Month: February 2019

Video company Durban – Can I shoot a movie on my phone?

Hi guys, welcome to another blog from the no 1 video company Durban.  Today lets talk about making movies on your phone.

“Can I make a movie on my phone?”   The answer is Yes. But remember the most important thing when making a movie is the story.  You can have the best movie equipment in the world but it wont matter if your story is flat.

I have seen movies shot on very expensive video gear but the acting was so poor I could not carry on watching.  So please bear that in mind.

Lets say you have a good story.  Now you want to film using your phone.   You would have to really know how to use your phone well to use it for filming.  There will be no way you can record good sound.  Cell phones can record sharp HD or 4 K images but sound recording is very poor.  Recording sound would have to be done separately.

No I would also say other equipment will be needed for the phone.  Keeping the phone steady will be important.  A small tripod can be used or a gimbal.

The visual look the camera gives you will be very different to film.  Zero depth of field.  Images will appear flat but technology is improving so this will definitely change in the near future

Lenses are not interchangeable.  This limits the filmmaker to very narrow selection of shots.  I suppose there will be extras you can buy for phones to change this but they will be very limiting and gimicky which wont give your production a professional look

Phone footage wont allow for any grading in the edit, colours will look washed out with very little dynamic range.

GCV Productions is a professional video production company.

For further information please call Guy Crosbie on +27721281823.  email:guy@gcv.co.za

 

Video Production Durban careers in video: part 2

Hi guys, welcome to part 2 of video careers in Durban brought to you by the no 1 Video production Durban.  In the last blog we spoke about the student production Police Reservist.  If you have seen it great, if not here is a recap

I noticed views on You Tube are very high.  Excuse the quality but it was filmed in 1999 on SVHS cameras.

So lets now chat about the production.    First day of filming was a Saturday morning 7 am.  Andrew Mills and Brad Pandy got their uniforms and equipment ready at Pinetown SAPS.  There is a shot of them in the video with voice over from Andrew explaining that there is nothing they wear that makes them stand out from ordinary police officers.

To be honest I cannot remember too much after that, I do watch the video to recall what happened.  We had a brilliant time filming call outs in Pinetown and surrounding areas…amazing memories.

What happens a lot with video is quite often tings that seem interesting to the police officers may not be interesting on camera.  That’s just the way things go.   Some action shots were done specifically for the camera….meaning if the camera wasn’t there the guys would not have responded to the incident.

I think the production took roughly 2 weeks for filming to be complete.  Interviews were done last.  I viewed the footage and designed the questions around the footage.  Interviews were done at SAPS Pinetown and Lahee Park in Pinetown.

For more information regarding video please call GCV Productions, Guy Crosbie on +27721281823 or email : guy@gcv.co.za

Website : www.gcv.co.za

 

 

video production company Durban Careers in video :part 1

Hi guys, welcome to another blog from the best video production company Durban. Today lets talk careers in video. My focus will be in Kzn.  I will also talk about my own experience…you do know every experience is different.

I finished my studies at DUT Natal in the year 1999.

Below is a project I worked on in my final year at Video Technology.  I have pulled the video off Youtube, please watch and let me know what you think.

It was great fun working on it.  It was filmed over a period of about 6 weeks.  How it exactly came about….my brother was a police reservist and I told him I wanted to film a reservist video for my final production at Video Technology.  He told me to call ‘Andrew Mills’, Andrew at the time was also a reservist with Pinetown SAP .  I called Andrew and got a very enthusiastic “Yes, lets do this”  As a student I didnt expect such an enthusiastic response.  We were normally told no or to call back another time so I was amazed this was where we were at.

To start we had a meeting where I told Andrew exactly what it was I was looking at making and how we shoud have the final video.  Andrew, in return, gave me a few videos to watch from footage they had filmed over the years.

In part 2 I will talk about the production and the involvement with the SAPS Pinetown to get the production done.  Andrew and any individuals taking part in the production needed to sign Release forms which allowed me to film them and use the footage for any purposes to promote the video.

I in turn needed to get permission from Pinetown SAPS to film on their property and in the police cells if need be.

For more information regarding videos please call me on +27721281823   Email: guy@gcv.co.za   Website:  www.gcv.co.za

 

 

Video company Durban – Today…4K or HD

Hi everyone, welcome to another blog from the no 1 video company Durban.  Today I would like to talk about 4 K vs H D, how has the progression been in the year 2019?

Lets start off with what is 4 K?  Basically in a nutshell 4 K is HD x 4

 

The above diagram explains the resolution of 4 K vs HD

Top of the image left hand side shows the size taken by DVD, 720 lines of resolution by 480 lines of resolution.  the next size is HD 720p, this is the smaller HD screen size, in South Africa DSTV broadcasts in 720 p H D.  This gives us an idea of why 4K in South Africa can still be early days, SA is not even close to broadcasting in 4 K, and even though TVs are 4K quality they very seldom playing in 4 K mode.  TV in SA is not 4 K, Blu Ray DVD is not 4 K. Even seldom are you playing a video on Youtube because of bandwidth required to play 4 K

Netflix suggests bandwidth of between 15 mbs to 25 mbs to support  4K broadcast.  There isn’t many homes with that amount of bandwidth are out there.  And  that also means not having any other devices using the bandwidth.

This means the 4 K resolution is maybe too high for South African viewers right now in 2019.

video production company Durban part 2 – cameras in action

Hi guys, welcome to video production company Durban.  In part 1 we spoke about video cameras progression in the last 20 years.  We ended in part 1 with the Panasonic 3CCD .  The next camera to follow was the Sony PD170.  This was an awesome camera.  This was the move from 4:3 to 16:9 screen ratio.  Still the mini DV cassette was used.

If ever there was a workhorse this was the camera.  The Sony PD 170 was tough!  It was an awesome camera to have and it got the job done.

Next on the list for GCV Productions was the Sony Z5.  Here was the slow change to card format and HDV.  HDV stood for High Definition Video.   The dimensions were 1440 x 1080. HD is 1920 x 1080. The Sony Z5 was tape based but there was the option to attach a card reader on the back.  The cards were an awesome change from the tapes as they could be used over and over again.  The picture was also clearer from the card compared to the tape.

The Sony Z5 was great. I recently sold the camera so it still has a place in the market today and like the Sony PD 170 it was a great workhorse.  I loved the quality from the Z5 , was an awesome camera.

 

Last but certainly not least is the Sony NX3, a lovely camera in HD and card only.  By now the DV cassette is long gone.  Card is the only way forward with the NX3.  The camera looks identical to the Sony Z5 but really the only difference is it shoots in HD unlike the Z5 which is HDV.

Today we are still using this camera, awesome piece of recording machinery.  I have been very happy with it for the last year now and hopefully many more years to come.

For further information regarding any filming or editing please contact Guy Crosbie on +27721281823 @ GCV Productions

video production company durban – the road so far in video

Hi guy, welcome to another blog from the best video production company Durban    Today lets talk about video and its progression over the past 20 years.  When I was studying in 1999 the camera to use was the Panasonic SVHS

SVHS stood for Super Video Home System, a very good camera at the time with a black and white viewfinder and cassettes loaded into the camera.  One tried to find SVHS cassettes to match the camera but you could use an ordinary VHS cassette.

Next on the list was cameras going digital with a mini dv cassette.  We used a panasonic 3 CCD camera that filmed a really nice visual.

These cameras produced a very nice visual provided the lighting was of good quality.  Everything had to be lit for it to work well.  Battery life was good, mini DV cassettes worked well except for the ocassional ‘drop out’ that happened on the odd ocassion.  Drop out meant a piece of the magnetic tape had fallen off causing the video to jump or have a black spot on the screen.  But besides that it was very good to use.

The camera was small and at that time we still wanted cameras to be bigger because it looked more professional.  There were ways of hyping the camera up with a bigger  microphone that slid into the horseshoe on top of the camera.   I think cameras could have bigger, longer lasting batteries which was always nice to work with.

End of part 1

For more information regarding filming or editing please contact Guy Crosbie on +27721281823

video production company Durban – video as a training tool

Hi guys, welcome to another blog from video production company Durban. Today lets talk about how video is used as a marvellous training tool. I should know because 50% of my work is training videos.  So lets look at …why

  1.  Video is visual.  Personally I would much rather watch a video than read a manual.  Manuals have language limits as well as some learners might not be able to read.
  2. Look at the popularity of You Tube today.  As much as there is entertainment there are many many videos training or instructional.      

4.  The limitations of video 10 years ago was the size of a video file and the difficulty to use online.  Nowdays with Fibre 1 or 2 GB video files can be sent in minutes.

5.  videos can be enhanced with music or voice to reinforce what is being taught.

All companies today need to look at the advantage of video.

Some statistics from You Tube…

Learning is important for human growth and development, and training is certainly an integral part of workplace learning. But a constant challenge for workplace learning professionals is creating training programs that captivate the learner audience and cause learners to sit up, take notice and, well, learn.

Effective use of video in training can be an extremely powerful. The “Pictorial Superiority Effect”* indicates that using pictures and words together promotes greater information recall. Specifically, after 3 days, we tend to remember 10% of the information we saw in word format whereas we tend to remember 65% of the information we saw in both picture and word formats.

 

Video Makes Concept Visualization Easier

Videos can transport the learner to places where he or she could not physically travel, or travel in a reasonable timeframe. Need the learner to travel around the globe, to a distant part of the universe, back in time, or to the ocean depths? Use video as the transportation vehicle.

When you are asking the learner “travel someplace else in their mind” and to visualize a concept, but you only describe that concept in words, it may be difficult for some learners to make the required intuitive leap. For example:

    • If you want a learner to understand, you could describe the process in words: “Stellar black holes form when the center of a very massive star collapses in upon itself. This collapse also causes a supernova, or an exploding star, that blasts part of the star into space.”
    • Or, you could show a video of the process:

So many advantages

Thank you for reading

 

For more info please contact Guy Crosbie

Video production company Durban – update

Hi guys, welcome to another blog for video production company, Durban.  Whats news…lots. We have been busy with all sorts of productions in and around KZN as well as JHB.  I have mentioned it all in the previous blog so please read it there.

So for 2019 we want to really make a difference for our clients.  Improve, innovate and adapt.  Always look and ask yourself what can be done to offer your customers the best possible product.  Look at creative skills and gear.  Gear is important because video equipment is always improving.  Its funny how sound recording has basically stayed the same over the last 10 years but look at video.

Video – 2010 – 2019 HDV, HD, 4K, UHD, 8K.  Equipment for us over the last 10 years.   Sony PD 170.  Sony Z5. Sony NX3.

Sound – 2010 – 2019 Sony UWP – V1

Here is a review of the microphone below.

Amazing don’t you think…Video has come a long way and audio stays the same.  I love my lapel mic, damn trusty microphone that never ever lets me down.

Thanks for reading.  I hope you have enjoyed it.  The next blog will follow soon.

If you require more info regarding video please call us at GCV Productions.

 

Thank you

 

 

 

video company durban – ordination

Hi everyone.  Happy New Year. Welcome to video production company Durban.  We have a wonderful blog lined up, lets look at the work done so far.

We started the year with a production for Boxer Champ News Live.  We filmed in Nqutu which is about 60 km from Dundee in the province of KZN.  We were fortunate enough to join up with the wonderful Thandie Khumalo, I will post a link to one of her wonderful music videos.

It was an absolute honour working with her.  As well as working with her we got the wonderful opportunity of working in Nqutu. Wonderful city.

 

The above is a video we filmed in JHB 2 weeks ago at a church.  It was an Ordination.  2 cameras were used for the video to cover the event.  It was a fun production with a good video at the end of the day.