Coming Soon: Clips From Italy!
Hi Guys, apologies for the lack of blog posts recently — I’ve been otherwise engaged over in Italy.
I travelled along with Videvo member Izzy in order to work on a documentary, but naturally— stock video was also pretty high on my priority list.
Everything from me was shot on my 5D Mark III using the only lens I had with me — the trusty Canon 24-105 L, Izzy had her 70D, stock lens and a Canon 50mm.
In an ideal world I’d have gone out there with lenses for every occasion, but unfortunately, after packing my fluid head video tripod into my suitcase, I was left with a pretty minimal amount of space to fit my travelling essentials. After being severely let down by my scales at home, I ended up having to move my tripod head into a reluctant Izzy’s suitcase in order to be allowed on the plane!
During the filming of the documentary, I was given access to some pretty cool places; one of my favourites being an Electronic Waste sorting centre in Turin, where all of the E-waste in Turin is separated for recycling. This gave me a unique opportunity to get some strong niche shots, which would not be easy to simply go out and shoot on a whim. I mentioned shots like these in point 4 in my previous article.
It’s all about themes, so once I got there I began shooting on-theme, usable shots which could be put into multiple contexts.
As you can see, I was working pretty light — just the camera and tripod. Fortunately, the lighting was pretty good which allowed for some strong shots:
I’m expecting this one to be quite popular, it’s a conveyor belt feeding crushed E-Waste along a line of workers who are sorting through the debris in order to pick out valuable pieces (far cooler when it’s moving!)
As well as this sorting centre, I was also given access to an Ecocentre — where people take their electronic waste. This was another mine for niche stock shots, and to top it off — both locations fit nicely together. So now, anyone searching Videvo for electronic waste recycling will be greeted with more clips than they can probably use!
There was a weekend in the middle of our trip, which gave us the opportunity to get out and explore Turin. We covered it at street level first and then got up higher in order to get some nice establishers. This was one of the points where I wished I’d brought the Videvo Canon EF 100-400 L lens with me, as the 24-105 was impossible to isolate anything with. Due to this, I had to stick to wides.
I was very glad of my variable ND filter on this trip, and I want to re-enforce the importance of taking an ND filter if you are going anywhere sunny! (For us British people, it’s easy to forget how bright the sun can be!) it let me have my aperture wide open, even out in bright daylight, which was an incredible plus!
After the weekend, we got stuck into film the final part of the documentary, which ended on the Friday. Luckily, Izzy and I had booked our flights home a few days after the filming had ended which let us go out a bit further and explore more stock video opportunities.
Our next destination was the Alps. We had seen the snow-capped mountains from time to time within Turin ( the place is surrounded by them) but had not gone and taken a closer look. We’re very glad we did! Here’s Izzy at a vantage point shooting you guys some mountain stock:
And here’s me not shooting you guys some mountain stock..
We did a lot of walking but didn’t have the right gear to go up too high. We took some gondolas up to a ski-resort which was pretty interesting and managed to snag a few nice stock clips of various ski-related things (It’s about themes remember?!)
Another interesting establishment I got into while I was there was a jewellery production house, where precious metals are made into fine jewellery to be sold by big jewellery brands on the high-street. The reason I went there was to get a shot of some gold being manipulated for the video I was working on, but as I was there I decided to canvas the joint and push for as many varied shots as possible. I got my translator on board and he facilitated a nice range of jewellery production themed shots, such as this one:
Our last stop was Barolo, a place famous for producing some of Italy’s greatest wines. Stock video is all about themes, and the theme here was definitely wine. We started off by driving around the rolling countryside in order to find a strong vantage point. This is what we found:
We were able to quickly and easily scoop up a wide variety of on-theme shots, before moving on to a place where the wine is made and sold. We enjoyed some wine tasting, went and got some stock of the wine barrels and then moved on to find some more high altitude vantage points for scenic shots:
After this it was time to get back on the train and head back to Turin to pack for our flight.
We got back to the UK the next day and I went straight to Videvo HQ to get the clips off my Lacie and onto the Mac Pro. I then spent the next 6 hours going through the footage and sub clipping everything I deemed appropriate for Videvo. 144 Sequences later I was getting there..
I’ve now got the exciting task of titling, describing and keywording each clip so I can upload them for you guys! Happy days!
That’s all for now but thanks for reading and keep an eye on the new clips section of Videvo for the next couple of weeks, as there’s going to be some gems going up! Also, don’t forget the Videvo GoPro competition is ending soon – get involved while you can and see if you can win this awesome prize!
Cheers,
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