Video & Multimedia
(PAST) COMMISSIONED VIDEO WORK
The equipment required to make high-quality videos has changed dramatically in the last few years, with many of the DSLR cameras now used by still photographers capable of producing Hollywood-quality moving pictures. Short films no longer require a two, three or four-person crew, and can be made by a single photographer/videographer working alone, at a fraction of the cost.
The new technology is ideally suited to meeting the growing demand for affordable video content for websites, conferences and other events, allowing even small organisations to make use of the medium to promote and publicise their work. Below is a selection of my recent video work for public, voluntary and private sector clients.
This three-minute video was made for Time For Paddington to promote its volunteering programme in local schools.
This two-minute video was made for the inpaddington YouTube channel, set up to promote regeneration in the area around Paddington station. The Rolling Bridge, a steel and timber pedestrian crossing designed by Heatherwick Studio, spans an inlet on the north side of Paddington Basin and rolls up to allow canal boats access to moorings at the centre of the Merchant Square office and residential development.
Foodbanks, under the franchise of the Christian charity the Trussell Trust, are opening across the UK at a rate of four a week. They highlight the growing hardship which has resulted from the banking crisis and government cuts to welfare benefits and public services. This video is a quick snapshot of some of the problems faced by users of three London foodbanks, and of the work of the volunteers who run them. It has been used to raise awareness of food poverty, recruit new volunteers, and to encourage donations.
The Great Western Railway Band performs on platform 9 of Paddington Station at 7.30pm every Friday between Easter and Christmas. It's not the most obvious venue for a concert – at times the music is almost drowned out by the collective growl of engines travelling in and out of the great glass-roofed train shed - but lifting the spirits in adverse circumstances is just what marching bands are for, and the musicians play on regardless.
This short video was made for the inpaddington YouTube channel, with a brief to capture the spirit of the band and the life of the station in which it performs. It was great fun to make, and also a reminder of just how much the publishing and PR world has changed over the last few years. Before the all-encompassing rise of the web, a commission like this would more likely have been for a set of stills for use across a range of print products.
RIGHT FIRST TIME
Made for Camden Council internal communications. Managers, workers and social housing tenants explain how an overhaul of the housing repairs service has greatly increased its effectiveness, and how the principles used in planning the reorganisation can be used in other departments.
LONDON'S OTHER WORKERS: MULTIMEDIA
When financial turmoil hit the City of London in September 2008 the media focus was on high profile job losses at Lehman Brothers and other big players. But the crisis had little impact on the hidden army of contract cleaners, security guards and maintenance staff who arrive in overalls at the offices of the big corporations as the suits depart. Mostly recruited from capital's vulnerable minority ethnic communities, chronically underpaid and with little job security, for them financial troubles are a permanent fact of life.
This multimedia presentation of the London's Other Workers project combines still photos and a recorded interview with Alberto Durango, who has worked as a cleaner since he came to London in 1995 to escape paramilitaries in his native Colombia. In this 4 minute piece he talks about the problems faced by the cleaners who work through the night in the office buildings of London’s financial district.