Six Sydney filming shoot in 18 days

Sometimes video editing feels slow, like pouring honey and watching it sludge passively along the jar until it reluctantly trickles out. It’s almost a shock when all of a sudden, the video is done and you’re sending the draft edit off to the client.

Maybe it’s because filming is so fast paced – you start every project off in a sprint and that then draws into a marathon before flipping back into a final sprint at the end.

Dave is filming in Sydney today – it’s the 6^th Sydney filming shoot in 18 days.

Although we are based in Wollongong, about half of our filming work, especially corporate filming, happens in Sydney – and this month has been no exception.

We film a wide range of projects, working with big companies in amazing locations but it’s often difficult to showcase our work because so much of Dave’s filming is for other brands or companies, sub-contracting for marketing and advertising agencies, other media or video production companies, photographers, and online learning developers.

Camera Operator For Hire

The camera operator or videographer for hire work that we do is something we especially love – it’s that fast paced rush all day and a quick file delivery at night – a satisfying feeling of uploading raw footage and wrapping a project up in a tight 24-hour package.

Another reason why our videography and video editing work is often tough to showcase is because around 70% of our own client work that we film isn’t designed to be shown publicly. It’s usually being created for internal use only, such as training videos, or it’s part of a product or paid-content strategy.

We also film and live stream private events such as funerals or weddings, which isn’t something we’d feel comfortable sharing on a public platform.

This week has been busy, on Monday Dave picked up a VCR that we’d hired out to a Sydney law firm in the CBD of the city. He then went across the bridge to film a training video for NSW Health at the NSW Health building in Chatswood. After that he headed to Horsby to capture a virtual tour walkthrough video for a not-for-profit company that provides accommodation for people living with disabilities.

Meanwhile, Kirra and Connor have been working in the office, editing a virtual tour walkthrough video, a series of videos for Birdblack Design, edited two pro-package podcasts and together we’ve transferred around 100 VHS tapes this week already.

Convert VHS to Digital

VHS tapes really have been a strong re-occurring theme for this week.

Our media transfers often emerge in patterns, we transfer a range of tapes including VHS, VHSc, MiniDV and Hi8 tapes and instead of getting a balanced cross-section of all those tape formats at all times, we seem to get them in waves, where it’s all Hi8 tapes and no MiniDV tapes, or like this week, where it’s all VHS and nothing else…

We were able to re-run some tapes that appeared to have glitches and get a flawless result in another VCR machine which is always satisfying.

Amongst the sea of VHS tapes there were a few Hi8 tapes – one Hi8 tape was stuck in it’s camcorder and would not budge – with the clients permission we were able to extract the tape but unfortunately that did mean dismantling the camcorder to get it out. Surprisingly the tape transferred really well. Sometimes if a tape has been stuck in a camera it’s stressed in parts and has trouble playing.

We also received 79 slides from a client via post. We were able to turn the whole job around within a day and deliver them to her digitally which she really appreciated.

Live Streaming

This year we’ve been live streaming more and more funerals – we usually get contacted by funeral homes to live stream funerals in catholic churches, and other locations where they’re arranging a service outside the funeral home, where they have their own live streaming equipment installed. We streamed a funeral last week with flawless coverage, thanks to our bonded internet, which is always a great feeling – especially when we know close family and friends are watching and can get the best possible online viewing experience.

A lot of videographers only use one static camera on a tripod to live stream funerals – but that can mean that the viewer misses parts of the service, or they’re distracted by the camera zooming in and out during the live stream.

We always use two cameras – one wide angle and a tight mid-shot. We plug both cameras into a switcher, allowing us to switch between each camera throughout the service, jumping onto the wide camera shot while the other camera re-focuses or moves around. This means our live streams look smooth, professional and there’s no distracting or jarring moments.

Video Consulting

Yesterday afternoon a client popped in for some video consulting – occasionally we help people solve video tech issues such as how to get videos off their phone or how to do simple video edits.

Learning video editing software can be really challenging – we’re always happy to have a chat and help out in any way that we can.

Video Editing

Recovering from the disruption of Covid and the lockdowns has felt more challenging this year than any other in a lot of ways. All of our 2019 weddings were moved to this year, which has added to our video editing schedule. We’re also very keen to get back to conference and event filming but it seems that a lot of the 2022 events are still happening online.

Overall things are going well – it’s been a huge learning curve training two trainees in videography and video editing – but so far, 2022 video production is looking bright.