visualhybrid

Trail Bike Of The Year 2013 videos

We recently made grouptest video reviews for What Mountain Bike Magazine’s 2013 Trail Bike Of The Year.

We enlisted Liam Murphy to film the action up at Coed y Brenin MTB trail centre in North Wales and I filmed the piece to camera parts in the bike lockup at Future in Bath.

For the edit I followed a similar style to our recent Road Bike Of The Year series.

Credits:

Location filming: Liam Murphy (Canon 550d, Hague mini jib)

Studio filming & audio: Paul Stevenson (Panasonic HMC 151)

Edit: Paul Stevenson (FCP7)

Thumbnail photo credit: Russell Burton

Giro d’Italia 2013 Preview Videos

We made some race parcour preview videos for the much lauded Giro d’Italia. Despite being seen by many as a much tougher and grittier race than the Tour de France ( - even the flatter parts if Italy are hilly), the Giro has always never attracted the same level of media coverage. For various reasons, notably Bradley Wiggins desire to “target” the Giro following his 2012 Tour de France win, the press have jumped on the wagon this year.

Jamie Wilkins from Pro Cycling Magazine tells you everything you need to know to get a flavour for the first Grand Tour of the race season with our 21 stage Giro 2013 video playlist. Enjoy.

Credits:

Script and presenting - Jamie Wilkins

Lighting, sound recording and camera - Paul Stevenson

Editing, sound mix and intro ident GFX - Chris Urmston

AFX motion graphics - Ric Rawlins

Filmed on Panasonic HMC 151. Edited in Adobe Premier Pro, Motion graphics created in Adobe After Affects. Lit with 4x tungsten redhead. 2@ 300W, 2@ 150W

Campagnolo 80th Anniversary Groupset Video

BikeRadar were lucky enough to get their hands on the very exclusive Campagnolo 80th anniversary groupset long enough for us to film this tease of an unveiling video. Robin Wilmott from BikeRadar’s Technical Road team talks us through why it’s so special.

There’s a pretty £2,500 hefty price tag attached so for most people it’s probably a case of “You can look, but you can’t touch”

You can read the more about the groupset here

Credits:

Camera, lighting, sound and edit - Paul Stevenson

Filmed on Panasonic HMC 151. Edited in FCP7 Lit with 4x tungsten redhead. 2@ 300W, 2@ 150W.

Photo credit: Russell Burton

We were tasked to produce a video series for Cycling Plus magazine’s Road Bike Of The Year for 2013. The videos we produced for their 2012 showdown we’re popular, but there were lots of lessons learned, both in terms of shooting and maximising views via better YouTube integration and in Cycling Plus’s digital edition.

Credits: Location filming: Liam Murphy

Workshop studio camera & lighting: Paul Stevenson

Video edit - Top 5 bikes: Paul Stevenson

Video edit - promos: Liam Murphy

Stills photography: Russell Burton

Archive: ‘the time machine’ 360 degree timelapse & stop motion music video.

Back in 2005 I had the workings of an idea for a possible music video concept - To film 360 degree timelapse, sunrise to sunset using a rotary head.

Back then I was stuck for how to achieve the mechanics of what I was looking to achieve. I experimented mounting cameras on a rotating plate with a clock motor driving the motion via a belt drive, but the cameras were far too weighty for the clock motor and the movements either slowed or ground totally.

During 2008 I entered into the straight8 super8 film competition and was desperate to realise my idea. I’d heard of Bristol based Lobster Pictures who back then were beginning to specialise in clever timelapse and rotary camera filming. I chatted to the founder Robbie Allen and when I explained my idea he very kindly offered up the use of his time machine rotary tripod head.

With the tech hurdles cleared, I then had to work out the maths for calculating a 12 hour daylight window into super8 timelapse. Figuring out which shutter interval would allow a full 12 hours of filming from the 3min 30 reel of film and look correct in 360 degree motion caused brain melt. I won’t bore you with the specific here!

The video was a huge success and worked better than I’d hoped. The film screened at several festivals including the Portable Film Festival was chosen as Vimeo Staff Pick and was a finalist at the straight8 competition.

Filming underway - Part way through a continuous 12 hour take.

Here’s a behind the scenes video we shot during the 12 hour shoot. A timelapse of a timelapse, or meta-ti

‘the time machine’ timelapse shoot from visualhybrid on Vimeo.

visualhybrid on Vimeo.

Credits:

Idea by Paul Stevenson. Realised by Paul & Rory.

Cast:

Rory Nunn, Paul Stevenson, Harry Livingstone as the Gorilla, Mr & Mrs Bananarama Barnaby, Joel Burton, John Cowan-Hughes, Jo Isaac, Sarah Ovens, Alex Livingstone.

BIG thanks to Robbie at Lobster Pictures for tech support.

Music ‘Time to be Taken’ by Rory Nunn

straigh8 2008 competition entry.

Source: vimeo.com

Chris Akrigg - Lost footage

We were going through old BikeRadar archive footage recently - DVD’s, mini DV tapes, Hi-8, IMAX-HD, Kinetoscope etc etc and came across some unused ‘lost footage’ of the bossman of raw MTB trails riding Chris Akrigg. The footage is from, a MBUK magazine photoshoot up on a very wet an misty Yorkshire moor and was shot by Andrew Dodd on a GoPro Hero2. Clearly we had to make a quick edit. The guy has real purpose when he rides. His style is very different from someone like Danny MacAskill, it feels more risky less rehearsed.

Incase you haven’t seen Mr Akrigg in action. Here’s a link to some of his other videos on his Vimeo page. Slick.

One from the archive: smsd

It’s been a while since I gave the smsd AV collaboration I was part of with music producer Martin Egner (screen3). We’ve been chatting about re-kindling the series. Not quite sure how things would work yet as the situations have changed. We’re both still immensly proud of the smsd series so it would be a shame not to collaborate on it again.

Working to defined paramaters (rules) was actually a fresh way of working as it made certain choices for us, allowing us to concentrate on the juice of the project. Filming on KODAK EKTACHROME 100D Color Reversal Super 8 Film was always a joy. Super8 isn’t an excat scienece and some of the best looking results are caused by imperfections in the film, errors in focus or jams in the projection telecine. I have some beautiful looking vj looks which were caused bu film jamming when projected. There’s somegthing mesmerising about watching the film projection melt infront of you on the screen. This usually happens a few seconds before you realise the 500w bulb is destroying your master film!

Here’s the 3 parts we made in London circa 2005-2006:

visualhybrid appears on 'The Simple Things' blog

vis_Kindle ebook case

I made an ebook case for my Kindle 4 a few weeks back. The Simple Things craft blog have done an article on the vis_kindle case with step-by-step details and photos by me detailing how to make yourself one. I keep getting asked by randoms on public transport where I bought it so I may yet have to start a production line. Thanks to The Simple Things for featuring it. Big thanks to my dear wife, Jo for buying me the Kindle and prompting me to get crafting and Rory for gifting me the book years ago.

I’ve recently been working on my small paul project again. It’s a short animated story which I first started working on a few years back, then got stuck with the ending. Never good.

I think I’ve got the end sussed now, so once I got the words nailed down and edited to a tight script work should start on the animation.

For now, here’s an old scan of one of theoriginal concept sketches. small paul.

ftomfilm:

Next Monday is going to be a really big day - on February 4th, just 8 days from now, we’re going to be releasing the film’s official trailer! The trailer will first go live on the Kickstarter campaign, where we’re setting up pre-orders for the film.

The trailer will have another very special announcement regarding the film’s original score - music has always been incredibly important to For Thousands of Miles, and we’ve been lucky enough to work with our dream-choice composer to create, what I think, is such an impressive and beautiful score.

Monday, we’ll also be giving people a first look at new artwork for the film, designed by Kristen from WARPAINT. There’s more announcements scheduled during the KSR campaign, February is shaping up to be a big month for the film. Stay tuned!

Been eagerly awaiting this indy bike film for a while now. Footage that I’ve seen looks absolutely stunning. Excited much.

Reblogged from hello. my name is mike ambs.

Source: ftomfilm

Back in July 2012, Mr Liam Murphy and I headed out to Belgium - land of chocolate, Jean-Claude Van Damme and it seems cycling (with companies such as Ridley Bikes: ‘We are Belgium’)

While we were there, we shot a 15 minute documentary video about Ridley Bikes as part of a commercial deal Future Sport Video had to produce a video catalogue of Ridley’s 2012 bike product line. We shot on Canon DSLR’s and used a Hague mini-jib, Hague mini-track and mounted Contour bullet cameras.

Over 2 days we followed the bespoke production process of a Ridley bike from initial sketches and designs through spray booth to hand build assembly. The company HQ is an incredible place. It’s ultra modern and very efficient. They capture more power than they use via solar panels on the factory roof (take note UK politicians) and have very simple yet effective methods to recycle energy around the production process.

The staff were ace and made filming what was a huge amount of footage in 2 days a pretty pleasurable process. Cheers all.

Credits:

Filmed - Liam Murphy & Paul Stevenson

Edit & Grading - Paul Stevenson

GFX - Chris Urmston

Scripted - Paul Stevenson & Ben Healy

VO - Jim Eveleigh

GoPro HERO2 vs. HERO3 Head-to-Head tech comparaison video. We recently filmed and put together a HERO2 vs. HERO3 tech crunch video for BikeRadar . With a lot of people wanting to know which was best, our aim was to carry our a proper unbiased appraisal of each of the cameras and let the footage speak for itself. We mounted the 2 cameras as centered as we could to allow us to simultaneously film the same sections of the MTB trail with both cameras. You can read the full article, with indepth tech detailing here.

Credits: Filmed by Paul Stevenson & Ben Healy

Edit: Paul Stevenson

Tech research: Paul Stevenson, Ben Healy, Chris Urmston

British Cycling skills video series

A few months back, Future Sports Video we’re chosen by British Cycling to produce an in-depth series of technical cycling skills videos for their members. So far we have produced 25 skills videos for road cycling (Sportives), 8 for cyclocross and 8 for mountain bike.

For each of the shoots I was the lead videographer and was extensively involved in the storyboarding and planning stages. Despite being very challenging due to the complex nature of the skills, atmospheric extremes such as torrential rain, the health and safety concerns of filming with car mounted cameras on open roads, the shoots have been hugely satisfying.

You can see some of the videos on the new British Cycling Insight Zone

Here’s one of my favourites which is nice and clear and includes a few pretty tricky camera shots.

Top work by Chris Urmston for the blinding post production skills.

Credits:

Filmed - Paul Stevenson & Liam Murphy

Offline edit - Lawrence Bowden

Online edit, GFX and sound - Chris Urmston

Production - Ben Healy, Jim Eveleigh, Paul Stevenson

Exec Producer - Scott Longstaff

VooDoo Adventures #4: The Great Train Journey

I got to film and direct the final part of a great MTB web video series we’ve been running on BikeRadar. We’d been talking about this idea for several months so I’d had chance to think clearly about shots that I wanted to get (eg the tracking shots on the train using the Glidecam). Andrew Dodd from MBUK Magazine had a really distinct vision for how he wanted the magazine article to shape out, so I was keen to compliment that in video.

The shoot involved filming the sleeper train journey from Euston Station in London overnight through to Fort William in the Scottish Highlands. Filming on cramped, dark moving train threw up quite a few hurdles for filming.

As we were going to have to be foot mobile for the Fort William MTB riding parts of the shoot, I knew DSLR was the best option. This also fitted with the other 3 parts of the series which can be seen here:

I opted to use the Canon 600d DSLR in our video kit as weight was a real consideration. I’d need to carry everything I needed while riding so the gear needed to be compact, light and also capable of shooting in very dark and cramped conditions. (the train) Glass wise I took 50mm 1.8 prime and a Canon 16-35mm L series 2.8 straight. I also took a lightweight carbon photo tripod, a Glidecam HD steadycam which I used for the tracking shots (and ultimately many of the other static shots for expediency). I took our Hague mini track, although that remained strapped to the camera bag for the entire shoot. You never know.

The shoot wasn’t without challenges - North west Scotland is very wet, so the halo affect on some of the shots is in fact incidentally caused by the lenses being misted and my lens cloths being sodden.

The Highlands are stunning to film in and with Rob Jarmans fearless bike handling it was a truly satisfying shoot. Cheers to Doddy for the idea, Rob Jarman for mad bike skills, Russ Burton for snapper cameraderie and Hannah Barnes who showed us around. Top work all.

SocketFace

I spotted a rather strange but hilarious blog the other day full of face-a-likes snapped and sent in for submission http://foundfacesblog.tumblr.com/ well worth a look.