Maniac Films Blog Archive 2006

The Liquidators Live at the White Lion in Braunton - plagued with some power cuts and part-lost recordings - has now completed Post production - the 16 track audio recording has been mixed down by Liquidators Bass player and Sound Engineer Giles Isaac. The DVD/CD combo will be ready soon for retail sale after some final DVD artwork designs have been approved ... watch this space for more information.

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We've been duplicating a new DVD film by Matt Biggs at Artaura for Leader+ - Leading the Way. Leader+ is a six year European funding initiative for rural areas. It was established to encourage local people to develop projects that address local problems.

We provided DVD disc printing, DVD inlay printing, DVD-R duplication and packaging services for Leader+ and Artaura.

Read more about our Disc Production Services.

We've entered North Devon Surf History DVD into the Plymouth Media partnership (PM-P) Media Innovation Awards this year. Plymouth Media-Partnership (www.pm-p.com) is supported by the South West Regional Development Agency (www.southwestrda.org.uk) through South West Screen (www.swscreen.co.uk) and by Plymouth City Council (www.plymouth.gov.uk). PM-P supports a broad range of sectors including television, film and radio, facilities houses, interactive media, animation, website design, marketing design and music composers.

Maniac Films has been commissioned to create a website for Schepens International, a family run shipping business with UK and European shipping facilities. The website will initially act as a main contact point for customers and will expand to include online shopping facilities and online quotations for House moves to popular destinations such as Malaga. More information can be found on the Schepens International website (www.schepens.co.uk)

Read more about our Website Development Services.

We went down to the launch night for Rod Sumpters new surf film 'Come Surf with Me' at the Sailors Arms in Newquay - a great night out and the film was very well received. We took the opportunity to interview some of the attendees talking about their 'Perfect Wave' - to feature in Rods next film, mixing his classic archive 70's 16mm surf footage with 21st century HD footage.

We had placement student Toby Eynon-Lewis helping out with the interviews of Bryant 'The Chin' Colwill and John Baxendale (from A1Surf) and some Newquay locals Steven Elmer and Paul Finney. Bryant recounted stories of Rod being one of the first to ride the legendary 'Cribbar' wave in Newquay.

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We have become an official 2 star sponsor of Surfers Against Sewage - the environmental pressure group campaigning for cleaning bathing waters around the UK. We donated 100 copies of the award-winning North Devon Surf History DVD for them to sell online and to use as raffle prizes.

More information on SAS and their current campaigns including 'No Butts on the beach' on the SAS website www.sas.org.uk. Were also putting together a top SAS raffle prize so look out for that in 2007.

We've been doing some more DVD duplication for a great film from south coast surfer Tim Wreyford - SLOP. SLOP features some fantastic surfing from the likes of Terry Crump, Andy Gillham and Justin Cox as some unusual locations - Bournemouth Pier, Boscome Pier, Southcombe and Kimmeridge plus footage from Australia, Chile, Morocco and Scotland. Some great comedy moments on the DVD too! Sorry but this title is out of stock. Please contact us for more information

Look out for Tim Wreyfords new surf film The Journey due out mid 2007. Trailer for The Journey coming online soon

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We are going up to the British Rally late November/early December to take part in the 3CR Research Visualise project trials in Wales. Maniac films is part of a consortium of companies working on the 'VISUALly Improved Spectator Experience' (VISUALISE) project and this will be the first live trial, mixing live Rally data with near-live video and multicasting it to spectators with wireless PDAs at a remote stage of the Rally using a variety of satellite and wireless technologies.

"This is a big step up from the wireless distribution of Internet data we did with UtIL4 in 2004 at the Cyprus and Wales Rally" said Mark Brindle from Maniac films. "A lot of wireless modelling work is being done by Bristol University during the event and we hope to get some good data for the next phases of the project."

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We have been shooting some black and green screen skateboarding footage at the Plough Theatre in Torrington for some stock use for some footage for a short film by Artaura Productions in Bideford. Most footage was shot in High Definition slow-motion. More shots coming soon.

We have been giving the Genesis Surf shop a bit of a facelift and adding some new features to this online store. Free UK shipping now at Genesis surf shop for Roxy, Animal, Balin, Billabong, Quiksilver, Arnette sunglasses and Black Salamander surf wear. We will be doing a bit more work to the site and getting it ready for the pre-Christmas rush. We will be taking some more product shots to put online - especially of gift ideas for Christmas!

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We have updated the Pointbreaks promo video for an advert slot on the new Video4Tourism.com website. The new video will soon be incorporated on the PointBreaks website including interviews and voice-overs we filmed earlier in the year at Baggy Point. We have also been filming some new footage of Simon Twitchen doing reverse Takeoffs (paddling in to waves with the surf board the wrong way round) at Croyde Bay in slow motion High Definition DVCPROHD720p.

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We have finished the Breaks Live DVD - includes tracks from the Goldcoast Oceanfest in June 2006 and at the Queens Theatre Big Night Out gig. Sound remixing by Lee Thommen (Rhythm Guitar). The video was shot in a mixture of Standard and High Definition - the Queens Theatre was filmed by Mark Brindle, Stu Guant, Matt Biggs and Sally Rogers, with the Goldcoast event being covered by South West Audio, Mark Brindle and Stu Gaunt. Edited and produced by Mark Brindle at maniac films.

The Breaks Live at Goldcoast Oceanfest 2006 and the Queens Theatre Barnstaple - Sorry but this title is out of stock. Please contact us for more information

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We've had a placement student Joel Mills in for a week from Ilfracombe College to see what its like working in the video industry. We had a few jobs for him to do ! One job was to edit up some sequences we had filmed for Barnstaple Museum at the Goldcoast Oceanfest 2006 and to incorporate that with video collected from the Video Booth, we helped build, for the Surfs Up exhibition in the summer. The Video booth is currently being re-comissioned to use at other exhibitions in Barnstaple. Julian from Barnstaple museum said "we will be keeping the archive material and hope to be able to play out some of the material in the museum soon"

Read more about our Post Production Services.

We have been working on the new Surfing DVD by Rod Sumpter 'Come Surf with me' - a re-mastering of Rods classic surf footage from the 1960's and 1970's with excellent music from The Challengers Band - including well known tracks such as 'Wipeout'. The footage had already been transferred from the original 16mm to VHS video and then also onto Digital video (DV) and we had the job of frame matching the DV version against the VHS edit which Rod had produced with Mark Sherriff of September studios.

The DVD consists of two distinct films - Mark Sherriff scored the music for the 'directors cut' version of Come surf with me - a version closer to the original 16mm edits with a more 'warts n all' approach showing the original cuts and splices. We frame matched the DV material to this version of the film.The first version is a new digital edit with some classic surf music and great footage of the UK, Hawaii, Australia, Canada, France, Morocco, Puerto Rico and Spain. I didn't know people were body boarding and doing 360's back in the 60's!! Check it out and see some very stylish and powerful surfing - no leashes in sight !

We provided both wet and dry edit hire (on Final Cut Pro) to Mr Sumpter here at our studio in Croyde and helped with the production by digital frame matching the original Come Surf with me version on the DVD and assisting with titles and music sync on the new version which Rod edited and have been started by Geoff Tydeman (Fistral Sessions fame). We created a short photo montage extra for the DVD and authored the DVD as both DVD-R and DLT masters.

The film is actually a collection of some of Rods original films - not just from the original 'come surf with me' film, but also includes footage from 'Freeform II' and 'Oceans'

The DVD is being sponsored by A1surf.com and we provided DVD print and duplication services to produce the first batch of DVDs for UK distribution. There has been a press screening in Newquay and a public screening is being held at the Sailors Arms Newquay on December 6th at 8pm. We will be there to film some interviews for Rod.

Read more about our Post Production Services.

We have been upgrading some of our software - with the latest version of Innobits MPEG2 encoder - BitVice 1.7 for superior DVD encoding, plus On2 Flix Pro Flash Encoder for producing web flash video and Flip4mac Pro WMV encoder.

Mark Brindle from Maniac Films said "Apples Compressor mpeg encoder was pretty slow until it went multi-processor, but the latest versions are still not a match for the Innobits Bitvice encoder - the results are always superb"

Read more about our Post Production Services.

We have produced a photo montage DVD for local design company Kind Design for a recent exhibition in London. Richard Gregory from Kind Design was "very impressed" with the finished DVDs - using multiple photo montage sequences for a multi plasma screen display setup.

We provided a very quick turnaround service for Kind Design.

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We've been back up to far North Scotland for the 3rd and final trip to gather more footage for 'Half-Life' - our Scotland surf/buddy film due early 2007. This time we had a few more surfers on the trip and decided to take part in the 14 day horror short film challenge at the same time. With a bit of 'wooden' acting along the way we made a sub 10 minute horror film 'Sandside Experiment'

"It was a load of fun..I didn't expect to win any prizes (and didn't!), but it made the trip very memorable" said Mark Brindle from maniac films. Checkout Sandside Experiment and see Tim get infected by radioactive waste from Dounreay - or was it from the strange drug experiment that Paul was running ?

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We have provided DVD replication and print services to local surfing company Surfing Croyde Bay for a new promotional DVD. Nigel and Axel from Surfing Croyde Bay were "very pleased" with the finished DVDs - using clear c-shell cases instead of traditional DVD cases to cut down on postage costs.

We also provided web media conversion services to allow a copy of the promotional film to play on thier website.

Read more about our Disc Production Services.

We decided it was about time to sort out our own globally unique product codes - now you can get a barcode for you CD or DVD direct from maniac films. We can supply you a number from our globally unique range or the completed barcode in EPS, TIF or other formats for printing at high resolution.

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We have been shooting some new product photography for Lambland - to go on the online shop at lambland.co.uk
. These are the start of a new range of products to come online for lambland - gloves and new sheepskin rugs in all colours. Paul from lambland said " the new pictures are great and fit in with our existing online catalog".

Read more about our Photography Services.

Come and checkout the Liquidators. We've been doing some more filming of the legendary ska band from North Devon. This time we managed to capture decent audio (despite the power outages at the Lion!) We will be editing up some of the tracks and hope to have a live track online soon once the audio mix is finished.
We've also been editing up some of the interview with Giles from the Liquidators as part of the Universe inspectors rockumentary DVD.

Read more about our Video Production Services.

More DVD print and duplication for North Devon Renaissance.

We have extended our LOEL with the MCPS/PRS alliance - a new license is in force now which is slightly less restrictive for online playback of video & music synchronisation. All video clips on this site comply with the 'Limited Online Exploitation License' as granted by the MCPS PRS alliance.

We have been doing some more product photography for Genesis surf shop in Ilfracombe. The Autumn collection is now online with new fleeces and coats from Roxy and loads of mens surf wear too. Plus accessories, wallets and purses from Roxy, Animal and Billabong plus quite a few new beanies and scarves getting ready for the winter time!

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We managed to catch the sunset session of Up Down Left Right Fire playing live at Saunton beach for a surf life saving club fundraiser.
...more pictures from the gig are online in the photo gallery..

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We went down to Sidmouth to get a bit of background film - landscape and fishing boats for the Universe Inspectors DVD. A very pleasant trip with lots of sunshine ! We also visited Andy Cummings at Surfers Against Sewage to film some more interviews on climate change and alternative energy for our Scotland Surf film 'Half-Life'. SAS were just about to go to Scotland themselves to film a Scottish environmental film too !

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We've been making QuickTime and Windows Media conversions for Chilli tv - Redbull Nurnberg district Ride Mountain biking race highlights, plus the trailer for the new 'Secret machine' film. The last conversion was for the Billabong Pro Mundaka surf contest highlights in Spain. Checkout the clips on the Chilli tv website or via Vodaphone on your mobile phone.

Read more about our Post Production Services.

We upgraded our digital compositing software to Apple Shake with Qmaster distributed rendering (allowing multiple machines to render the same composite) to provide higher quality Chroma keying using Apples Optical work flow technology.

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We have provided DVD authoring services for Habana Media based in Cornwall for Joanna Sheens papercraft DVD 'Four Seasons'. We provided DVD authoring and mastering services to DLT for this dual layer DVD-9 production.

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We have setup a new webcam for the Woolacombe Bay Hotel, overlooking the beach at Woolacombe North Devon.
...checkout the new webcam live feed !..

We managed to catch a great gig of Up Down Left Right Fire playing live at the White Lion Braunton.
...more pictures from the gig are online in the photo gallery..
These pics were a bit impromptu and done on a 2mega pixel mobile phone. Sorry guys!

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We have been filming more background interviews for the Universe Inspectors rockumentary DVD. We caught up with Hector Christie at Tapely manor to discuss the early years when the Unis used to practice and gig at his farm, and with the delightful miss Amy Newton who has played with the boys and has quite a bit of history with the Croyde Reggae four-some.

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We have finished a review of the Redrockmicro M2 cinema lens adapter - and written an article for the Institute of Videography Focus magazine. The article starts by explaining how depth of field is related to aperture settings and how you can create shallow depth of field using different techniques.
Read the full article here (PDF format) reproduced by kind permission of the IOV.

We have been filming yet more interviews for the Universe Inspectors rockumentary DVD. We caught up with Al Kendal from Small Town Mentality at his house to discuss the Live CD production, and with Ken Kerslake, also from STM who played drums for a summer with the boys when Marcus broke his collar bone. We recorded an 'Ode to the Inspectors' with Ken and Al giving us a rendition of a favourite Unis track 'Babylon' for the forthcoming DVD.

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We have been helping Carl Parkhouse with the final production of a 2-disc audio CD in aid of the Special Care Baby unit at Barnstaple Hospital. We recorded and mixed 2 tracks ( track 1 - "I'm Alive" and track 30 - "Up Where we belong") for the thirty track double album due for release at the special 24 hour charity event to be held on Saturday 26th August (1pm to 1am) and Sunday 27th August (1pm to 1am) at the Pyramid Club, Boutport Street Barnstaple.

The double CD is produced under the MCPS Limited Availability License - so only limited copies available - make sure you get down to the event to secure your copy of this special CD!
Artwork design and production by Maniac films.

This 30 track Double CD is now no longer available sorry

For donations and more information please contact Barnstaple Hospital.

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Come and checkout the Liquidators playing Thursday 17th August in the Thatch in Croyde, North Devon - drop in for a pint if your in the area and get ready to dance away to this great SKA band from the South West. We will be doing some filming (if we can fit through the door !) of Giles and the band.

Giles has been helping with the Universe Inspectors rockumentary with an interview recently (he does the massive PAs for the Unis amongst other things).. get yer dancing shoes on.. hope to see you there!

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Working closely with Weston-super-mer based design company Barrett Design we produced a run of CDs to showcase the new Fox wear catalogue produced by Barrett Design. CD authoring, print and duplication by Maniac films.

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We've uploaded a Video test file from the "Do the things" video for the Universe Inspectors - will be part of the rockumentary DVD. This one uses H264 encoding and needs QuickTime 7 or later to run it (otherwise it might crash your browser!). Shot in DVCPRO HD 1080i/25p using the RedrockM2 35mm adapter with 85mm Nikon lens. A good time was had by all!

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We have now put a few video clips online from the Goldcoast Oceanfest 2006. A few video clips from The Sonix, Johnny Mars and Stars (30sec only due to Music Licensing), Carpet Face and the Gooseneck Steppers now online. The Breaks clip is now online too, Heal and Co-star coming soon.Check out some of the band photos from the event..

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Following on from the Battle of the Bands on the previous night, The Big Night Out kicked off with Amy Newtons fantastic acoustic set including a couple of new tracks. The evening was in aid of the charity - Amigos International and boasted a line up including Small Town Mentality, The Breaks, Eleven, The Sonix, Severe Zero and others.

Maniac films were there to film some of the bands - images online now in the Bands photo gallery. Videos clips from the event being added soon - check the Video downloads page for more information. Thanks to Sally Rogers, Matt Biggs from Artaura and Stu Guant from Monkeyman films for filming support on the night and Sue Rawle for organising the event.

The new Littlepinkshop.com website has been launched - with lots of surfing hardwear products from wetsuits, surfboards, skimboards and bodyboards to fins and ding repair. The site is gradually replacing the original Croyde surf cam site and will have all the accommodation and camping guides plus daily surf pics from Croyde Bay

Read more about our Website Development Services.

New ecommerce website launched for Lambland - for quality sheepskin and leather goods plus some very cute children s gift ideas www.lambland.co.uk "We are very pleased with the new site" said Paul Spencer from Lambland.

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We helped in the selection and setup of a new Axis PTZ (Pan/Tilt/Zoom) Webcam for Woolacombe Holiday Parc to serve a dual purpose of overlooking the stunning beach at Woolacombe and for filming the entertainment/bands playing on site in the summer season. Due to go live in August when dedicated bandwidth is available for the uplink.

We have supplied some stock footage for an upcoming production by TalkbackTHAMES tv, one of the UKs largest production companies.

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We have printed and duplicated short runs of DVDs for two films for Devon Renaissance and the North Devon Regeneration Company. Both films by Matt Biggs at Artaura.

Universal Royalty were playing Live in barnstaple as part of the Creation Fest 2006 series of Outreach concerts held this year before the main event in August at Woolacombe. We've put together a short vid of the band from the Outreach gig.

...<more info about Creation Fest 2006>..

We were back at the Goldcoast Oceanfest in Croyde this year, filming some of the events for a short promo for USP and helping out with media conversions for the big screen...plus filming lots of the bands including Meet me at the Pub (HD), Heal, Johnny Mars & the Stars, Co-Star, The Breaks (HD), The Sonix and more <Check out some of the band photos from the event>..

We've been wanting a ride-on track dolly of our own for sometime - now we've got one ! The Indie Dolly has aluminium track - both straight and curved track sections. The Tripod clamps to the Dolly and allows the camera operator to ride along on a platform which runs on modified skateboard wheels and bearings for super smooth tracking shots. "I can't wait to get the dolly in action!" said Mark Brindle from Maniac films.

Read more of our Camera equipment rental news and updates.

Watch the video trailer - some great surfing footage from North Devon by Braunton School, Maniac films, Richard Gregory and more. If you missed the Surf History exhibition at Barnstaple Museum then why grab a copy of the DVD.
...<more info about the surf history DVD>..

Donavan Frankenreiter clips and now Adidas Slopestyle MTB clips to watch online at Chilli.tv. Web media encoding services by maniac films.

Read more about our Post Production Services.

A short job for Yelofin to provide some quality Chroma Key audio visuals to be used in some new Flash Animation web promos. We used the Reflecmedia portable Chromo key screen to film High Definition Video in DVCPRO HD to generate a good alpha channel for the Flash video encoding. See our review of the Reflecmedia solution for the IOV here

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Two new DVD titles from the students at Ilfracombe college - 'Anthem for a Doomed Youth' and 'Young Voices for Change'. Low volume disc and cover printing plus duplication services by maniac films.

Read more about our Disc Production Services.

We got our FS-100 unit finally, to enable up to 100 minutes of HD recording direct from the Panasonic HVX200 to the disc. This units adds some weight to the camera, but enables a much longer recording time then the P2 cards (8 minutes on each 8GB card). After some initial problems with the new firmware upgrade procedure its all working well now..

Short Review published in the IOV's Focus Magazine September Edition - PDF version of FS100 review now online

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Well you can play asteroids on the site right now - just waiting for some input from the band members of Up Down Left Right Fire before this site really goes live. They are recording this week (July 2006) and so we hope to have some mp3's to upload and we are planning a short music video shoot to mix in with some initial video filming with the band from May. Watch this space.. (site since closed after band split!)

Read more about our Website Development Services.

The latest Billabong and Balin clothing ranges are now online at www.genesissurfshop.com - a new summer range of products are being added now.

Read more about our Photography Services.

The Surf's Up exhibition is opening May 12th for a private viewing to the local surf industry and press. It will be the first public showing of the local surf history film commissioned by the Museum from Maniac films and Braunton Community College.

We have been working in tandam with Quay events and Tiki to provide a Video booth at the Museum to record some 'talking heads' - to get everyone s view on surfing in North Devon. The best parts will be edited onto DVD and played out at the Museum during the 7 weeks that the exhibition plays for, and will be kept in the Museums online web archive.

Maniac films were responsible for the technical design of the video booth - using advanced video compression techniques for video capture and storage and using a cctv motion-detection principle to trigger the recordings. High quality audio recordings are made using a boundary mic system and valve pre-amp.

"The system has been designed for minimal maintenance during the course of the exhibition" said Mark Brindle from Maniac films. "Its designed with remote access via high speed wireless and has a large storage capacity for recording many weeks of video" "We plan to use the video booth at all of our future exhibitions " said Alison Mills from Barnstaple Museum.

www.madmonkeysports.com is now fully operational and waiting for your visit. For custom screen printing and embroidery onto a wide range of great clothing. The Froogle feed is running so grab yourself some Madmonkey merchandise today!

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A short film created as part of Surf's Up, Maniac films and Braunton Community College present North Devon Surf History - filmed partly by the kids to feature in the Barnstaple Museum surfing exhibition and also for play-out at the Goldcoast Oceanfest 2006 event. Additional local surfing footage courtesy of Richard Gregory, Chris Preston and Matt Biggs plus lots of footage from the maniac films archives.

Featuring the music of Pete Bruntnell The Universe Inspectors, Acid County, Horizon, Jenna Witts and Lee Thommen & Becky Loney. MCPS License.

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We spent the day with Pete Bruntnell in Morthoe, filming two acoustic tracks for use on an Electronic Press Kit. 'Perfume River' from his latest album 'Ghost in a Spitfire' and also a new track 'John'. To find out more information about Pete and to hear samples of his work online visit his website at www.peterbruntnell.com

We used the M2 35mm adapter to give some nice DOF shots and to help generate an atmosphere in the production. A short sample of the filming is being used on the Barnstaple Museum surf history DVD.

Read more about our Video Production Services.

20 years in the making - featuring all the best live tracks including 'Party Time', 'The Dream' 'Extremes' 'Babylon' 'There is a Place' - sixty minutes of pumping reggae from the Uni's. Recorded and lovingly mixed by Al Kendal - after three long mixing sessions with the Unis - trying to get that Live sound just right. The result is fantastic! CD artwork, printing and duplication by Maniac films - and available to buy online now

To coincide with the first Live album in 20 years is the first Universe Inspectors website - currently being built by Maniac films. The website will have video and mp3 samples - many out takes from the forthcoming Universe Inspectors Rockumentary - still in production - hopefully this wont take 20 years to finish !

Watch out for an in-depth article on the Universe Inspectors in the May edition of Where2Devon magazine

Read more about our Disc Production Services.

"Trying to generate the elusive 'film look' from Video footage, using post production techniques has never been very easy" said Mark Brindle from maniac films.

"But now with the RedRock Micro M2 35mm adapter we can do all the work up-front and make use of the narrow depth of field using 35mm prime lens and tell the story by drawing the eye to the action...in tandam with the new DVCPRO HD camera we can create some beautiful images"
Watch out for a review of the M2 35mm adapter by Maniac films soon in the IOV Forum magazine.

Read more of our Camera equipment rental news and updates.

We have upgraded to High Definition video acquisition using the Panasonic AG-HVX200 with multi-format HD recording direct to P2 memory cards to speed up work flow and increase image quality..."I've never been happy with the HDV codec using MPEG2 for compression and so have held out for 'better HD format' (DVCPRO HD) which has a wider colour space (4:2:2) and less compression" said Mark Brindle from Maniac films. "The quality of the images are fantastic and the extra colour information makes chroma keying much easier with better edges then HDV".
We have written a review on the Panasonic AG-HVX200 camera in the June issue of the IOV magazine 'Focus' - a copy of the article is reproduced here.

Read more of our Camera equipment rental news and updates.

We have created a new website for the Georgeham-based Tearoom and Bed & Breakfast. Janet Jewell who runs the historic cottage is very pleased with the result. "everyone loves my website" Millies Tearoom and Bed & Breakfast Georgeham (the site has since closed after Janet moved away).

Read more about our Website Development Services.

Media conversions for Chilli.tv for new RedBull X-Fighters previews. Watch the action live on Vodaphone - preview on the Chilli.tv website. We have been converting video footage to QuickTime and Windows Media for web delivery and also XVid AVI formats for mobile phone delivery to Chilli tv's mobile media partners around the globe.

Read more about our Post Production Services.

We have helped out Stu Gaunt at Monkeymanfilms with some web hosting and retailing for his new skateboarding movie Progression. The 4th skateboarding film from Stu - there are two films on the DVD. Progression was the original film, a year of skating shown on your screens in the order it happened. The second film is Best-of film. This is a selection of each skaters favourite bits, combined with a selection of footage filmed after the original filming had finished.

Featured skaters include: Dave Beckley, Dave Joyce, Matt Davis, Luke Provan, P-Rock, Nicky Lloyd – surf and skate, Shaun Earls, Matt Price, Joel Griffin, Alex McCleese, Glenn Field, Henry Court, Pat Spears, Kyle Davies, Nick Essex and Stu Gaunt.

We have started work on a new online shop for surf retailer 'The Little Pink Shop' aka The Secret Warehouse in Croyde Bay. This is another Oscommerce store customised to the Pink Shops requirements with lots of surfboards, wetsuits and accessories for sale online and will replace the current online shop portion of the site.

Read more about our Website Development Services.

We have started work on a new online shop for clothing retailer MadMonkeySports. Offering custom screen printing and embroidery services and self-design services. Yet another Oscommerce store customised to the MadMonkey requirements.

Read more about our Website Development Services.

We have finished a short run of DVDs for a new School Travel Plan film by Rachel Lambert. Commissioned by Herefordshire Council highways and transportation department to help raise awareness of funding for schools introducing Travel Plans to cut down on congestion during the 'School Run'.
Full colour cover, insert and disc printing plus duplication services by Maniac films.

Read more about our Disc Production Services.

We have been uploading over 17000 products to Doves online bookshop - enough to keep the Doves staff very busy with product information for a long time to come... Doves online bookshop is now open for business, based on the open source Oscommerce engine, the site offers a comprehensive set of Christian books an music.
Simon Gissing from Doves said " its a little difficult at the moment with so many products, but we wanted to provide a full online service..we expect to remove some products and expand our online features and articles with links to local community resources"
Website hosting and design services by Maniac films.

Read more about our Website Development Services.

We have started work on a new ecommerce website for North Devon retailer Lambland. The site is being constructed using the Open source Oscommerce engine to replace their existing online store.
Website hosting and design services by Maniac films.

Read more about our Website Development Services.

We duplicated several sets of Audio CDs with colour disc printing for Calvary Chapel Woolacombe.

Read more about our Disc Production Services.

We produced a short run of DVDs for Chilli Video - freebies for thier dealer network to showcase current video titles and new releases to help promote sales. DVD authoring, disc and artwork printing plus DVD duplication by Maniac films.

Read more about our Disc Production Services.

We have started on the DVD edit making use of the new multitrack edit facility in Final Cut Studio to mix together the 5 camera feeds we recorded at the Pulse Oxfam Christmas party in December. Featuring Jesse James, Naked Apes, Transcargo, Imperial Leisure, Scouting for Girls and Donderdag - some great sounds with three tracks from each band.

Read more about our Post Production Services.

Version 3 of the video promo loop for Braunton Hair salon Studio 1A is completed and ready for projecting in the shop. "Ken lost his camera for a while..so we have only just got some new photos to work with" said Mark Brindle, "a lot of the photos were taken against a flat green background, so we were able to use Mattenee™ to key out the green". Get down to Studio1A and see the results.The original Studio 1A Version 1 video loop sample is online

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The first versions of this DVD were originally played out in Billy Budds in Croyde (hence the title) - now includes Version 3 of the Studio1A video montage on the re-issued pub combo DVD and features the music of Lee Thommen and Becky Loney plus The Breaks. Plus over an hour of Surfing and Kitesurfing from the UK, Australia and Fiji thrown in with a blend of music from Mintie, Stocks and Powell, The Lyrical Madmen and O.O.O.D.

Chilli.tv have a new website Chilli.tv website for extremely mobile content courtesy of Dave Blackburn of Secondhandboards.com fame. We have been adjusting the technical side with Search Engine Optimisation and video conversion. More cool video clips and content will be added to the Chilli.tv website soon.

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Sally Rogers joins us for some work experience following her film degree - her first job is to re-edit the Surfers Against Sewage Video Short to include the missing interview with legendary Quiksilver team rider Gary Elkerton and add in some more footage of the other kids at the Eco-awareness event in Croyde 2005
The first version of the video clip was played out on the big screen at the Goldcoast Oceanfest event. "SAS asked us to film the event for use on the web and as DVD extra features but we didn't get all of the model release forms back in time to complete the full version" said Mark Brindle. "Its a good project to get Sally up to speed on Final Cut Pro..and will help clear a bit of 'freebie' backlog for us'".

Band Photos updated including images from the Goldcoast Oceanfest 2005 plus the Pulse/Oxfam Charity Gig. More Croyde surfing photos of Ed Knight plus some wipeout shots from recent big swells.
More updates coming soon.

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We've been busy photographing new stock for the Genesis Surf Shop online web site - see Christine Gilbert modelling the latest fashions from Billabong. The photographs were taken against our Reflecmedia portable Chroma-key screen to make it easier to key out the background. "Its too cold to take 'Summer' photos outside at this time of year" said Genesis proprietor Robin. "..this method is great !"

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We have uploaded most of our video clip samples as Windows Media Player versions too. Visit the video clips area and click through for QuickTime or WMV video clips. All Creation Fest 2004/2005 Clips have been converted too. Plus Goldcoast Oceanfest preview clip from the new Goldcoast DVD.
Check back for new clips or join our mailing list for updates.

The downloads area has since closed down and all are video clips are on Vimeo and Youtube now.

We have uploaded some Croyde Surf club video clips to the CSC site. Visit the Croyde Surf Club website and checkout the contest results and video clips from previous contests. Full length high quality video clips now for sale on the Pub Combo DVD. Watch the uploaded video of the 2005 Croyde surf club contest video to Youtube now.

We've been helping Matt & Trevor at Eyeball again with the webcams - this time sorting out live streaming from Putsborough beach. Visit the Eyeball Surfcheck website and checkout the live streaming and see the new live Croyde web surf camera courtesy of Baggy Lodge.

Web updates for the extreme watersports company Point Breaks has gone live. Including two new web clips focusing on surfing lessons and the 'super screamer' ride. Simon Twitchen at Point Breaks is "Totally stoked with the surf clip".
Visit the new Point Breaks website and check out the video clips.

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We were also busy over the Christmas period writing a couple of reviews for the Institute of Videography magazine 'focus'. The first article on the abc minicrane is due to be published in the February edition of Focus. The second article on Reflecmedia's portable Chroma-key screen technology - DV vrs HDV will be published in March 2006. Transcripts of the two reviews are now available online: Green Screen Review   abc minicrane Review you will need Adobe Acrobat reader to view these reviews.

We were busy over the Christmas period authoring a new DVD for Mobix Interactive to use as a cover-mount for Stream magazine. The short project involved creating video menus from Flash and Photoshop files and masked overlays with existing video. We also organised the replication of 12,000 copies of the DVD.

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