Originally published in July 2009 Televisual Magazine.
Andi Jepson, director at iceni, on the highs and lows of directing royalty through the streets of London.
Day 1: The good. We’ve been asked to deliver a film to promote World Congress 2010. The event takes place from 16 - 19 June 2010 at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London.
Day 2,3 and 4: Thinking. Thinking about the audience. Thinking about how the film will be used. Creative team are excited about Hi Def aerial footage of the city, tracking graphics onto signposts so everywhere points to the event location, Gaz likes the style of the intro sequence to Jools Holland’s Later show. And just like that, the Queen was on her way to the event in the back of a London cab with Jerusalem playing in the background.
3am start on the Friday morning to stand in line for the Wimbledon semi-finals and avoid the rush to see Andy Murray play.
Made it to SW19 in good time, but still dreading the queue. However, we got to the back of the line to be handed our queue number of 277th leaving us gutted that we could have had a later start.
The weather held out and we managed to get onto Centre Court to watch both the Federer vs Haas game and Murray vs Roddick.
The day also gave me the chance to try out my new Canon 450D DSLR camera and was pleasantly surprised with the results from the standard 18-55mm kit lens and joys of shooting in RAW. The rest of the weekend was spent playing around with time-lapse and light writing photography and next weekend looks set to fit in some HDR tests.
The venue? Birmingham’s world famous Symphony Hall, with its world class acoustics and stunning auditorium. it’s probably the UK’s finest concert hall if not one of the best in the world.
Reaction to the film was excellent, watch this space for clips and comments. Remember, if you are looking for ways to bring filmmaking into a creative curriculum, you should look at WRAP a DVD resource produced for teachers and educationalists.
Swanky private cinema at London’s Charlotte Street Hotel is the location for the first of last week’s launch parties.
Hong Kong Revealed is now available on DVD and You Tube for travel industry professionals. The film is presented by 3 travel agents and features a rough guide to this amazing city.
Cathay Pacific, Travel 2 and Hong Kong Tourism Board present, Hong Kong Revealed.
In a strange twist, this innovative sales incentive meant that spending time with the iceni team was the reward. Or maybe it was the luxury trip to one of the world’s top destinations, to stay in one of the world’s top hotels and star in a film produced by iceni. Whichever way you look at it, the result is a great programme, a competition website, and a campaign that will get talked about for a long time to come.
The client commented,
‘When we decided to produce a travelogue presented by travel agents, many got skeptical and wondered how the film would turn out.
ICENI’s ‘Hong Kong Revealed’ took everyone by surprise.
ICENI has been excellent in understanding the brief and undertaking research. They definitely understood the essence of the project…’
With Wimbledon in full swing and the weather looking like we might have a summer this year, Walton Tennis Club in Stafford held their open day for an afternoon of tennis.
An intrepid team of cyclists from Balfour Beatty Plant & Fleet Services have cycled from John O’Groats to Land’s End. That’s about a hundred miles every day for ten days!
So far over £20,000 has been raised through a combination of online giving, donations by family, friends and colleagues, and the total is set to increase as further fundraising events take place at the BBPFS offices in Derby.
The money will be split between Balfour Beatty’s Building Better Futures trust, in partnership with The Prince’s Trust and Action for Children, and Brake, the road safety charity.
