Making a film of Hedgehogs Fashion Show March 27Wow, what an evening! Last Saturday, 27th March Surrey Border Film & Video Makers made a film/video of Fashions From Farnham, a Hedgehogs charity presentation staged at the Farnham Maltings. The video was to be of professional quality and on sale shortly after the show, which would necessitate working with live mixing from a number of cameras, with only a minimal amount of editing afterwards. The whole thing was the idea of Hedgehogs which does so much good work for local children in need. It was before Christmas that Hedgehogs approached Surrey Border Film & Video Makers to commission the video. The club quickly put together a team of some 16 members with Paul Holden, the club’s founder member, as producer. The team, directed by Gordon Sutton, was provided with professional advice and training by club member Dick Hibberd, who has a vast experience of outside broadcast projects of a similar nature from his career in professional television. With Dick’s help the whole team spent months of detailed planning, and had several training and practice sessions with the professional video cameras and other equipment loaned from Create Media Partners Ltd, courtesy of club member Mike Sanders. On the evening prior to the fashion show, club members descended on the Maltings to run hundreds of metres of cabling for the four camera positions to a mixing studio established in one of the nearby offices. As the main cameras and other equipment had a value of around £75,000 it couldn’t be left at the Maltings overnight and so the team arrived back at 8.00 am the next morning, to complete final setting up. This was a full eight hours before the first performance at 4.00, but every second was fully used for adjustments to the cameras and interfacing with everyone else involved. At last the doors opened and the eagerly awaiting queue burst in. All team members were in their positions, rehearsed and ready to go. Anticipation and excitement was at fever pitch. We all knew this was it! Everything had to work without a hitch as there could be no second tries. Two operators were in attendance for each camera, taking turns to operate what were highly complex controls, and to mind the cables and the odd press photographers who looked as if they might get in the way. The concentration was intense and everyone put 100% into their efforts. The two-way talk-back communication between the mixing studio and the cameras turned out to be a vital ingredient. Up in the studio, cut off from any direct view of the auditorium, direction was given to meet the desired camera framing, vision and audio mix requirements, whilst the camera crew were able to provide feed back about what else was happening. During the intervals samples of the recorded video were checked and found to be superb. Once the show was over the team set to work to dismantle, pack up the temporary studio, wind up the cables and stow everything in the waiting transport. In just under an hour we were ready to go home, weary but on a high from the concentration and the satisfaction of a job well done. All the excitement is now over and the editor has checked the tapes from the matinee and evening performances. With the odd tweak here and there, the final tape will shortly be ready for duplication and sale. This has been the largest and highest profile project that the club has ever undertaken. The total time and effort put in by members has been enormous, but they all feel that is was well worthwhile for a charity which does so much for children in need. |