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