Spectacle’s Video Services

Are you looking to have your conference, seminar, event professionally filmed? Are you looking for an experienced, reliable and affordable company to deliver a high production value short film? Spectacle’s highly skilled crews provide high quality single or multi-camera videography at competitive prices to suit all your needs and budgets.

Spectacle is an award winning independent television production company specialising in documentary, community-led investigative journalism and participatory media.  Over the last 25 plus years, Spectacle delivered a variety of media products that have ranged from conference documentation, to short educational or promotional videos, from series of mini clips to longitudinal documentation of large social projects. Our list of clients range from broadcast channels and media companies to international NGOs, Charities, Universities and private companies and we have always received great feedback.

Filmmaking and video production can be a long and arduous process; Spectacle’s processes are transparent and ensure consistent contact and input with clients. This means that projects can be constantly monitored and evolved with the client. Our multi-skilled freelancers are familiar with a range of production equipment and post-production software, allowing a wealth of options for final outcomes and diversity of expertise in project management.

Equipment and Crews

Spectacle offers professional full HD video and photographic production and documentation services for online, print or DVD distribution. Our crews have experience of a variety of broadcast and non-broadcast productions, and are used to working in sensitive and difficult situations. We also have experience in working with educational and academic institutions.

Our editors are familiar with academic work environments, especially in the fields of anthropology, urbanism and humanities, enhancing our ability to deliver a reliable service for your conference or educational videos. Our team of freelancers also cover a variety of languages enabling Spectacle to be the perfect partner for non-English speakers.


Service standards

We can tailor our videography services to your needs. Single camera or multi-cam shooting, sound and light setting, interviews and vox pop, locations shots for higher production value: we are happy to discuss the best and most cost effective option to suit your needs. Whatever your choice in terms of crew and film typology, we value quality and do our best to deliver the best standard of service. For this reason all our services provide a full HD video recording and a sound operator to provide the best audio recording to your film. We also provide, when necessary, a basic extra light kit for all our video shooting.

Affordable and transparent costing

Spectacle offers a sliding scale, depending on funding and size of production. Our range of production options starts from £450 to cover videography for your seminar with full HD camera, sound operator and lights.

Get in touch by email: production@spectacle.co.uk

Visit our Web Page, our Facebook page or connect via Twitter

Learn Video Editing with Spectacle

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Our two day video editing training courses offer an opportunity to quickly and cheaply acquire comprehensive post-production skills in a small group setting. We teach primarily on Final Cut Pro, but offer participants the chance to trial and compare Adobe Premiere and iMovie too.

We always receive excellent feedback:

“It was a small group so things were easily explained if not understood, and the direction could be catered towards our needs” – Sarah

“I had no previous knowledge of the software, so I would have been completely scared of trying things on it — the course felt just right to begin this exploration and the information on codec and export was particularly helpful” – Sophia

“It provides a lot of information quickly and in an understandable format. More helpful and human than the internet.” – Camilla

“[Learning a] structure for editing was extremely useful as this had been a barrier to progressing my own project — I’d only received technical training on the software previously” – Jo

We can also arrange one-to-one training – suitable for individuals, pairs or threes – and schedule bespoke coursesfor groups of four or more. One-to-one and bespoke group training can be tailored to meet your requirements – that means we will teach on editing software of your choice, and we can work on your actual video project.

We cover both how to use the editing software – from importing, marking, logging and editing, to adding soundtracks and effects – and workflow techniques: essentially, showing you an easy and stress-free way to turn your many hours of unorganised footage into a well-structured final documentary film, short video, or promotional clip.

Like our Video Production Weekend course, our editing training is popular with aspiring documentary filmmakers, ‘self-shooter’ journalists who want to expand their skill set, marketers who want to make and edit their own promotional videos, and hobbyists who want to produce better results. We particularly recommend the course to individuals who have completed one of our video production courses and want to add editing skills to their repertoire.

Professional filmmaker and teacher Mark Saunders leads all editing sessions himself.

Each participant will have sole or pair use of a computer, giving everyone extensive hands-on experience.

Calling all students – take advantage of our huge student discounts, learn filmmaking before you graduate

Are you a student, interested in documentary filmmaking, video-journalism (becoming a ‘self-shooter’), media communications and marketing, or using video for your final project or fieldwork? We pride ourselves on our affordable and efficient intensive short courses in filmmaking, video production, and video editing, and for students they are even cheaper.

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We offer our Digital Video Production Weekend — a great introductory course for beginners — for just £180 to students (a £60 discount on the full price), and our intensive Four Day Filmmaking Course — also suitable for beginners, but ideal for consolidating and expanding on basic or self-taught skills — for £350 (£150 off).

We also have a course designed specifically for people who want to learn video skills for academic purposes — for use in fieldwork or on their final project and a course for people interested in media communications and marketing. We have courses running soon — before your final project is due! — and over the summer. If you are graduating this year and interested in pursuing a career in documentary filmmaking, self-shooter video-journalism, media communications and marketing, or academia then sign up now and we will honour the student discount even if you graduate before the course start date.

For more information see our website, or email Charlotte at training@spectacle.co.uk to discuss which course would be best for you.

Spectacle’s 4 day training course

Recently Spectacle provided a four day training course in video production at our workshop in Battersea, London. In four days we went through the entire filmmaking/ digital video production process, from brief to production to post production (digital editing using Final Cut Pro) to delivery of the final edit online. This is our most complete course, for those who want to quickly and effectively acquire a comprehensive set of digital media skills.

4 day course with Brian

Spectacle’s training course participants interviewing a mural artist Brian Barnes.

“Great hands on experience”
“Very quick at getting outside and handling equipment “- Ben Martin (HR at Scottish courts)

The first two days the participants put to practice both shooting and interview techniques taught by Spectacle, on a real location with a real client, mural artist Brian Barnes. The participants enjoyed interviewing Brian against the backdrop of one of his murals.

“Being able to use a genuine client allowed us to put into practice what we were learning”-Tim Platt (Autotrader)

“Great opportunity to work on editing software”- Ben Martin

The second half of the course was post production in which we delivered training in editing techniques on Final Cut Pro and other up to date software such as Final Cut X, Adobe Premier and iMovie. Participants also had the chance to watch each others videos.

The group was very diverse, including participants who worked for The National Soldiers Trust, marketing and communications at Autotrader and a journalist looking to redirect their career.

“Informal setting was enjoyable, nice learning environment”
“Course was Enjoyable, motivating and well delivered”- Georgia Rise (Youth Worker)

“The course does exactly what it needs to”
“A big ‘thank you’ for the week, informative, educational, interesting and fun” -Michael Standen (The Soldiers Charity)

“Excellent – got a chance to do everything and covered all areas”
“Would absolutely recommend the course”
-Jo Murray (Journalist)

If you are interested in booking the course visit the How to Book page.

For information on other Spectacle training courses

Or contact training@spectacle.co.uk

If you would like more information on future training opportunities at Spectacle sign up for the Training Newsletter – tick the box if you would also like Spectacle’s general newsletter.




 

 

 

 

Become a Self Shooter: 5 Reasons Journalists Should Learn Video

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As a journalist learning how to use video allows you to work for a wider range of media outlets.

1.With print newspaper production falling by 8% each day and the emergence of new technology, the world of journalism is changing.

2. Media outlets such as online magazines are relying more and more on online video content to keep their readers informed. Outlets such as the BBC are now using video on their Instagram accounts to give their followers short news bursts.

3. Video gives the audience visuals to look at rather than simply text to read, which takes less energy. Therefore readers will often choose to watch a video over reading text.

4. A video informs the reader faster than text. In this age of technology readers want to receive news as fast as possible. In a piece of text every detail needs to be explained, but videos can show rather than tell.

5. Learning how to use video will mean that you can work for a wider range of media outlets.

Learning video can be expensive. However Spectacle offer an affordable 4 day video production training course in which you can learn production and editing. For all abilities.

If you are interested in booking the course visit our website.

Or contact us at training@spectacle.co.uk

Spectacle’s training course encourages you to take the next step

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Spectacle offers several training courses in which participants can experience all the aspects of filmmaking.

Recently I  participated  in Spectacle’s  four day Digital Filmmaking training course which I did as a part of my one month work placement for Spectacle. These intense four days gave me what I was looking for – a practical skill set in filmmaking and post production. As an undergraduate Politics & Media students at Bournemouth University, the training course provided me with practical tips how to produce a short film and what I need to know beforehand which will without a doubt benefit my studies.

During the training course the other participants and I had a chance to practice all aspects of filmmaking: everyone had a go with camera, sound, interviewing and directing. A practical exercise was an interview with a local Mural artist Brian Barnes who talked about his art inspired by the Battersea Power Station. Dominique Lyons, one of the participants describes the training as ‘a good all round course on the basics’. Dominique who works in communications thinks she picked the right course for herself however our participants also came from different fields.

Pelagia Makrelli, an anthropology student from Greece, did her Erasmus workplacement for Spectacle this summer. She says the training helps ‘anthropologists to go from theory to action’. Another anthropologist participating the course was Zsuzsa Millei who says she appreciates how the course showed ‘respect for beginners enthusiasm, patience when something went wrong and understanding of clumsiness’.

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How to film an interview? Spectacle’s training course participants tested interview techniques with a mural artist Brian Barnes.

With my previous experience in editing covering the basics of how to use iMovie, the training course shed light on more advanced editing software and broadened my knowledge of different possibilities for editing. We learned how to use Final Cut Pro and we were advised which software might suit our own purposes. Now after the training course I feel a lot more confident with working with cameras and I’m looking forward to use these new skills in practice.

A freelance journalist Jessica Holland also found the training course very beneficial and she hopes to use her skills to make short documentaries. After all everyone of us who took part in the training course will use these learned skills in different ways. However I believe the course encouraged us to take the next step and get involved in film projects that we might have missed otherwise.

If you are interested in booking the course visit the How to Book page.

For information on other Spectacle training courses

Or contact training@spectacle.co.uk

If you would like more information on future training opportunities at Spectacle sign up for the Training Newsletter – tick the box if you would also like Spectacle’s general newsletter.




 


Video Marketing For The Web Training Course

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Spectacle offers a variety of different training courses. If you work for a business, start up, NGO or charity this might be your chance to learn how to use digital video for marketing purposes.

Hiring film crew or attending a training course to learn video skills can be expensive. However, Spectacle’s video marketing for the web course is affordable and can help you to boost business.

If you work for a business, start up, NGO or charity then our course could be beneficial to you, by offering advice on using digital video to advertise, target and fundraise.

By 2017, video will account for 69% of all consumer internet traffic according to a study by Cisco. Online video is quickly becoming a key means for people to satisfy information and entertainment needs, and has become the future for marketing.

Video has the biggest potential reach on the web, Youtube receiving more than 1 billion unique visitors every month. Meaning Youtube receives the second most visitors on the whole of the web, after Facebook.

We schedule courses at our premises in London regularly over the year but are also available to come and teach at institutions. The course has recently been taught at Cambridge University Press and several Borough Councils. We have received excellent feedback.

Freelance Marketer Ella gave excellent feedback and said :

I was looking for a cost effective course to extend my marketing skills to be able to offer short digital video production for my clients. As a freelancer, a lot of courses I looked at were too long, with content I didn’t need, and frankly too costly. Of course, part of me thought the Spectacle course was a suspicious bargain, but testimonials were strong and I liked how ‘real world applied’ the content looked. 

I needn’t have worried. Mark has a skill to extract exactly what you need from the course and flex content to suit you. My photography skills were basic at best, and decades old, but very swiftly updated!  Hands on use of high quality camcorders straightaway means that you fly out of the blocks on that, and find yourself filming around Clapham getting the feel of things very quickly indeed. By the end of day one we’d interviewed, reviewed framing, focus and exposure issues, and – most eye opening to me –  got the hang of how to record broadcast quality audio. Not to give too much away, by the end of day two we were in post production…

For me, the key was Mark’s ‘mindset’ approach. So, of course, my technical skills will need hours of practice over the next few weeks, but unless your training gives you the mindset of a film maker, you might as well work your way through the manufacturer’s manual. Mark covers how to keep swapping your hats, from thinking like a sound engineer to how to capture plentiful footage that’s filmed in a away that doesn’t prompt a performance or reaction, to maintaining the story thread (and safe files) through the edit process.  

On editing, I have even less background than photography. But there’s hands on time again, and most importantly a really in-depth comparison of software you can use, with differing tools and screen layouts. The same goes for kit options – there’s no pressure to buy any one brand or configuration, and Mark discusses what you’re likely to need specific to your setting.  I have confidence now to choose what will suit me best, and even where to hunt for 2nd hand, which is a quantum leap from where I was 

Would I recommend Spectacle? Only grudgingly – it’s my secret support system now, and I’m not sure I want to share… I shall definitely be going back.

If you are interested in booking the course visit the How to Book page.

For information on other Spectacle training courses

Or contact training@spectacle.co.uk

If you would like more information on future training opportunities at Spectacle sign up for the Training Newsletter – tick the box if you would also like Spectacle’s general newsletter.




 

 

Training: Digital Video Production for the Web

Our Digital VWEB4ideo Production for the Web course is aimed at NGOs, SMEs, charities, social enterprises and small businesses who want to produce their own online video content. There is an ever-increasing demand for high quality online video to get your message across and to reach audiences.

DIY film making and successful use of no/low budget techniques can slash your production costs and actually improve the content you produce. Training existing staff or volunteers in the techniques of high quality digital film making is far more cost effective than hiring a film crew. But in addition to this, when people working on the ground record their own activities and events, capture client testimonials and document their work you can often get better results than with a hired film crew of strangers. Where your staff have built relationships and trust with your clients they can film more relaxed and interpersonal moments – moments that might elude an external film crew, making for a more direct and powerful film.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

This practical hands-on course aims to give you the “future proof” information you really need to know to produce high quality videos by concentrating on the techniques and skills that stay constant, regardless of passing developments in software, technologies and formats.

The training is not technology specific but gives you the knowledge and attitude to get the best out of whatever equipment is to hand, to navigate your way around the complexity of codecs and formats, to identify and solve technical problems, techniques and methods, to speedily pass on knowledge and expertise to other members of your organisation and client base.

ABOUT THE TUTOR

Mark Saunders is an award-winning independent film-maker, media activist and writer. His expertise in the field spans over two decades.

He is currently running Spectacle Productions, a company which he founded in 1990. Clients have included Amnesty International, Channel 4, the Rowntree Foundation, the Howard League for Penal Reform, Council of Europe, Groundwork, the London Health Commission, and many others.

His films have been broadcast internationally and exhibited at galleries, including Tate Britain, the National Film Theatre, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Musee des Beaux-Arts,  the National Media Museum and the Photographers Gallery.

Alongside production work, in 1990 he was a founding member of INURA (International Network for Urban Research and Action). Mark has also been teaching for over 15 years, and has been a visiting lecturer at a number of institutions, including London School of Economics, the Royal College of Art, the London College of Communications, Bournemouth, Florence, and Coventry Universities. He is currently teaching at Birkbeck College.

DATES AND COSTS

Our London based Digital Video Production for the Web training course is suitable for beginners and up. At just £600 per person it is excellent value and we offer a 20% discount to groups of more than four booking together. If you are a group we can bring our training to your premises and tailor it to your needs.  We have a course scheduled for next week, and another set to run in December (3rd-5th). We will arrange more courses for individuals if there is demand so please enquire if you are interested. If you are a group of more than four, please contact us and we can run a course especially for you.

For more information on prices, booking and course content, please see the training page on our website.  

If you are interested in booking this course visit the How to Book page.

For information on other Spectacle training courses

Or contact training@spectacle.co.uk

If you would like more information on future training opportunities at Spectacle sign up for the Training Newsletter.




 

Spectacle Training: Final Cut Pro Weekend Training Course- March

Final Cut Pro Weekend Training Course

Saturday & Sunday March 24 & 25 2012 10.00 to 16.00

This is a practical hands-on evening course aimed at people who want a fast way to acquire detailed and concise editing skills. It is particularly useful for aspiring documentary makers, journalists who want to expand their skill set and voluntary sector workers who want to edit their own films.

The short, condensed and effective course will give all participants a solid foundation of practical knowledge and a working understanding of editing software, from importing, marking, logging and editing, to adding soundtracks and effects.

We allow one person per computer, giving everyone extensive hands-on experience.

Completing this course will guarantee you a work placement opportunity with Spectacle.

What you will learn:

– Overview of Final Cut Pro
– Editing basics, cutting, moving and arranging clips
– Transitions and effects
– Use of logging, key words and database to organise your edit
– Creating titles
– Using sound
– Importing and exporting media
– Uploading on-line, basic intro to codecs and formats

Price

£200.00 + VAT = £240
Concs.: £100.00 + VAT = £120

Special discounts

– Bookings for three to five people: 10% discount
– Bookings for six people or more: 20% discount

Click to find out more and to book.