"A Sense of Belonging" Featured Blog By The Scouts

“In the darkening night, up in the mountains which host Kandersteg International Scout Centre, Adam Plowden had only 15 minutes to fly his drone above the campfire and snap this beautiful photograph.”

The above quote is taken from The Scouts blog post.

During the Summer of 2018, over 500 Surrey Scouts visited the Kandersteg International Scouting Centre in Switzerland. Part of my role in the County media team was to document the trip and share the amazing experiences with the world.

Little did I know that the above photo would become so famous. It’s been used extensively by The Scouts as it embodies everything that Scouting is about; worldwide friendship, adventure and a sense of belonging.

“The shot was captured using a drone.

I could see the camera downlink from the drone to my phone, which helped get it into position to capture some video footage. You can’t fly directly over the top of people for safety, which is why I composed it with the group slightly off centre, getting the tents and parts of the forest in there too. The drone itself can only fly for 15 minutes before you have to change the battery, which doesn’t give you a lot of time to fly, film and take photos! In the mountains it gets dark very quickly, so it was quite a challenge to get the drone to the right height, the right angle and in the right position – I was battling against the fading light and fast-moving cloud, which would quickly cover the drone.”

— Adam Plowden

You can read the full article by The Scouts here.

Check out our KIX18 highlights reel:

Capturing The Photo: DJI Mavic Air

The aerial photograph was captured using the DJI Mavic Air in HDR mode just as the sun set. The flood lights made the sea of red and surrounding forest glow out of the darkness.

Scout Monopoly Board Game

The photo resounded with The Scouts so much that it has been selected as an ‘Image Of The Year’ and has also been included on the first Scout Monopoly board game, which is on sale now in the Scout Shop.

More Photography From Kandersteg, Switzerland

Filming in LA 'CineGear 2015' in Hollywood with Sony A7S, Manfrotto + Rode

APVideo: CineGear 2015 @ Paramount Pictures, LA

It's been a rather amazing few weeks for me here at APVideo. So here is the low down on what I did, what kit I used and what is coming up next!

Jump back to the beginning of June and I get a call from NewsShooter.com asking if I'm available to cover CineGear in Hollywood for them. With an empty space in the diary, I jumped on the chance to visit LA and begun the prep to cover the expo with video.

To familiarise myself with the exhibitors, I checked out the interactive map and visited the websites of companies of interests and viewed the latest press releases to get clued up on the news. (Always be prepared).

Manfrotto provided me with the fantastic Roller Bag 70 for my trip overseas, into which I moulded the foam inserts to protect the cameras and kit I'd be taking. Since it was a short trip, I only took the bare neccessities!!

• Sony A7S in Movcam cage and Metabones Adapter mk IV
• Tamron 24-70
• Nikon 50mm F/1.4
• Zoom H6
• Rode Lavalier
• Manfrotto 755CX-3 + MVH500AH

Told you it was bare!

It was a couple of long flights over to LAX.. Some snaps from the journey on the A7S.

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It was my first time flying to America, so I was keen to snap up as much as I can, and enjoy the Virgin Atlantic hospitality!

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I highly recommend the Mondrian Hotel on West Sunset Blvd, it is bloody amazing. Rooftop restaurant and bar, amazing hotel views, and staff that feel like family!

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The following morning I constructed the Movcam cage rig with the kit I brought, which compacted all of the filming kit into one tiny hand held rig which I could put on the Manfrotto 755Cx-3 tripod.

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I got myself one of these handy little hot/cold shoe mounts for anything with a 1/4" screw hole; in this case I was using it with the Zoom H6 but it fits most accessories. If I were using the Atomos Shogun, I'd of used a magic arm (just for flexibility in adjusting the screen angle), but as I was monitoring the audio with headphones and checked the levels beforehand I didn't need to see the monitor per se. An alternate is to simply use a ball mount, but I find these sometimes don't lock down the position strongly enough (especially cheaper ones).

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Very lightweight packing for a 3 night trip.

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I took of the video head by unscrewing the locking screws at the base.

I got an UBER from the hotel to the studios, and after registering and waiting for the show to open, I made my way to the stages to begin filming! I had about 10 interviews to do on the first day to get a head start and the main content back to NewsShooter (who are a day ahead time wise).

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Cool-Lux, Atomos, SLR Magic, Beeworks and a host of other manufacturers were on the list to capture. For the setup, I shot using PB's recommended video settings (cine-4 etc see previous blog post) with the Zoom H6 recording dual audio both on the stereo XY mic and via the Rode Lavalier which I clipped onto the interviewees.

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Thats Andrew from SLR Magic talking about their new Rangefinder, Anamorphot and Noktor lenses.

The plan was to shoot the 10 interviews with plenty of B-roll and begin editing that night. It was a late one, staying up until 4am editing the first batch of videos. I got the SLR Magic one out that morning before my head hit the pillow.

4 hours later.

Up I was to complete the last of the edits in Premiere Pro. The videos follow the same format, so after opening the exported XML sequence from Pluraleyes I could simply drop in the titles and credits, the lower 3rd and QC the video before exporting.

The show opened later that day, so I made my way down that afternoon. The Manfrotto tripod I was using was perfect for this kind of filming. Being mobile and having a small footprint is a real issue when covering events, and you should try and stay as small and quick on your feet as possible.

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The rig was so convenient I carried around on my shoulder all day!

That evening it was recovery time from the lack of sleep and jet lag carrying over from the previous night, but while I was putting my feet up watching Jurassic Park in the hotel I had Premiere whizzing away with the new footage I had shot that day.

Because of the format, replication of sequences was rather fast. Using Premiere means no rendering time and instant playback, so I spent little to no time waiting around as I queued up the finalized sequences into Media Encoder, and batch exported while I was editing together the next sequence. Keeping check on the white balance and varying exposure of indoor and outdoor shooting meant no colour correction was needed in the edit, which also sped up the production process, I could get the news from the show quicker out to NewsShooter!

The beauty of shooting on the A7S was that I could shoot at F/11 and beyond outside due to the wonderful Hollywood weather, but inside if I needed extra light I could punch up the ISO to 2400-6000 with no real visual difference (unless you want to pixel peep).

The Rode Lavalier is a real workhorse for me. Before leaving I set it up with the small wind jammer and the Micon-5 XLR adapter so it would plug comfortably into the H6. For an inexpensive microphone it does a fantastic job of capturing the subject and cancelling out the background noise, which at an expo is quite loud in some cases.

In case you need advice on SD cards, I use the Transcend Ultimate 600x 64Gb U3 cards (purply pink label) as they are XAVC and S-log compatible.. Not that I have shot using the S-log yet.

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Feel like I should say 'Mirror, mirror, on the huge podium in the centre of my hotel room'.

Just as quickly as I arrived, it was time for me to depart. I got an UBER to LAX where I picked up a couple of snacks to munch on while I edited the remaining videos to be exported when I got back home.

That guy sitting above my laptop was vaping away on an e-cig by the gate. I thought to myself 'surely this wouldn't be legal in England'.. It isn't!

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Bye bye wonderful Mondrian and LA

I returned home after a stop over in Las Vegas for probably about 20 minutes. So no gambling or anything like that as it was a quick transfer. So quick in fact that I needed to run to the gate (again, thanks to Delta, grr).

A fun filled 12 hour flight across the states and Canada, across the ocean and back into England was compiled of all 3 Hobbit films (as I was yet to watch them), followed by a hilarious comedy film called 'What We Do In The Shadows' by the same guys that made 'Flight Of The Concords'.

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Damn its dry down there.. No forests or green!

Overall it was a brilliant working trip to Paramount to cover CineGear 2015 for NewsShooter, and a wonderful experience visiting the US too. I look forward to working again with NewsShooter at future events!

My experience of IBC 2013 Part 1

I had never been to IBC before, I wanted to go a couple of years ago but I was a little last minute with extremely expensive prices, but now after all the hard uni work and starting myself up as a freelance videographer, a trip to Amsterdam for IBC 2013 was just what I needed! It was also the first time I've been on a plane in 11 years, so I was super excited, and acted rather like a tourist for the first couple of days.. But, I have no regrets!

Myself outside Amsterdam Schipol Airport, great smoking area with all the sunflowers, how Dutch!

Just had a quick thought, for you readers to enjoy your experience reading my blog further, you can listen to what I am listening to while I write it, having withdrawl symptoms from Amsterdam lead me to searching for "Coffeeshop" "Soul" on 8Tracks, hoping for a chilled result :) So here is the playlist you can listen to while reading! Street Cues Sound Clues Amsterdam Withdrawl Playlist on 8Tracks

Amazing Mexican restaurant called 'La Margarita' just off the canal, near Amsterdam University (https://plus.google.com/105150292043799825469/about?gl=uk&hl=en) They do great cocktails too, definitely recommend it.

Amsterdam's coffee shop culture is something to be admired, the liberal and relaxed lifestyle suits me perfectly, and I'm not going to pretend I disagree with coffee shops, because they are awesome. I met more friendly people and generated more work in coffee shops than I do in Starbucks in The UK. In the photo you can see The Bulldog, and further down is the original coffee shop. I did pop in to these, but both were really busy so I skipped off to another in the pouring rain. (https://plus.google.com/112706500562557581286/about?gl=uk&hl=en).

This rather lovely looking church turned out to be a brothel.

Taken from outside The Greenhouse Seed Co Coffee shop, near Dam Square. Sitting outside having a drink by the river is so cool. We had a couple beers over there on the first evening, Duvel! (Cafe Rock Planet)

The view from my hotel window, the Pathe Cinema! (Rembrandtplein).

On the Friday (13th) myself, Amy and Sam made our way to the Amsterdam RAI. We jumped on the tram outside our hotel on Rembrandtplein which took us all the way to IBC, very convenient although it was rammed with suited business-people attending the show! IBC provided free tram travel for the duration of the show which was great for getting around town, until I lost mine.

We made our way to The IABM stand, near the Future Zone in one of the 14 halls of this massive place, where we met Steve Warner and Sam Hawkins and were presented with the prize money. We also met the other Engineering Student Award winners who came from across the world for IBC; Zoe Wyeth of the University of Salford, Julian Theis of the RheinMain University of Applied Sciences, Adam Plowden and Amy Tinker of Kingston University, Pierre Hamme-Gerome and Antonin Morel of the Université de Valenciennes, Kathryn Savage of Southampton Solent University, Lennard Bredenkamp of HTWK Leipzig, and Evgenii Smirnov and Anna Nikolaeva of St. Petersburg State University of Film and Television. (Photos are coming from The IABM in the next couple of days).

The rest of the day was spent wondering around, wowing and touching all the amazing new technology and equipment, which I will upload the photos of soon! There will also be video blog entries uploaded very soon too, including interviews with manufacturers, designers, and a film of Amsterdam too, yes 'Ive been busy!

BlackMagic Design had a fantastic booth exhibiting many of their Cinema and Pocket cameras in different set-ups, as well as demonstrations of the new 6G production switcher, and the newly released DaVinci Resolve 10. As I am looking to upgrade cameras, the BMCC is definitely an option for me, as the price of the unit and features weigh it up considerably as a mid range cinema camera, rather than a simple DSLR upgrade. Also, as I discovered, Tokina had been hard at work on an 11-16mm T3 cine lens for Super35 sensors, demonstrated on a BMCC at their booth; finally opening up wide angle shots which had previously been restricted due to the 2.2x mag factor. More info on the NEW Tokina releases can be seen in an upcoming video with the Director of Tokina himself!

There will be much much much more coming soon, I just have to get through the video editing and chuck it all together, but please be patient, they are coming :)

As for future work and plans, I was due to produce a couple of videos for some classic RV's, with Joel from London Event Photography however thanks to the terrific English weather it was called off. Also got some top secret work with a manufacturer coming up, as well as a possible booking to go back to Amsterdam for the end of November.. IE.. My 22nd Birthday!! We shall see..

All the best for now you wonderful people! If you haven't checked out this kind of teaser video then please do :)

http://vimeo.com/74469276