We hadn’t realised that it had been such a long time since our last blog entry – we hang our heads in shame! We have however been really busy, playing with and perfecting our Steadicam and Glidetrack work and experimenting with Magic Bullet looks. However one of the most exciting things that we have been busy with is a Three Day Residential Training course that we put together for Ineke Geelen – a Belgian now living in Zambia. The film above is the first ever film produced by Ineke, and we think it is amazing when you think that until she started her training with us Ineke had never used a semi professional camera or even seen Final Cut Pro in action. Below is her story…
Ineke has a degree (well several actually) in Wildlife Management, and has always felt that the best way to spread the word about the wildlife that is her passion, would be to make films. Sadly the film-making section of a Wild Life Management degree is distinctly lacking, so Ineke came to us to find out if we could help. Naturally we said yes! Now it may seem a little odd that a Wedding Film specialist might agree to Wildlife Filming Training. However having begun our filming careers in Africa we do actually have fairly extensive experience in this field, and as the basic principles of good filming and editing are the same no matter what the subject matter, we felt fairly confident we could get Ineke off to a good start.
When Ineke arrived on the Tuesday evening, she had never used a semi-pro camera before, barely knowing one end of her new Canon XH-A1s from the other. However, we threw her in the deep-end and having collected her from the station at 22.30, sent her to bed with a 60 page manual, custom designed for this course, for some light reading ready for a 9.00am sharp start the next morning!
Day One consisted of intensive theory, teaching Ineke how to set up the camera and the basics of good filming technique. Ineke was an absolute star, and barring one or two desperately needed coffee breaks, was completely focused throughout the day. Day Two we had planned a little bit of fun and a huge amount of practical experience, and arranged with Dartmoor Zoological Park to be allowed to film their animals. Ineke was in her element, and as determined as she is decided that she would start as she meant to continued and spent the entire day filming in full manual. Those of you in the know will understand what an undertaking this was, and we were amazed and delighted by the quality of film that Ineke had captured by the end of the day.
Having captured the tapes the night before, Day Three was spent giving Ineke an overview of Final Cut Pro, which once again she had never used before. We had given Ineke a ‘brief’ to produce a short promotional film for Dartmoor Zoological Park. Once again Ineke worked liked a Trojan, only stopping to for as long as it took to rush down the leftovers from the previous nights dinner for lunch (we offered gourmet – that was what she wanted!). However, all the hard work paid off, and by then end of Day Three, Ineke had completed her first ever wildlife film.
