Spartmedia Blog http://www.spartmedia.co.uk/blog/ Fri, 03 Sep 2010 15:29:40 BST en hourly 1 How to be great in front of the Camera! http://www.spartmedia.co.uk/blog/2010/07/how-to-be-great-in-front-of-the-camera.htm Mon, 19 Jul 2010 16:37:43 BST Mark Zaretti http://www.spartmedia.co.uk/blog/2010/07/how-to-be-great-in-front-of-the-camera.htm We make movies, that's what we do! one of the things we do regularly is to film real people giving a presentation or "sales pitch" for a promotional movie. This might only be 30 seconds or a minute long but what we've found is that everyone is different. We have one client who in a 2 hour filming session can, without a script, produce over 30 short 1 to 2 minute direct to camera speaches, each on a single take! It's great for him, he enjoys it and it's an extremely productive filming session. So what we've done is put together some handy hints and tips on how to be a super star and keep your cool when you're in-front of the camera:

Practice what you want to say:

Know what you want to say and how you want to say it. If you're not the kind of person who can "ad-lib" without "ummms" or drying up - and let's face it most of us are not, then the best trick is to write your speach out... practice it in front of a mirror, friend or even your mobile phone camera until you can do it without any pauses or notes. On the day it's OK if you want to do it in one take or several, as we can edit it together, but being able to do a single take is great for productivity and your confidence. By doing this a few days before the filming you get to "sleep on it" which really helps you to integrate it.

Breath:

When you're sat there in front of the camera with lights and microphones, the most important thing to do is breath. Taking a few deep breaths will calm you down, relax your vocal chords and slow your mind down a little. You can even close your eyes to relax a bit more. Quite simply as you relax your words flow better, your memory improves and you come across in a much better way too.

Find out about the process:

There's lots of information on this site about what happens, what the factors are that go into pre production and post production. The more you understand about what is going happening then the more relaxed you'll be... you may even find yourself having fun and being really curious. It's a fact that the more familiar we are with our situation, the more relaxed we are.

Choose a role model:

Ever wondered how famous people seem so good in interviews? well one of the tricks is to do a little visualisation:

  1. Think of someone you really admire who is great at talking.
  2. Close your eyes and relax and see them in front of you doing their thing.
  3. Now imagine yourself moving into them so you become them, as you do this take the time to imagine how that feels, what it sounds like and what you would see differently.
  4. Spend some time just being there and allow yourself to melt into it.
  5. Imagine a big button infront of you, when you're really into the experience and you've got it as good as you want it then program that button so that the next time you close your eyes and press that button, you activate the feelings of being this person.
  6. When you go to do your talk for real, sit there and close your eyes for a moment and press that button... you'll be surprised what happens...

This is a technique known as Modelling and Anchoring which many famous people from Princes to Filmstars use.

It's just you and an old friend:

Imagine that the camera lens is just your best friend, that's who you're talking to. Or some people imagine it is their ideal client or best customer... whatever works for you... that way you actually project real feelings into the camera - and it really works!

Get some good coaching:

There are some great coaches out there who can teach you these and other skills that can turn you into an even better public speaker and presenter. We're happy to recommend the following people:

UK - Leeds & Manchester: Nick Kemp Training

UK - West Sussex: Andrew T Austin

UK - Solihull, Birmingham: Jo Waddell

USA - New York Area: Doug O'Brien

 

]]> Action Filming: London to Paris Charity Bike Ride 2010 http://www.spartmedia.co.uk/blog/2010/06/action-filming-london-to-paris-charity-bike-ride-2010.htm Sat, 26 Jun 2010 13:14:24 BST Mark Zaretti http://www.spartmedia.co.uk/blog/2010/06/action-filming-london-to-paris-charity-bike-ride-2010.htm Now I've recovered from last months 3 peaks challenge I'm getting ready to tackle the London to Paris bike ride. Over the next 3 days I'll cycle approx 200 miles with my specially modified Giant TCR bicycle filming the 80+ riders of GB Charity Events London to Paris Bike ride.

It's going to be a lot of fun, I've got two ContourHD action cameras, one on my crash helmet and one mounted below the handle bars. I've also got a seriously good and very portable Canon HF s21 High Definition camcorder mounted on the back of the bike. If that wasn't enough weight though I'm also taking a Nikon DSLR along for the ride! It's going to be a real challenge but I'm really looking forward to it.

Ash, is going to be manning one of the much larger professional video cameras as he follows in one of the support vehicles and films from the van. I told him to pack his cycle shorts just in case... :)

In this picture I'm wearing my favorite cycle T-Shirt from corza.net! Well it goes with the event since it celebrates the record breaking bikes for the 1 hour time trial challenge. I don't think I'll be breaking any records on this one though.

I'll let you know how we get on ;)

]]> Facebook takes 150000 lives a year! http://www.spartmedia.co.uk/blog/2010/06/facebook-takes-150000-lives-a-year.htm Wed, 09 Jun 2010 18:09:52 BST Mark Zaretti http://www.spartmedia.co.uk/blog/2010/06/facebook-takes-150000-lives-a-year.htm The World and the Interweb

There are  61 million people in Britain and 1.3 Billion people in China.
The World population is 6.8 Billion people. The internet has 1.8 Billion users, and 53% of Europeans use the internet. There are approximately 200 Million distinct websites ignoring blogs, though it's hard to know for sure so this is a conservative estimate. The top search engines including, Google, youTube, Yahoo and bing provide 120 Billion searches a month. That means on average every person on the planet, woman, child, man and young and old does about 18 searches a month.

Facebook

Facebook accounts for more website hits than google and Facebook has 400 million users. People on facebook have an average of 130 friends which means that when you post information on facebook, assuming you have the right settings then potentially 16,900 people can see your post. But your post is one of 25 Billion posts per month on facebook! Which probably explains why 500 Billion minutes are spent on facebook every month! That's an average of 41 minutes per facebook user per day!

 

At what Cost?

The average person lives about 41 million minutes which means that 12 thousand
five hundred human lifetimes are consumed by facebook every month! That's 150 thousand
lifetimes consumed by facebook every single year! If you laid those people end to end they would stretch 252 km!

This is quite a sobering statistic!

 

Standing out from the Crowd.

So the question is how are you going to stand out from the crowd and get some of that attention?
The online movies we produce are a great way of getting noticed because most people would rather
sit back and look at a video and be entertained than do the work of reading information and scrolling through web pages find out why here...

 

]]> Improving Websites with Online Movies http://www.spartmedia.co.uk/blog/2010/05/improving-websites-with-online-movies.htm Thu, 20 May 2010 09:39:41 BST Mark Zaretti http://www.spartmedia.co.uk/blog/2010/05/improving-websites-with-online-movies.htm One of the questions I get asked a lot is "How does using custom made movies increase the success of a site?" Well strictly speaking the question is normally more like "What's the point of videos?" or "do videos really make a difference?"
So here are, in no particular order, 5 of the reasons why videos really do make a difference in improving the success of a website.

1. People are LAZY, they'd rather watch a video
OK I know this is a huge generalisation! But generally speaking, folk just don't want to read and scroll around that much. The younger the audience the more this is true, With Sparticle limited, we've done a lot of website usability studies and  found that the under 30's will normally go straight to a video if it's present.

2. Videos are ENTERTAINING.
Let's face it, if you can entertain people at the same time as selling your services/brand/product etc then you're much more likely to get the result you want. And even if they don't bite there and then they still form a stronger bond and positive association to you and your brand and are more likely to refer you to their friends and family and to come back for more (entertainment).

3. People shop EMOTIONALLY.
People make purchase decisions based on how they FEEL and it's well known that the use of sound, color and movement engages people's emotions much more than static images and text.

4. Videos are a great MARKETING tool
Videos drive more traffic to your site because they can also be used in "social media marketing" strategies, for example sharing on Facebook and Twitter as well as being found on YouTube, which is the second most used search engine in the world after Google!

5. DIFFERENCE DICTATES
A video is a great way of communicating your core message and personality to your potential clients, not only that but a professionally done video makes you stand out from the competition because it makes the bold statement "we care about what we do enough to show you properly"

A professional video from Spartmedia is very cost effective and looks great because:

You only get one chance to make a first impression.
Spartmedia getting you moving on the web.

]]> Professional Filming Outdoors http://www.spartmedia.co.uk/blog/2010/05/professional-filming-outdoors.htm Wed, 12 May 2010 14:35:51 BST Mark Zaretti http://www.spartmedia.co.uk/blog/2010/05/professional-filming-outdoors.htm Well following on from our last post, I'm pleased to say that we successfully filmed and finished the three peaks challenge. This picture shows Mark, the founder of Spartmedia with a professional video camera, at the top of Snowdon, the last of the three mountains. There are smiles all round because we'd just finished and to say it was hard would be an understatement. The sense of achievement was great though.

Maybe you can make out the shotgun mic under the rain proof camcorder cover, well we interviewed and filmed the students as they climbed each of the mountains and we're now back in the studio and starting the post production editing. We'll keep you posted on how this project unfolds.

A big well done to all the students who took part and raised money for Cancer Charities in the UK! and special thanks to the excellent team at GB Charity Events.

]]> Filming the Three Peaks Challenge for a National Charity http://www.spartmedia.co.uk/blog/2010/05/filming-the-three-peaks-challenge-for-a-national-charity.htm Thu, 06 May 2010 18:54:38 BST Mark Zaretti http://www.spartmedia.co.uk/blog/2010/05/filming-the-three-peaks-challenge-for-a-national-charity.htm I'm very excited! I'm a keen walker and spent a lot of my youth in the mountains and hills of North Wales. A couple of weeks ago we were approached by a national charity and asked if we would film a charity event:

"sure" we said, "what is it?"

"The three peaks challenge, going up Ben Nevis, Scafel Pike and Snowdon"

"Cool! when is it?"

"Two weeks!"

Well luckily I love the outdoors and even more I love a good challenge! Over the years we've filmed some interesting outdoors events including hanging off superbikes in the mountains near Rome Italy so we know what we're doing and we've got the right kit for the job. You'll see there are outdoor camcorder rain covers, boom mic windshield, and portable LED lighting, plus a comprehensive cleaning kit! It's all about attention to detail!

The first challenge is going to be packing all the kit (two video cameras and two stills cameras) into a hiking bag.

I've stripped the filming kit down to the bare essentials for an outdoors shot (assuming it's going to rain!)

I'm getting excited... and I'll keep you posted!

]]> Another Successful Green Screen Project. http://www.spartmedia.co.uk/blog/2010/05/another-successful-green-screen-project.htm Mon, 03 May 2010 16:37:13 BST Mark Zaretti http://www.spartmedia.co.uk/blog/2010/05/another-successful-green-screen-project.htm This is a really nice example of how shooting on a green screen allows your online web movie to be branded with your web colours. In this example the background is a gradient of colour using the two main colours of NickKempTraining.com. Several layers of graphics, text and lighting are merged with the footage to produce this elegant and stylized promotional web movie. So when you look at your website you can begin to think about which movies would really help to boost your business and how it would look.

]]> New videos for Global Crystals in Leeds http://www.spartmedia.co.uk/blog/2010/04/new-videos-for-global-crystals-in-leeds.htm Mon, 26 Apr 2010 13:40:08 BST Mark Zaretti http://www.spartmedia.co.uk/blog/2010/04/new-videos-for-global-crystals-in-leeds.htm We've just finished editing up 10 new videos to promote the excellent Global Crystals shop in Leeds. These were lovely videos to make because they are extremely informative and Bev and Mario certainly do know their stuff! A pleasure to film. This is a good example of how videos can be used to explain to customers more about your stock. By using a video you can communicate so much more in an entertaining and engaging way, which really helps increase sales and makes you stand out from the crowd...

To see all the amazing things that Bev and Mario sell check out www.globalcrystals.com. Here are some of their other videos:

Silver Jewelry for Women

Navaho Indian Jewelry

]]> When Nick Kemp said... "Do something different" - Sci-fi trailer for Provocative Change Works http://www.spartmedia.co.uk/blog/2010/04/when-nick-kemp-said-do-something-different-sci-fi-trailer-for-provocative-change-works.htm Wed, 14 Apr 2010 19:40:24 BST Mark Zaretti http://www.spartmedia.co.uk/blog/2010/04/when-nick-kemp-said-do-something-different-sci-fi-trailer-for-provocative-change-works.htm Spartmedia's been making online movies for Nick Kemp for a few years now and we've got a great understanding... so when we were drafting ideas for a new trailer to promote his Provocative Change Works technology he simply said "Do something different!"

Green Screen Shinanigans

We were filming for a 4 DVD set and at the end of filming I got Nick to act out a Minority Report styled action... we shot this on a green screen and then went to work. Using stills photography and a lot of hand made graphics we created the virtual set that you see in the video. FCS3, Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack Pro, Motion, Color and a lot of Adobe know how were used to create this 90 second trailer. It's cool, we had a lot of fun making it... and Nick Loves it!

Importantly it's getting a lot of hits on youTube! which is great because the whole point is it's an advert so the more people that see it the better!

Another happy customer :)

]]> Film Review: Kick Ass http://www.spartmedia.co.uk/blog/2010/04/film-review-kick-ass.htm Fri, 02 Apr 2010 10:33:11 BST Mark Zaretti http://www.spartmedia.co.uk/blog/2010/04/film-review-kick-ass.htm Well last night I took team Spartmedia to the Vue Cinema at Westwood Cross and we watched "Kick-Ass"... the film from Director Matthew Vaughn. I have to say my expectations were not high... but it turned out to be a great film! very funny and managed to be serious too without taking itself too seriously.

Some great action scenes and a nice pace throughout. Very dark at times too. And a killer quote which is far to rude to post on here...Overall it could have easily got a one way ticket on the fail bus, by trying to be too funny but they got the balance right and avoided too many cliche's, althought there are plenty of cheesy moments and subtle in-jokes about the hero genre.

Comedy: 3/5

Action: 4/5

Script Originality: 4/5

Overall: 4/5 well worth the cinema ticket.

Link to IMDB

]]> Things just get better! http://www.spartmedia.co.uk/blog/2010/03/things-just-get-better.htm Mon, 22 Mar 2010 18:16:48 GMT Mark Zaretti http://www.spartmedia.co.uk/blog/2010/03/things-just-get-better.htm A massive thanks to Ash and the rest of the team at Sparticle limited for creating this very cool looking new site for us. When you look around the site you'll see that we've added loads more really useful information about multimedia movie production  so that you've got all the information you need at your finger tips when you want to start your next media project with us!

Getting great online and DVD movies is really simple when you work with us and it all starts with a simple email or telephone call.

]]> Behind the Scenes Documentary of Nick Kemp @ Human Alchemy Studios http://www.spartmedia.co.uk/blog/2009/12/behind-the-scenes-documentary-of-nick-kemp-human-alchemy-studios.htm Fri, 11 Dec 2009 17:15:41 GMT Mark Zaretti http://www.spartmedia.co.uk/blog/2009/12/behind-the-scenes-documentary-of-nick-kemp-human-alchemy-studios.htm The first in a three part documentary series following Nick Kemp of Human Alchemy has just been rolled out onto youTube. These behind the scenes documentaries are another example of the kind of work we do. Professionals like Nick, are keen to work with us because we understand what it is they want to achieve. In this case Nick wanted a very organic feeling documentary, literally where we follow him with a camera and produce an "honest - what you see is what you get" take on how he produces audio CD products and his influences. Anyone who is interested in the Human Alchemy Hypnosis CD's will find this fascinating.

]]> Online Promotional Advert for Jewelry Shop in Leeds http://www.spartmedia.co.uk/blog/2009/12/online-promotional-advert-for-jewelry-shop-in-leeds.htm Tue, 08 Dec 2009 08:00:26 GMT Mark Zaretti http://www.spartmedia.co.uk/blog/2009/12/online-promotional-advert-for-jewelry-shop-in-leeds.htm We've just uploaded to youTube another short promotional movie for GlobalCrystals.com. In this video Bev shows us hand made Sri Lankan Silver men's pendants and rings with peterzite from the tigers eye crystal family.

Using online videos is a great way to generate sales as it allows people searching youTube and Google videos to discover your products. They also enhance your website by providing embedded videos into your website. These are just some of the reasons we have been commissioned by the Global Crystal Shop in Leeds.

]]> New Online Video to Promote a Crystal Shop http://www.spartmedia.co.uk/blog/2009/12/new-online-video-to-promote-a-crystal-shop.htm Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:22:07 GMT Mark Zaretti http://www.spartmedia.co.uk/blog/2009/12/new-online-video-to-promote-a-crystal-shop.htm Bev and Mario of Global Crystals in Leeds have recently commissioned a number of short promotional videos for their online and physical shops. They sell an amazing range of crystal and esoteric products and gifts and these videos were shot on location at their crystal store in Leeds.

We are pleased to say that the first of these videos is now live and the others will be following shortly. Best wishes to them and these videos will certainly help boost Christmas sales.

]]> Designing Leaflets and Business Cards http://www.spartmedia.co.uk/blog/2009/10/designing-leaflets-and-business-cards.htm Sun, 11 Oct 2009 15:49:59 BST Mark Zaretti http://www.spartmedia.co.uk/blog/2009/10/designing-leaflets-and-business-cards.htm It's been a great week with lots of hard copy design work and also editing. What I've really enjoyed is having clients come into the office so that we can evolve the designs with them present. A good example was Helen Porter & Mr John Divison, from Evolution Skin Studios who popped in for a few hours yestarday. Working directly with them meant we were able to finalise the layout, font style, colour, graphics and images for their new trifold price leaflet. Because they could see the changes as they were made it sped the whole creative process up and gave them and us more creative headroom.

Doing Things Differently - Quicker, Better Design

Of course it helps to have the right equipment. We have a main display that is 30inches (2560x1600) wide with amazing colour and contrast so everyone in the room can see what's going on. It's a smart way to work.

Another good example was Emily Rose who popped by to work on her new business cards. Because we met face to face and took the time to find out more about her business, we quickly came up with a completely new design concept for her and the results are looking great! Well show you the finished product soon :)

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