I am now expanding my business to offer more services. I now have access to the necessary equipment to shoot HD footage, record high quality sound AND do the edit, and effects. I really am now able to supply the whole package – a really good value one stop shop if you like. I can assist with pre-production, advise on all aspects of the production itself and carry your project from start to finish, saving you money along the way!

I had a very successful 2011 and 2012 is going to be so exciting. I can’t wait.

I’m certainly glad I work from home this week, and I don’t have to go out in that horrible weather – Not that I’ve really had time to turn around and see what’s going on outside.

I made a conscious decision when laying out my office that I would have my back to the window, a decision that I regret on so many levels, it’s just far too much to re-jig the whole place now though.

This week I have been editing a 30 minute programme that should hopefully be shown on cable TV in the US. It’s about a charity fashion show that took place about three weeks ago and is essentially just coverage of the event, but intended to raise awareness of a charity and also spread the event’s message to a wider audience. It’s my first opportunity since switching from FCP to Premiere (I’ll write a proper blog post on this soon) to use the multi-camera function and I have to say it’s been a bit frantic. It took about a day to get the hang of it and up to the same sort of speed I would work in FCP. I am now beginning to feel like I know Premiere, and have got the hang of all the major functions. The downside is render time as my graphics card doesn’t support the CUDA technology, although it would take just as long in FCP, but I probably wouldn’t make my projects as rich and complex.

Since I started doing most of my graphics in After Effects, Premiere is just the natural NLE for me. I’m finding more and more problems with FCP(7) particularly the restrictions when supplied video in a weird or unusual format, and I don’t imagine I’ll be going back any time soon.

Tomorrow brings another job for OUP. They are one of my favourite clients because they’ve got a really fast FTP site that we use to swap files – by far the easiest way to collect rushes. I expect this will be a couple of days work, and I’m off on Monday, then it’s nearly Christmas, so might not blog again this year. Other people seem to have started winding down already, although I’m not sure what I’d do if I stopped so soon, but I’m looking forward to the festivities all the same.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, etc. etc.

It’s strange working on someone else’s logo and then animating it, because you can’t really change anything – they’ve spent lots of time and effort making it the way it is – so I basically took each layer and made it move in whatever way felt natural, and the finished product is pretty cool. They’re going to use it on some virals they’ll be releasing on youtube, and they also have a projector in their restaurants and so will probably put it in there too. I’ll embed it on my showreel page once they upload it.

I’m just back from another client to collect some video files from them, and working on that for the next two days, and then I’ve got some night work to do next week so probably wont be blogging much. More on that when I return.

Not too long ago, in a previous employment, I was given a camera as one of the tools of my job. Before working full time as a video editor, I managed a number of contractors that did work for a mid-sized Housing Association and I occasionally needed to take photographs to use as proof that the contractors weren’t fulfilling their obligations, or even less often, to show that they had done something when a complaint had said otherwise. It was an evidence gathering device.

The camera I was given was a small compact Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS3. I think it was about 8 megapixels and roughly 3x optical zoom. I don’t recall the technical specs as I wasn’t too interested at the time. It served me well, it was a good camera, and being so light and small I took it everywhere with me, even out of work. It became my constant companion and I started taking more and more photographs and became more and more enthusiastic about photography. I have always had an interest in photography since I was very young, but this was my first digital camera, and I hadn’t had a decent film camera since before I went to Uni.

I left that job, and not long after was feeling the need to buy myself my own, ‘proper’ camera, which to me at the time meant a DSLR. I bought a Nikon D3100, which had just been released and was one of the new breed of DSLRs that also shot video (720p25) – an added bonus as it meant I could now shoot my own video to use to practise new techniques or test new plugins that I use as a video editor. I did have a basic mini DV camcorder, but to be honest it was getting a bit old and tape seems so inconvenient for a casual/occasional use camera. – the D3100 was Nikon’s update to their entry level DSLR and I got it with the kit 18-55mm lens. I took stacks of photos, and gradually I got myself a 300mm zoom and just recently was given (by request) the 35mm f1.8 for my birthday (thanks Jen). This lens changed my approach to photography, and suddenly I am taking good photos and going to great lengths to get good pictures.

It helps that a local neighbour and good friend, James, is a professional photographer (http://lyonphotography.co.uk/) and so I have someone to go places with for the specific purpose of taking pictures. I had wanted to get some shots of the Thames with a dawn mist, perhaps with some rowers emerging from the mist, maybe a bit of a dramatic sunrise; and living so close to the river it seemed like no effort at all to get up early one morning and see what we could get. Although James is more a people photographer than a landscapes photographer he agreed to come along, and even drive us down so we didn’t have to get up quite as early.

So the agreed day came, the weather forecast was perfect and James woke me up with a phone call to say he was waiting in his car and ready to go. I got up and rushed out and we got to the river just as the light was beginning to emerge. I unfortunately forgot my tripod in all the rush, but I improvised by leaning on stuff. There was a thick mist rolling in as the air warmed, and it was a truly magical place to be at that time of the day.

So we spent 6am till 8am wandering the riverbank, which was surprisingly busy with joggers and rowing types, and took lots of photos. We returned home and I set to processing them as quickly as possible. I had noticed that the guardian camera club’s monthly assignment was ‘landscapes’ so I was looking forward to submitting some of these photos for review. I narrowed my 172 photos down to about 30, and picked out my best 6 for the camera club submission. Just in time, on the 30 September, before the end of the month.

Now, to the email. Yesterday I had an email from my Flikr account to say that the Guardian camera club had reviewed my photos! this was very exciting. I never expected my photos to be good enough – after all this was just a hobby, and one that I had not been doing for very long. Here is what they said:

Guardian Camera Club: Tom Dixon on photographing landscapes

Tom Dixon participates in the landscapes assignment.

‘Gleaming marvellous’ is the sort of light that you just couldn’t make up, with its combination of silhouette and flare, it’s an epic and dramatic image. In contrast, ‘Donnington bridge’ is misty, ethereal and tranquil, well composed too. ‘Just grass’ is an original take on the landscape brief, the depth of field coupled with the nondescript background really focuses the eye on those few blades of grass. Benches in landscape photos are normally a cliché, but ‘A Sinking Seat’ is both sinister and mysterious. ‘Parking outside the Isis tavern’ is oddly ordinary, and the only image here I’d leave out; ‘Dazzling Donnington Bridge’ is totally the opposite. Somehow it transcends the ordinary, and we’re left with a magical image. This is a fine set of photos characterized by thoughtful observation, and a lot of good technique.

One of these, is for a new client of mine, and is a small project to edit a promo video for a conference. The conference happens once a year and this year they took a video camera along to capture some of the event’s events. All I have to do is make something that grabs people and convince them that they desperately want to go to the event next year. I’ve sent them the first draft so we’ll see what they think of it.

The first project I worked on this week was for a regular client. They are a market research type of company and do a lot of work for the giant supermarket chains. They have special eye tracking headsets that they give to the shoppers to wear as they move around the store. The result is a video showing where they are looking, with a cross hair indicating their point of focus. It’s interesting to see how some people check prices and sell by dates. The video I edited for them is for a presentation so they can present their findings to their clients.

Finally, my most exciting project of the week, was for a friend and previous collaborator that lives very local to me. He has done a lot of photography for a modelling agency recently and they asked him if he could help create a commercial for them. He of course was more than willing and so spent a day with the models shooting on a 5D. He supplied me with the rushes and a strong idea of what he wanted, and we sat down together to create my first commercial that is due to be aired on cable in America. I am hoping to be able to publish it here on my site soon so keep an eye on my showreel page.

I am intending to try to keep a rough diary on my site to let everyone know what I’m up to, so you should see more of these in weeks to come. Not only does it make for occasional interesting reading, but it helps my google listing :p

Ta-ra

I am still in the process of gathering as much content as I can, but for the time being, have a look around, and I look forward to my first blog proper in the not too distant future.

Enjoy the sunshine!