Gentlemen Of The Night: 18th Century Smuggling Uncovered
Historical documentary
Production Company Raya Films
Budget £6,000
The documentary, Gentleman Of The Night, was conceived in April 2004 and, although TV commissioners did not take up on the idea, Raya Films received such interest from the local community that they carried on and began production with the aid of a few local investors in October. Now, in 2006, two screenings have been organised at Highcliffe Castle and Christchurch Chamber Room, and tickets for both events have been selling out fast.
The documentary is the first of its kind in Christchurch since 1938 and has proven that people are keen to attend local screenings and not just accept that broadcast equals television.
The production was funded by attracting local investors with an interest in history, as well as via in-kind assistance from local organisations, authorities and South West Screen. To keep costs down, the film was shot in the relatively new HDV format with minimal crew. “Local knowledge was the key. It’s very much spontaneous stuff: you look out the window and if the weather’s producing something spectacular, we just get on our mobiles and we’re shooting in minutes. We even produced the soundtrack with local professional musicians!”, says producer James Smith.
Contact Raya Films
Bristol & West House, Post Office Road, Bournemouth BH1 1BL
Tel 01202 488140
Mobile 07887 693865
Email info@rayafilms.com
Web www.rayafilms.com
Sunset Ribbon Red
Music video
Production Company Groundglass
Client Levi's
Budget £4,700
Groundglass director Rob Nicholls shot a Levi’s music video for Sunset Ribbon Red: an anthem from their latest CD4 album.
Rob was approached by Levi’s for the project, and given complete creative freedom with regards to treatment and look. The track is a collaboration between various South African artists and bands, and all profits from the song were donated to the Aids Treatment Action Campaign.
Rob opted to shoot a road-trip video, showing the artists on their own individual journeys; but all finally reaching the same destination. “I tried to create an emotive narrative that would convey the message of the song without being obviously AIDS-related. I wanted the artists coming together at the end of the movie to represent a unified South Africa, willing to combat the curse of HIV and AIDS. The idea of the road trip was to convey the metaphor of life being a journey.”
The challenge was to produce a video with high production values on a miniscule budget. Groundglass had to shoot nine artists in nine different locations for under R55 000 (£5,000). Rob therefore decided to ‘shoot from the hip’ with a skeleton crew and using a Bolex camera, to replicate the feel of an old, projected movie.
Contact Groundglass
2 Nicol Street, Gardens, Cape Town 8001, South Africa
Interactive online advertising
Production Company Caboose
Client Tribal DDB/Volkswagen
Budget £25,000
Guardian Angel is a new ad campaign for Volkswagen Polo that redefines the look and feel of online advertising content. Combining live-action film with digital, the ads were created using the new Flash 8 software and demonstrate that, as technology continues to improve, production values in digital advertising will rise and concepts become more sophisticated.
Based on the idea that the Volkswagen Polo car offers ‘all the protection you need’ - so safe, in fact, that our guardian angels fall into idleness and subsequently become mischievous - the ads feature a live-action naughty angel who interacts with the web content around him. For example, in one version of the campaign, the angel grabs hold of the cursor for a few seconds and swings on it. He then drops off the browser window while the car drives across the page. Another execution sees him loitering in the ‘skyscraper’ banner space from which he interacts with a number of spoof ads above. By knocking the ‘ceiling’ of his ad, something from the one above falls down: a hat, an apple or a newspaper, with which he then plays.
The seven different concepts were devised by Tribal DDB and further developed by Caboose to dovetail with the above-the-line TV campaign. All live-action footage was shot by Caboose in HD against a blue screen and edited by sister company Locomotion using After Effects and Shake, before being scripted. The live action sequences with alpha channels were then merged with the digital elements in Flash 8.
The ads went live on websites including Vogue.com, Lovefilm.com, GuardianUnlimited and Delia Smith’s website, Deliaonline.com, on Boxing Day 2005.
Light entertainment
Participation TV Specialists: Audiocall
Client: BBC/Strictly Come Dancing
Strictly Come Dancing scaled new heights in 2005, as one of the ultimate participation formats of the decade. Over five million viewers cast their televotes in the climax, to crown Darren Gough the lord of the dance. Participation TV specialists Audiocall handled all interactivity, with the total number of votes for the series exceeding twelve million, a whopping 70% increase from the previous series.
Since Strictly Come Dancing sent the world dance-crazy, the brand has prompted over 25 million viewers to get behind their favourite contestants and vote to decide their fates. At times, the plucky celebrities have endured blood, sweat and tears in their quest to achieve dance perfection, winning respect and admiration from audiences.
Audiocall attended the studios every week that the show was on air, managing the giant BT RIDE 2 call-handling platform. This sophisticated technology is capable of answering over 190,000 calls per minute. Audiocall managed the vast peaks in call traffic, then closed the lines, counted the votes, delivered the results to the programme team, re-set and re-opened the lines... then got ready to start all over again!
Audiocall's Bev White was on the front line each week, on hand at the studio to manage the voting: "We carefully monitor the call volumes to make sure the system doesn't get overloaded. Audiocall is used to handling big call volumes, like Sports Personality Of The Year and Children In Need, so we have vast experience of managing large spikes in call traffic. It's been rewarding to see viewers getting so involved in such an uplifting programme, but I'm looking forward to relaxing on Saturday nights again!"
Contact Audiocall
BBC Worldwide, Room A2136, Woodlands, 80 Wood Lane, London W12 0TT
Tel 020 8433 3672
Fax 020 8433 3993
Email audiocall@bbc.co.uk
Web www.audiocall.co.uk
Silent Voices
TV docudrama
Production Company Quick & Dirty Productions
Client The Community Channel
Budget £15,000
Silent Voices is a docudrama, shot entirely on location in South East London and was completed, from idea to broadcast, in just three months. Commissioned by The Community Channel, it was made by Quick & Dirty Productions to highlight the problem of domestic violence in the UK.
Barbara Gorna wrote the script in under four weeks and the programme was cast in just four days (in freezing conditions in a studio located in Elephant and Castle). Rehearsals lasted two weeks, then the 53-minute production was shot in just seven days in seven separate locations with nine actors. Editing took three weeks and the entire score was composed in three days.
With a production team of nearly 30, including an award-winning director, Charles Harris (whose first feature film was premiered in the UK during post production), and an award winning DoP, Colin Clarke, with a minute budget, Silent Voices is a case study in how to stretch the budget to its limits and clearly show how the pressures of time can conspire to push people to their limits, yet produce a quality product beyond the sum of its parts.
