the last few months we have been working on a number of B2B promotional videos for retail shopping centres around the country. It’s been a great opportunity to try out some new ideas and work closely with a great marketing company who are looking try something innovative on projects that typically would be, well rather dull!
One such project has been for a major centre in Cardiff. 6 actors and actresses delivering lines throughout the centre and shot as ‘point of view’, the requirement was to produce a seamless tour of the shopping arcade. This meant the whole 3 minutes needed to be shot in a single take – if anyone messed up (including the camera operator!) it was back to the start.
Everything was shot using a glide cam body mount and floating arm to ensure smooth motion as the camera operator moved around, and the final edit is being colour graded in a Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels style. 
We were also responsible for casting the actors based on the script provided – the marketing company however were solely responsible for the crew all ending up in Flairz 70’s revival club that evening!
We will post the final video here once completed.
We were really pleased when this video dropped through the post from our friends Team Snake Oil in Norway. Blue Juice provided footage from last years Cannonball Run Europe to the Norwegian National TV channel to accompany a piece ahead of the 2010 event. We don’t have a clue what they are saying, but it looks great!
I finally got my hands on one of the most talked about gadgets for some time – a 64gb wifi iPad. Being an Apple addict and a gadget freak it was inevitable that I was going to have nothing but love and good things to say about the device but here goes…
I decided not to go for the WiFi + 3G version, opting for a 64gb Wifi only. I figured that you are really always only a few minutes away from a wifi spot, and I already pay for a data tariff on my iPhone so I didn’t fancy the idea of another sim card/data contract. If I ever need to send or receive and email or get online and I am not near a wifi network I can just use the iPhone.
So what did I install from the off?
- WordPress (this entire blog entry was written on the iPad, both using the onscreen keyboard and my bluetooth keyboard)
- Twitterific – stunning on the iPad
- Dropbox
- Evernote
- WeatherPro HD
- RealFootball HD
- RealRacing HD (listen to your own tunes while racing Gran Turismo style, looks unbelievable and plays just as good)
- keynote, pages and numbers
I then filled it with my video and photography work to act as a portfolio when with clients. And this got me thinking – i often spend quite a lot of cash printing photo books and DVDs to send to prospects. I am now considering purchasing the basic 16gb Wifi iPad, filling it with my work and sending it to prospects. Yes, novelty factor, but that can be the difference when tendering for business. Many see the iPad as a must have not a need to have, but in my line of work, the possibilities are endless such as being able to tether the screen to my HDSLR as a field monitor or using it as a control surface in one of the many applications I use such as Final Cut Pro, Motion and Color. Already I cannot wait for the camera connector kit to arrive – the prospect of being able to connect up my cameras while on location and backup the files and even preview in RAW makes the device worth purchasing for that reason alone.
And if all that means nothing to you how about the next time you take a long haul flight – uninterrupted high definition films, games, music and email for 12 hours without needing a plug – the inflight entertainment lottery of dodgy contrasty screens and rubbish audio a thing of the past..
June is not just a time for busting out the BBQ and enjoying long summer evenings – for Blue Juice its the time of year we really start getting ready for the Cannonball Run Europe.
We have been a part of the event since its launch in 2002, and in 2006 we became the media partner on the event – responsible for all the photos and video work. Each year we have looked at new and innovative ways to film and present the event online, and for the this years usual written daily blog will be accompanied for the first time with a daily video podcast. Catch up and watch all the days activities as Liana sums up each stage as the event rolls on.
You can find out more about the Cannonball Run Europe and watch the daily podcasts at www.cannonballruneurope.co.uk
The lack of wind all around the UK recently threatened to scupper the first BKSA Kiteival of 2010 this weekend in Redcar, Teeside. Whilst the wind conditions did put a stop to many of the heats, the sea breezes kept the course racers and landboarders happy and with a weekend of sunshine the event was a complete success. Check out our video of the weekend here:
BKSA Kiteival – Redcar 2010 – Images by Craig Sawyer
Well the start of the UK kite surf competition season was blessed with clear skies and beautiful warm weather – its a shame the wind and waves didn’t turn up! We were down in Watergate Bay all weekend, full report, video and photos will be online soon but for now some of our photos are on the BBC Cornwall Website here.
While in Zaafarana, Egypt, we put together this Triple S Wildcard Entry video for Dan Sweeney, the UK Junior Kitesurf Champion.
“The Triple- S Invitational is the international free ride “world championships” of kiteboarding. 2010 marks the 5th year of the Triple-S Invitational, after four extremely successful Triple-S events, this has become a highly anticipated event on the pro kiteboarding calendar. Watch the world’s best kiteboarders compete in Surf, Slicks and Sliders in Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. 7 Parties, 7 Bands!”
Watch this space to see how Dan, and the video produced by Blue Juice gets on!
It’s been a pretty hectic start to 2010, and following a trip to Zaafarana in Egypt and Les Coches in France to produce a selection of video podcasts I started to realise I had to really put some serious thought to hardware and workflows if I was to make it through an already busy year of web and video production.
I consider myself pretty technically comptent, to many I am considered a techie geek – always one to embrace the latest gadgets and push them to their full potential in my work. The last two years in particular have seen real advances in the kit and technologies at our disposal – HD DSLRs, go pros, prores, proxies, LT, quad cores blah blah blah and if we are not careful we can all be at risk of going into digital overload – not seeing the wood through the trees, the creative through the technical. Technology should help take some of the pain away to let us be completely focused on creativity, it shouldn’t dictate it.
With hardly any time to catch my breath I am already making filming and web design preperations for the Cannonball Run Europe which kicks off on 4th July and three sizeable corporate web videocasts scheduled in May. Rather than think about what technology I have at my disposal first, I am instead going to bust out the pad and pencil. (NB not an iPad!)
Great concepts and ideas come from not being tied to a gadget, so after completing this post the iPhone is going off.