Updated news

October 2008 saw us tackle “the most famous bridge in the world”, Tower Bridge. We filmed a 'Heaven and Hell' themed night with full catering, musicians and speeches. We caught the setting up and taking down of the event, behind-the-scenes and the stunning views. The best part was filming from the very top of the towers, out in the wind and cold and at an exhilarating height.

Tim and Steven also jetted off to sunny Edinburgh to film a case study on Intermec CN3 hand-held devices. They had previously done the same in Warsaw. These projects would continue to occupy significant amount of time in post-production throughout November.

Clemence, who had been along to help at the Tower Bridge shoot, was now offered a more permanent position (hooray!). Her work proper began just after Halloween so November kicked off with a team of three – Tim, Clemence and Steven.

On our first job together, we went to film an interview with Emlyn Pearce, who is recording a pilot for a series called 'The Book Club Detective'. He was interviewing a biographer about A.A. Milne for his episode on 'Winnie the Pooh'. We are looking forward to the second half of the project which will take place in early spring this year in Ashdowne Forest.

The next interview we filmed was part of the Juggle interviews by Ian Sanders. He was talking to Martha Lane Fox about managing to keep lots of jobs all going at once. Martha was extremely sweet and interesting and we got free Lucky Voice tickets from it! Need to book a karaoke night soon!

Our filming at Ravensbourne School continued through November and early December. We were filming a combined art/music/dance/story-telling project which resulted in a performance. We love being involved with this school because of the kindness and sense of fun of the organisers and kids alike. This long-term project is being processed into a short film for the school and the Museum of London.

Early December saw Steven off to Paris with Ian Sanders again. This time, the interview was with Gary Vehnerchuk, a wine guru and online networker extraordinaire. His interview, which is entertaining and inspiring, can be seen by accessing www.iansanders.com, and following the links.

Steven then took a well-deserved break on a photography tour of Switzerland. Check out the fruits of that journey at www.stevenmayatt.co.uk.

Back from his Continental tour, Steven kindly loaned out his equipment to budding film-maker, Clemence, who engaged on a personal project documenting the lead-up to Crisis at Christmas. She spent most of the Christmas holidays filming Architecture for Humanity volunteers transforming the centres. If you would like to find out more about this initiative, visit www.afhuk.org or www.crisis.org. The documentary is still a work in progress.

On the last day of work we filmed a quick interview with Robert Dornhelm. He directed the new film version of 'La Boheme'. That was an interesting interview for us because he discussed techniques and considerations of big film making. Some of us got a little starry-eyed.

Then it was Christmas! And we all had a nice break. Except Steven, who likes to work on days like birthdays and New Years (not really! - check out his Facebook picture, he likes to party with a wig on).

We came back to work on January 5^th, like merry Christmas elves, and started organising some positive changes for 2009. New branding, brochures and website – all to hit the net soon! Greater communication with our friends and customers like this blog, and our new Twitter account. Better organisation through a new network drive, on-line calendars and clearer defined roles.

A serious technical advancement is also on the cards as we have booked a second big editing suite so we will get post-production through the system double-quick! All this means we are improving our services and we have some great projects already lined up for the future.

We will be back filming for a major cleaning company in March at Leeds Metropolitan University. We will be off to Manchester on the 12^th Feb to film a Jaga event opening.

Before that, there will be another Juggle interview on the 5^th Feb and on the 18^th of Feb we will start a new series of interviews for a return of MoneyExpert TV. This series is about financial difficulties in the recession and particularly personal debt. We are still looking for case studies so if you want to make a quick £100 and get some financial advice, do get in touch. Alternatively, if you want to talk about any of our services, or if you have any fashion tips for Steven, please feel free to comment below.

A busy week

A genuinely busy week of small file deliveries and some big budgets and proposals have certainly made this the most packed this side of the new year.

While the early part of this week was focussed on expanding the company web site, the rest followed with news of some big projects in the pipeline. For these, I have had to work with clients to establish their needs and the budgets available to them. This helps me to work out what I can offer them in terms of a creative response, and helps decide the filming format and likely equipment.

Today specifically, I have concentrated on encoding, for one of my clients who is displaying video for the web. With the amount of codecs and file types available, its crucial to know how these files intend to be used, and try to judge how they are likely to perform when viewed. Needless to say, these aren't always straightforward jobs, even for there 2 minute files!

My day rarely ends early, but the beauty of the setup at screensaver is its flexibility and versatility. Tonight, my backups will be copied overnight and preparations for capturing new material will be made for new jobs tomorrow.

www.screensaver.UK.com

Last minute production

Today's challenge was keeping a long-term client happy.

The mobile ringing at 8:50 is either a really good or a really bad sign. Today's ring was a mix, a client had been pencilled in for a shoot, but it was not confirmed, and therefore not booked in. A client bringing you work at the last minute is never really a bad thing, but only good if you can actually fit them in properly!

Due to time constraints, however, there was no way of rebooking this shoot - so thankfully my associated kit and crew were ready and mobile within about 2 hours, which is pretty good going!

I've been shooting all afternoon with a small pro DV camera and a crane arm. Tonight the material will be digitised before having raw viewing discs made in preparation for the edit.

Aside from that, in other on-going productions, I've had a good few responses in relation to an advert looking for a location. I will have to wait until tomorrow to chase them up. In addition, a new project shooting at the Museum of London next month has a first draft script that I need to view before making preliminary booking of filming dates.

This evening will see a small update to the company website, which is being expanded over the coming weeks.

Welcome

Hi, I'm Steven and welcome to my blog.

I run a small London-based video production company called Screensaver. We specialise in producing videos for all kinds of clients and purposes, from big DVD displays, to short promo sequences and even individual showreels.

This blog, for those of you that may be interested, will be updated daily to give you an insight into how Screensaver is run, and the varied work that gets completed for our clients.

If anyone wants to contact me, please drop me an email to steven@screensaver.uk.com and the company web site is www.screensaver.uk.com