Did you know that Agencies and Producers in the South of England use Focus studios in Southampton? 

Everything you need to make great audio and video content is right here – no need to travel to London.  Great news for Clients, Talent, and Budgets.

But don’t take our word for it!  Just this week Fred Dinenage was in the studio, recording Voiceovers for  Fred Dinenage’s Murder Casebook which Talent South are producing for the Crime and Investigation Network.  Fred’s links were recorded direct to our SADiE audio workstation, and edited right away.  From start to finish the session took less than 2 hours, far less time than it would have taken to commute to London and back …

Dervla Kirwan has been in to record Commercial Voiceovers for Agencies in London and Dublin … Louise Minchin and Nick Knowles recorded Voiceovers here for BBC1′s ‘Real Rescues’ for Topical Television … and Chris Packham pops in every now and then.

Our studio is great for Voiceovers, Interviews or as a TV Presentation Studio. It has a lighting grid and green or blue screen backgrounds for video work, and with ISDN audio links to connect with Studios, Clients and Voices worldwide.  Clients can record to picture, syncing with tape or video files, we ‘top and tail’ all audio files so they can be used directly in an edit.  We usually deliver final audio files by email or FTP.

Try Focus for your next audio or video studio session.  Contact us right away.

The Challenge

When a client wants special effects but cannot get to our studios there is only one thing to do. Take the studio to them!

Whilst we would love to take shots in the Arctic or on some South Seas beach paradise we know that sadly the budgets and timescales do not always stretch that far. The alternative is to use a Green Screen and match in stock footage or special graphics to replicate what you would get in real life.

For this project we had to turn an office conference room in Leeds into a full length Green Screen studio so we could shoot a video for later special effects editing.

The client

We often work with agencies on behalf of their clients. They are able to get used to our technical, production and directorial skills in video and audio production. In this case our client was Hampshire based White Communications, who we do a lot of video production work for.

The Equipment

Sony ex3
10 lights of varying sizes from arri 150′s to 2k
Tele-Prompt
Sound equipment
Green screen cloth

Setup

We travelled up the night before and started at 7am in the agencies clients offices by clearing the conference room and setting up the green screen, lighting, sound and then the video equipment. Within 2 hours we were ready.

The result

Within 1 hour of the start we had filmed three verions, full length, mid and head and shoulder shots of the script, ready to be edited and then add in the special background effects. The agency client was then all done.

Within a couple of hours we had cleared the room, packed our stuff up and were on our way back to Southampton.

As they say – all in days work.

For an example of Green Screen in action check out the video on our web site, click here

When Headland Media Ltd, owners of Walport maritime training DVD library, wanted to produce a new series on Risk Assessment they asked Focus to tender for the work.  This was our second commission for Headland, the first being about Lifeboat Drills.  One reviewer of that programme commented that ‘training doesn’t have to be boring’.  But the real success was the fact that it sold extremely well to shipping companies and operators.

This first new title in the Risk Assessment series made by Focus is ‘Slips, Trips and Falls’, and not surprisingly it wasn’t an easy commission.  Demonstrating how a seafarer can be seriously injured or killed through a slip, trip or fall wasn’t easy.  Focus considered everything from using stuntmen to animation or puppetry.  In the end the programme makes its point in a variety of ways, and hopefully will also sell well for Headland.

Crucially though, in the end, what really matters is that injuries are reduced and lives are saved among seafarers.

The Brief was to build a green screen space from scratch in several European cities.  We were to meet certain people in each of those cities and they would perform for us.

But lighting and shooting green screen is an art-form.  Here, Andy on camera and Dave on lights put on a show of their own.  But then, they’ve done it once or twice before.  So naturally it all worked beautifully.

If you want to shoot green screen – call the boys.