Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from RichTeaV! We've already been out testing our present! Hope you have a lovely festive season wherever you are.

UPDATE:Priorities Featured on Dirt's Website!

Good news this week, as the film I worked on for the 48hr Film Festival in Kendal has been featured on Dirt Magazine's website. Sure enough, it didn't exactly get lavished with compliments to begin with, but the film has now had over 6000 views and has had its fair share of praise. Check out the page & video here

UPDATE: Priorities was this week featured on Singletrack's Midweek Movies. I've read & watched this feature most weeks for a good long while now, so i'm very excited to be part of it. Have a look here.

As of mid Decemeber, the combined views of this film is over 9000. Amazing.

RichTeaV Reviews

 Here's the first of what I hope will be a few reviews by me. I decided to do them both to keep my camera/edit skills up and also to try out monitization of my Youtube account. Let's see how it goes!

Kendal 48Hr Film Competition

Just back from a really enjoyable week at the Adventure Film Academy down in Kendal. Lots of knowledge gained thanks to some talented and experienced tutors. Also, after entering the 48hr Film Competition, our teams film was awarded joint second place! Here's what we made:

Photography: Callender Estate Cycle Trails

Very much enjoyed getting out and riding the new cycle trails at Callender Estate near Falkirk a couple of weeks ago. Nice to see some of my photos being used on Callender Estate's Facebook page, and also in a new brochure about the trails. Find out more info on what they're up to here

Promotional Work: Big Ridge Chocolates

As well as previous promotional videos and photography for Big Ridge Chocolates, I recently completed a Banner for them which, as you can see from the photo below, is already in use!

Camera Operator: Festival Frank

I've had a very enjoyable festival here Edinburgh working as a Camera Operator on a live web based chat show. Across the month of August six shows were streamed live across the internet, lasting around 50 minutes a time. I very much enjoyed the pressure and buzz that live broadcast creates as well as the chance to meet some entertaining guests! You can see the final show below, and more by following this link, be warned though, the show below has content that some may find offensive:

festivalfrank on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

Audiovisual Technology HND Complete: Grade A 100%

I'm very pleased to say that I've now had written confirmation that I have passed the Audiovisual Technology HND I've been working on over the past two years. I'm even more pleased to say that I achieved Grade A, with a pass mark of 100 percent!!

I'm now very excitedly looking toward the future and on the hunt for opportunites to put all that I've learnt into practice. To see examples of a little bit of what i've been up to click here, and if you've any requests or ideas, please do get in touch.

GU: Developing Stage Complete

Very Happy to have completed my two Graded Unit videos for Big Ridge Chocolates. Maybe now I'll stop feeling hungry ALLLL the time! The first video is an Introduction to the company and what they do, the second is an introduction to one of their new products. Take a look!

If you'd like to find out more about Big Ridge, you'll find their website here.

GU2:Planning Stage Complete.

I'm very excited, and a bit relieved, to say the Planning Stage on the Graded Unit was handed in today! Plenty of work to be getting on with though, not too long 'till filming begins. Here's a few of the Photos i took during my first test shoot (LINK)

GU2: Technical Considerations

I'm planning on filming the video elements of my Graded Unit using a Canon 550D. They're capable of producing very professional looking results and as part of the preparation for filming I've been testing out it's capabilities. Here's some test footage I filmed with the Canon.



I'll also be using an Edirol to record audio as the built in capabilities of the Canon are not great. There's more information on this, and some suggested solutions here. Despite the suggested solutions, i felt i get better results with the Edirol.

It's not only Video I'll be capturing though, I'll also be taking photographs. I'll be doing so in Canon's cr2, or RAW format and the editing them in Photoshop. There's a great overview and useful tutorial from Adobe on how to do this below.

Graded Unit 2: Inspiration & Education

So far one of the hardest parts of this Graded Unit has been looking at all the Photos of Chocolate & other delicious food! Hotel Chocolat, Melt Chocolates and Davenports Chocolates are perfect examples of this, with Davenports even having there own Chocolate TV!

I've also managed to find some really useful video tutorials & tips on how to photograph food, though again, watching these will make you hungry! Not only is this first video educational, but it also has a professional and appealing look to it, and gets across a lot of what the Steakhouse is about. I hope to emulate a lot of what's good about this video:


Then there's this next video that shows the amount of work that goes into food photography.

And last of all a tutorial on how to light a cake!


Many of the Photographers in these videos have a good collection of kit that isn't available to me. None-the-less there's still a wealth of relevant information and advice.

Ooh, and I can still follow these helpful tips... and these!

Graded Unit 2: A Change of plan.

A couple of weeks ago I was offered the opportunity to provide a series of Photos & Videos for a small & very lovely chocolate company based in the Highlands. I was really excited by this project, and the real world challenges it presents so I decided to change the subject of my Graded Unit from "The Night" to this new project. It's been a little bit of a rush to get everything in place on time for the Planning Stage deadline, but things are coming together well. Now I'm excited, and hungry!

More news soon.