Lee Durant
Posts Tagged ‘Video’
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Chimney test for Santa
Wednesday, December 21st, 2011
Monday the 19th December was a very cold and very wet day… Not one to be filming outside that’s for sure but some stories go ahead no matter what the weather, and Monday was no exception. Father Christmas is coming in less than a week and in true xmas story style Reuters couldn’t resist the potential for a good life story involving a 6 year old, a santa, and a specially designed chimney in the Cotswolds.
The little boy in the above feature (called Leo) realised after writing his Christmas wish list to st Nick, that the family’s holiday home being built in a Luxury Cotswold Development didn’t include a chimney in the plans, therefore making it impossible for the big man in red to deliver his presents next year. The little lad penned a letter to his architect to ask if one could be built and the story was born.
Filming this one because of the rain wasn’t pleasant but the story itself made up for it and Leo was a little star… It’s really good to do a feel good story so close to Christmas, but by far the most challenging part was keeping the secret alive for a 6 year old who still believes.
Tags: Editorial, news, PR, Public Relations, reuters, tv, Video, Winter
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Filming at the Dubai Air Show for the FT
Thursday, November 24th, 2011
Last week was a super busy one with an 8 day trip to the Middle East to cover the Dubai Air Show for the Financial Times. It all sounds very exotic but the truth was that we were so busy we only saw the Airport or the Holiday Inn Express the whole week apart from a few hours on the last night. In all (including the pre-airshow package) we completed a total of 8 video peices with one final package covering the event as the finale.
The following videos are some of the stand-alone interviews and the final package as they play on the the Special Reports aerospace section of the FT.com website. The first here is the final package which was filmed over the 8 day trip, it contains clips from two press conferences where two of the big Arab airlines placed huge aircraft orders, and soundbites from the various interviews conducted.
The second video was one that I edited myself using Final Cut Pro and is a stand-alone interview with one of the Chief Executives of Emirates. The interview was filmed using only one camera (a Sony EX1) so we had to film noddy’s and reverses after the interviewee had left the scene… Filming interview’s like this can prove problematic when it comes to fitting the edit together, especially when you only have a very limited time scale both on location and with the talent.
The last one that I am going to share with you is a news piece that we threw together after the surprise announcement, during a press conference, that Emirates were placing an order for up to 70 Boeing aircraft with a total price tag which could eventually reach 26 billion US Dollars… This was by far the biggest aircraft order at the show, which also amounted to Boeing’s biggest single order in their entire 95 year history.
This was of course rolling news at it’s most urgent for the show, and it was good to have a break from the schedule to report on such an event… The video was edited and up on the FT website within about an hour after the announcement was made.
Like I said a busy week indeed with no sightseeing, long hours and hotel cabin fever until the last night but all worth it when I look back at what we managed to achieve with the time we had at the show. We shot many more video’s that are posted on the FT’s Aerospace Special Reports page, and if you follow the following link you will be able to view them all.
http://www.ft.com/aerospace-nov2011
Tags: Business, Editorial, Financial, FT, news, tv, Video
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Alice Cooper
Monday, November 7th, 2011
I just thought I’d post this picture of myself with Rock Legend Alice Cooper, taken at the BFI on the South Bank last week… I have been checking the Reuters website for footage from our interview with him that night, but to no avail.
I guess they didn’t make a stand-alone piece out of the event but I really enjoyed the shoot with him. He was taking part in a question and answer session about his favourite horror films, to coincide with this years halloween celebrations. The session was very entertaining and Alice has a brilliant sense of humour, I could have happily stayed listening to the whole thing but we had to leave and get the footage away for our edit deadline.
Tags: Celebrity, Hollywood, london, reuters, Video
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London Riots Footage
Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011
I have just been trawling the Reuters website looking for an interview that I filmed with Rock Legend Alice Cooper at the BFI on Friday night last week, and I came across this footage of the London Riots back in August this year… The following clips were all filmed by me on the night that the riots kicked off big time in Hackney, Northern London.
Being in the thick of the action is by far one of the best bits about this job… Although care and caution are needed and the office issued stab vests to all of the crews on that night. The police fought pitch battles with the rioters, employing attack dogs and riot horses to dispel the crowd.
What touched me though, more than anything was the fact that local residents were the only ones to really suffer through these troubling times. Many of them spectators from their front gardens or the relative safety of an upstairs bedroom window while around them mindless anarchy was destroying their neighbourhood.
A producer and myself the next day travelled to Croydon in South London to film the aftermath of the disturbances there, and an indian family stood staring at the shell of a Large Furniture store which had been burnt down the previous night. With them the pulled two small suitcases and the mother was in tears.
They had been burnt out of their rented flat whilst watching their TV, and had lost absolutely everything as a result of that furniture store fire. What they carried with them in these two suitcases was all they had left, with no clue as to where they would be sleeping that night.
Tags: Demonstration, demonstrations, Editorial, news, protests, reuters, Riots, tv, Video, violence
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George Michael kicks off his world tour
Saturday, October 29th, 2011
Singer Songwriter George Michael launched his world tour this week with a capacity crowd event at the Royal Albert Hall in central London. I covered the event for Reuters with Producer Kathi Urban and we managed to get the above footage from the evening’s program.
Tags: Celebrity, Events, london, Music, reuters, tv, Video
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FT.com Special Reports – Readers Digest
Tuesday, October 18th, 2011
Financial Times Special Reports Commissioning editor Rob Orr has just published a short film on the FT’s website that I shot last week about the fall and rise of one of the nations highest circulating magazines.
Readers Digest had a circulation per week that was larger than most of the UK’s national Newspapers. Considering that this magazine is subscription only and can’t be bought in the shops it’s a major achievement, yet as a business it was failing until it was bought and turned around by Better Capital Limited, an investment company with a proven track record in turning ailing businesses into profit making institutions.
Click on the image above or the link below to be directed to FT.com to see the four minute long film.
http://video.ft.com/v/1222137440001/Reader-s-Digest-reviving-a-family-favourite
Tags: Business, City, Editorial, Financial, FT, london, news, Video
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Abduction – UK Premier
Monday, October 17th, 2011
American movie star Taylor Lautner was mobbed by screaming fans out side the BFI Imax in London when he arrived for the premier of his first major film since appearing in the Twighlight series. Again shooting for Reuters Showbiz with Kathi Urban we filmed and produced rushes from the event and this is the resulting online peice.
Thank the heavens It’s too late in my life for me to become a teenage hearthrob…. I don’t think I could handle all that screaming!
Tags: Celebrity, Events, Hollywood, Premier, Public Relations, reuters, tv, Video
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London Fashion Week 2011
Monday, October 17th, 2011
London Fashion Week 2011, was a hectic one… Not only was it my first ever fashion week on Video I had never had the pleasure of doing one on stills either, so the learning curve was steep. I had Basmah with me though as producer and we had an really good time rushing from show to show editing along the way.
The following are a selection of edits from the Reuters website that were created using my rushes from each show, the footage was usually put out to clients only a few hours after they each one took place.
The Julien Macdonald show above was the first of the week and by far the most cramped in the press enclosure. Lotty marked me out a great spot however and although I could only pan about 4 inches it was just enough to get a variety of shots that worked well in the edit.
Celebrities were a bit thin on the ground this year, well at least I started the week with the impression that there would be a lot more at the shows than there actually were. But working for the Showbiz desk for the week means that you are forever on the look out for the odd A-lister that may turn up. At Christopher Kane there was a good show on the celeb front with Kanye West and the Prime Ministers wife samantha Cameron in the front row of the invited crowd.
The Christopher Kane show above was great for space in the press area but the catwalk was so long that even on the doubler I couldn’t see a model full frame at the far end. Christopher was good to interview but his PR on this particular occasion were really poor. Refusing us an interview altogether at the start even though we had pre-arranged it weeks before hand and were working for one of the biggest press agencies in the world. It took all of my charm and a little forcefulness to squeeze in between the interviews of Vogue and another Fashion Mag before we achieved a shared soundbite between us an PA (who had also been refused a word with the Scottish designer).
I think in total we filmed about 12 shows in the space of four days which was a fairly packed schedule but the time went really fast and we got to film some good packages. As to wether I am any more schooled in the arts of fashion than I was before remains to be seen, however I dont think I’m ready to hang up the jeans and walking boot’s look just yet.
Tags: Celebrity, fashion, london, reuters, tv, Video
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