Many clients visiting our website and YouTube channel find it useful to watch clips featuring a venue they are planning to hire for their event. Over the years we’ve filmed at hundreds of venues around the country so now have an enormous resource which we can offer people access to. Consequently, we have just launched a weddings & event venues section on website which lists all these in an easy to use way. Over the coming weeks we shall be adding more and more videos. We are excited that this will provide a fabulous opportunity for people planning their weddings & events to visualise how they might look in these locations.
For 2010 Bloomsbury Films has already been booked for dozens of new and interesting venues both in the UK and overseas. We therefore hope that we shall be able to continue adding to this resource in the future and look forward to helping our clients plan the perfect day. To visit our new wedding & event venues page click here.
Every year we produce a small number of wedding films known as the ‘Director’s Cut Package‘. These are higher budget productions filmed with three videographers, plus myself attending in person on the day to direct. I like to make each of my Director’s Cut films different, both to satisfy the specific needs of our clients, but also to provide ourselves with a new and interesting challenge. In April this year we filmed the first of these special films for Yasamin & Bilal who held their wedding on the top floor of the London landmark The Gherkin (30 St Mary Axe).
It was clear to me that the couple, who hail from Lebanese and Iraqi parentage, really wanted to make the most of London in their wedding film. With family back in the Middle East, it was no doubt a source of great pride to be able to show off the city and their impressive wedding plans. Luckily for them, their wedding was on a splendidly bright and sunny day which enabled our crew to present the city in the best possible light.
After conducting my production research, I divided our team into two units. One videographer (Paul) was charged with the task of capturing lots of different external perspectives of The Gherkin as well as key London landmarks. This meant spending nearly half the day running around London, jumping out the car and filming! The other two (Eva & Rich) focussed more on the event, with Eva filming the bride preps and the sequence en route to the Gherkin with the aid of a support vehicle. Rich had a steadicam rig for part of the day as I wanted to make the most of the spiral staircase that led up to the top floor. I particularly wanted to capture the sunlight breaking through as the bride ascended the stairs to the ceremony. This rig, and the use of fisheye lenses, made it more possible to capture the feel of the location in a more visually exciting way.
As a film-maker, another big thing of mine is sunset shots - a passion shared by our clients. It was therefore a point of focus for us to make sure we did our best to make the most of the once-in-a-lifetime experience of being on the top floor of the Gherkin by capturing this. After the shoot, we had about 12 hours of footage to work with and from this produced a 90 minute film. It incorporates a lot of Arabic music, not all to my taste, but certainly it gave it an interesting cross-cultural feel!
To round off the production we bought some aerial stock footage of the Gherkin from Getty Images (I could spend all day on their site!). This afforded me the opportunity to give the film an extra ‘wow factor’ and I am pleased to say that the final result is very satisfying. You can see highlights of this film below:
A few months ago we decided to launch our own Facebook Page as a way of interacting with past, present and future clients. We now upload highlights of different jobs to the page as they are completed, so visitors can see our range of work and make comments in an easy, friendly environment. I am pleased to say it is very popular, with clients taking a keen interest in the videos and newcomers watching these as a source of inspiration. Indeed our videos seem to not only serve as an example of good videography, but provide an excellent source of ideas for planning their wedding or event!
We heartily welcome comments from prospective clients, whether they are wondering about how to achieve the best videography, which photographers we recommend or what venues to book. As film-makers we know a lot about making things look good, so our advice is sought after on many subjects. Meanwhile the ‘Discussions‘ section of our Facebook page has a number of topics that are being widely shared. We’ve also included some general tips and advice which we hope our clients enjoy.
If you haven’t already subscribed to our Facebook page or know a friend who might like to check it out, please don’t hesitate to look it up at The Bloomsbury Films’ Facebook Page
Over the coming months we shall be launching a sister company called Towergate Media. For some time the team and I at Bloomsbury Films have been wanting to widen our net beyond event filming and documentaries. Our experience in high quality video production has already led us to produce promotional videos, web television, training videos and much more.
We now feel ready to bring these skills to the market and have decided to do so under a separate entity. The name ‘Towergate Media’ comes from the area we are based - near The Tower of London and Tower Gateway station. We previously named Bloomsbury Films after the area we were based at the time and our parent company Marchmont Films gets its name from the street where I started my film-making career.
Because the new area of work is distinctly different from our current area, we wanted a separate brand ID that would reflect its more corporate nature. Towergate Media seems to work for us and its name also recognises the fact that much of the video production work in this sector is integrated into other media platforms such as the web.
We will have more to say on the subject over the coming months, but we hope you will agree with us that this is an exciting new development which we hope will strengthen our resources and market position.
