Fashion, glamour and glitz were today’s game. I found myself enjoying the shopping experience of New Look’s flagship Oxford Circus store. We were there filming an interview with CEO Carl Macphail who gave an excellent interview. All filmed in the heart of the new store (very funky). As he headed away he generously offered staff discount to the whole crew. Needless to say Lucy descended into a permanent state of euphoria and whirled off round the store while the rest of the crew got down and groovy with the cutaways.

So at the end of the day everyone has come out a winner, our client because they’ve got a great video in the can, the nice guys at New Look whose CEO comes across brilliantly, Lucy because she’s had her shopping fix, me because I bought the current Mrs Wake some cool clothes (many browny points), Speakeasy (cos of the new blog story!) and the biggest winner of all Mr Creditcard.

Magnus Wake - Director

MagnusM Team News, Work Completed Funky, New Look

I. Don’t. Wear. Make up.
There. I said it.
But it just so happens I have applied make up. More than once actually…

Because sometimes I go on shoots. And sometimes the lights are hot and the actors need some make up to hide the perspiration. And sometimes I happen to be the closest to the powder puff. That’s what happens on shoots - you have to pull together - and so sometimes the Producer does the make up. Sometimes, as in the case of our shoot for the Criminal Justice Service (part of the Home Office) we have to do a whole lot more…

So here we are. It’s the last day of a three day shoot in London; The clock is ticking, there are eight more scenes to get through before we hit overtime. There are six crew, eight cast members (and two clients) filming in a Crown Court.  It’s a big space so we have lots of lighting. So it’s also roasting hot. The poor cast are dressed in robes and wigs. But the aircon is off because a) it’s too noisy for the sound man and b) it’s broken. Everyone is busy but exhausted and the energy levels are dropping fast. I do what needs to be done - tea and a Twix all round.

We finish (almost) on time, hang up the costumes, put away the gear, load the truck, tidy the location, kiss the luvvies goodbye, and head home. The next few weeks are taken up with editing, re-editing and approvals, resulting in three case studies that explain the process behind criminal sentencing. These will be cut up and put on the client’s website, joining a pilot programme we shot earlier in the year. Thousands will see it and interact with it. Perceptions will be changed. Our client will be happy. The hard work will be worth it.

My other tasks on that shoot included dressing a judge, checking a script, four trips to Marks & Spencer, directing the second unit filming, wearing a police helmet and, as you can see, taking the shine off an actress’s forehead with a powderpuff.

And it wasn’t just me - my colleague Lucy organised catering for 16, kept a written log of each shot, taxi’d folk to the tube station, and was an on-screen extra (as you can see, she favoured The Method when playing the Defendant’s put-upon girlfriend…). We did all of this so that our director Magnus could concentrate on the important job of getting the right shots and performances, so there was something to edit. Oh, and also taking embarrassing photos of his colleagues applying make up.

Hard work, but we love it. It’s not about the job description, it’s about a team effort, and if you want to see what all that looks like go here.

Mark Turner - Producer

MarkM Speakeasy Company News, Team News, Work Completed

Well one of the big buzzes at the moment is User Generated Material (UGM) or maybe it’s CGM or possibly UCC but whatever acronym you know it as - the principal is the same. Getting the end user to generate some kind of media content.

Not essentially a new idea (’Letters to the editor’ in that old fashioned newspaper world for example) but now being utilised in a very hi-tech way, where corporate and public sector organisations can get their users to create useful and interesting content about their company.

So how can this work in practise. Well recently a Scottish pop singer asked her fans to make a pop video for her. She posted the track online and got inundated with ‘unique’ video promo versions of her song. However in a more practical sense companies can enhance their employeed engagement programs through using UGC with their staff.

Our latest example of this was at an awards ceremony for Co-operative Financial Services. We were providing the backbone logistics for the event and also supplied the on-screen content. As part of this we suggested getting entrants to film a one minute piece shot and edited on the camera. This was then sent back to our in-house edit suites where we added a bit of gloss and made them ready for the ceremony. We facilitated all of this by sending out 50 low cost HD easy shoot cameras along with instructions and mentoring on how to go about it. The resulting videos were surprising and genuinely engaging.

There are a number of benefits to this approach. It extended the feel good factor of the awards by getting the staff really involved early on and everyone seemed to have a great time making the videos. On the night, well lets just say there wasn’t a dry eye in the house and the feedback from the event suggested it was one of the best ever.

So, ‘user generated media’, no matter what it’s called can really add to your armoury of communication tools.

Give one of our producers a call to find out more.

Magnus Wake - Head of Post Production and UGM mentor extraordinaire

MagnusM Speakeasy Company News, Tech chat, Work Completed, speak360

Last Friday was a pretty dismal evening for the England football team… but that didn’t stop Speakeasy cracking open the champagne!

As well as being a night not to remember for English football, it was the Institute of Internal Communication Awards in London. So suits and ties (for some) and dresses for others, were donned and we headed down to the Hilton Park Lane.

Two of Speakeasy’s videos had been shortlisted in the same category and we had our fingers crossed that one might come away with the prize. The evening started with a drinks reception and photographs with our certificates, before a delicious three-course meal. For the avid football fans amongst us, there was a handy big screen at the side of the room, and the really clever ones had the match streamed to their iPhones.

Promptly after the match finished, our host, Alastair Campbell stepped up and assured us that it was only a game after all… which wasn’t a popular statement with everyone in the room. He carried on with the jokes, probably for a bit too long and then moved onto the awards…

It was soon the turn of our category – Best use of Video / DVD / Webcast / TV. I couldn’t quite believe it when they read out Speakeasy’s name – we were absolutely delighted – and went up to the stage in a bit of a daze to collect our award. Luckily, no-one fell over, we smiled for the cameras and we made it back to the table in one piece! “On the Inside” produced for Lloyds Banking Group had just pipped the NHS Leicester film to the post – but everyone on the Speakeasy table was still smiling… especially when the champagne came out.

The IoIC Award is the fifth award “On the Inside” has won this year… it’s other accolades include a Gold World Medal at the New York Festivals and two awards at the US International Film & Video Festivals.

Lucy Trendle - Producer

MarkM Speakeasy Company News, Team News, Work Completed

It was a pretty nice day on Saturday (17thApr), sunny, a bit of nip in the air but a good day for the footie. So I had decided to go see the super Saintees (from Perth) take on another bunch of Saints (the Mirren variety - from Paisley) and give them a sound whipping. As it transpired we were lucky to get one point out of the encounter. So I should never take anything for granted. However just as I was thinking about making my way out, (I was doing some emails in at Wildwood), we got a call from a client who had a very important business person who needed to travel out to the far east to make a presentation on their behalf but the mountain dust had kept him firmly in his place. His place was in Northern Perthshire. So could we make a film of what he had to say so that they could play it at the conference and Sharon, one of our new producers, said “sure of course we can.”

So I kinda got roped in, my own fault really, by saying I’ll fix that up. She’d already phoned Simone but Simone was busy being the vice-chairperson of the PBN (Perthshire Businesswomen’s Network) so I thought that was a bit unfair so I should just fix it up – football being an unneccessary distraction from serving our clients. We needed camera, lights, sound, autocue and to get an edit done. By this time Maggie had made her way up here and very kindly offered to edit any bits that needed to be done. We hoped that with the autocue there would be none but suspected that some black magic may be necessary. Then when she heard how long the piece was to be she thought “No way can we get that onto an ftp site, and so she set about devising how to make the file size smaller. Which, of course, she did.

So then I phone up Jackie to try and organise autocue; everybody phones Jackie when they want autocue, but her phone’s off, I leave a message, and she calls me back a wee while later and in an unusually ‘soto voce’ tone she says “ hi Jim were you looking for me? “ she doesn’t say “hi Jim it’s Jackie” but Jackie never needs to say it’s Jackie. Her voice is totally unmistakable, and I said “yeah where are you?” she says “I’m at the match” “what match?” I said, she says “the Celtic match”, I said “what on earth are you doing there?” She says “I’m working for Sky” “Oops” she says “I’d better go but I cannae help you this afternoon”. No probs’ I said so I had a fish around and I found another name inside the Bubble (our MIS), Ros. So I phoned Ros.

I said do you do tele-prompt and she said yeah. I said you won’t know who I am but my name’s Jim from Speakeasy. She said “sure I know who you are, we work for you frequently through your London office and up there with Simone and Sarah” Oh do we have an account with you?” She said “yeah”, I said “ok can you get me somebody this afternoon?” “Where’s the shoot?’” and I told her . “She said I’ll try, I’ll definitely get back to you”. Then I thought I’m kind of running out of options here and I phoned Fraser, who’s an old pal, and his phone rang as if he was in a foreign country which indeed he was - on holiday and stuck in Puerta Fuerteventura because of the mountain dust. Oh no! more seafood and Bacardi – what a shame – but he suggested a name and Frank it was who came up trumps. Later in the day to be fair Ros phoned me back to say she could get somebody but they’d have to come quite a long way so we stuck with Frank who did a sterling job for us and the shoot went ahead, the gentleman did his piece; it was shorter than we thought so the compression problem was not what we’d expected. It duly went online and our clients were jubilant.

I heard the last 10 minutes of the super saintees game on the radio and I was less than jubilant. We were 2-0 down then grabbed one back to make it 2-1 and then in the 93rd minute we got a penalty and then the wizard who is Paul Sheerin spotted the ball and slotted it into the onion bag to give us a share of the points. I suppose I should accept that even though we have thrashed Rangers 4-1, Hibernian 5-1 and had several others such results this season, the other saints are quite a decent team. There you go that was the Saturday job.

Ps. The super saintees were celebrating their 125th anniversary this year and Speakeasy produced the commemorative DVD. There might be the odd copy left if you hurry.

Jim Adamson - Managing Director

MarkM Speakeasy Company News, Team News, Work Completed

We’ve worked with all sorts – actors, doctors, cooks, bankers… but it’s not everyday you can say that you’ve worked with a group of young people who are truly inspirational…

We were lucky enough to meet some of Britain’s Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls for London 2012, on a recent shoot for Lloyds Banking Group. We spent a day each with four athletes on the Bank’s Local Heroes scheme - Tom Gibbs, a gymnast, Harriet Owen, a cyclist, Jonny Hay, a runner and Alan Mansell a paralympic Basketball Player.

Shooting on the RED camera system for the first time, we produced stunning slow motion footage of each of the athletes training and performing their sport. All four young athletes were unbelievably talented and an inspiration to watch. The hard work and dedication they put into their sport is incredible – and should be an example to all of us!

We wish them all the best for their preparations and training on the road to 2012.

Lucy Trendle - Producer

MagnusM Speakeasy Company News, Work Completed

Awards Season is upon us and we’re making some room on the shelf:
Today four of our productions were shortlisted for three categories at
the Communicators In Business Awards.
Best Use of Interactive Media
Best Live Communications Event
Best Use of Visual Communication
The ceremony is at the end of February, so fingers crossed, and Mr.
Sheen at the ready.

MagnusM Speakeasy Company News, Work Completed

It’s not often we like to reveal the backstage mysteries of event production but we thought we would make an exception…

When an event is running, the crew, especially in large venues, need to speak to each other. It’s important because we need to know exactly when to turn the lights down or run a video. We do this with a talkback system of microphone headsets (or ‘cans’). Sometimes, not much technical is happening during the presentation and the crew might share a polite anecdote - punctuated by the occasional countdown to a video or request for a lighting change. As they listen to their colleagues on stage, the audience are never aware of this simultaneous whispered dialogue, conducted by our black-clad crew who lurk behind control desks in dark corners of the room.

This was the case on the roadshow we have just completed for Co-operative Financial Services. Over one month, we have run events all over the UK for the entire workforce of 12,000. The theme was the Next Chapter (which is why the staging looks like a giant book). The event boasted a show crew of 20, and three sizes of book to fit different venues.

So, picture the scene backstage: you’re working on a roadshow for a major financial client. You’re on your 12th day away from home and just finishing the 20th show. It’s gone off without a hitch (again) and the audience have lapped it up (again). You’ve watched the closing video so often, you find you know the words to the soundtrack. As it starts for the umpteenth time, you allow yourself a final indulgence - a talkback singalong.

MarkM Work Completed Britannia, CFS, large employee events, speakeasy, The Cooperative Bank

It’s always nice to be told you’re good at something!

It’s nice when your colleagues say it, nicer when your boss says it, and I suppose kind of expected when your mum says it (thanks mum).  But when the Americans say it, you know you’ve really arrived!

The Speakeasy team recently received some star spangled recognition from across the pond and the good ole Yanks were even kind enough to send us some trophies to show our friends.  Now I’m not one for hiding your Oscar in the bathroom (we didn’t win an Oscar by the way).

I think awards should take pride of place on the mantle-piece.  As we don’t have one, our awards tend to get used as paperweights on Jim’s desk… unless they’re certificates.  Fortunately the newest additions to the trophy cabinet came as fairly chunky statues in the shape of stars, and don’t they look great?

As well as weighing as much as a small child what these actually represent are minor victories at the 2009 U.S. International Film & Video Festival (Geddit?  Minor victories?  Oh come on!).  A Silver Screen award in the Professional Education Category for our DVD-ROM for the Scottish Government and another Silver Screen award in the Motivational / Inspirational Category for our most recent video for the Army.

Our DVD-ROM “We Can And Must Do Better” is a training resource about the topic of looked after children’s experience of education in Scotland.  A little known fact about the DVD-ROM: there are more copies of this disc in circulation than there are looked after children in the country.  Hopefully this means these issues are being brought to the forefront of everyone’s mind.  Our other winner, “Doing The Right Thing On A Difficult Day”, was an inspirational examination of British troops’ heroics in Afghanistan.

Well done to all involved (you know who you are), especially Maggie who edited both projects and is now officially an internationally recognised, cross-platform, multi-award winning editor.  Of course that won’t fit on a business card so she’ll have to make do with the above picture and accompanying celebrity status as a prize.

If anyone would like to forward their congratulations, they will be warmly welcomed at maggie@speak.co.uk

Mark McKenna - Producer

MarkM Speakeasy Company News, Team News, Work Completed

It’s the last weekend of June and that can only mean one thing - Wimbledon, Rain and the Royal Highland Show!

This year the sun decided to bless us with it’s presence from time to time but that didn’t stop thousands of visitors donning their finest pink spotted footwear and heading to the largest agricultural show in Scotland.

This was Dave’s first show (that’s him on the right).  He said that highlights for him included kissing livestock, watching a fantastically drunk farmer help himself to some food from our chef’s frying pan with his bare hands and also the chance to do a little filming during one of the cookery demonstrations.

For me, it was all about the ‘World of Sheep’ and Orkney ice cream - my thanks go out to the nice man from Orkney Foods who gave us an industrial sized tub of the stuff to eat on Sunday.

Yumm!!

By the end of the show we were grubby, tired and a little emotional but also very satisfied due the amount of food we’d consumed over the four days and also by the success of the Food Standards Agency Scotland exhibition, which attracted a record number of 16,000 visitors over the four days of the show.  This demonstrated the continued popularity of giant pink talking ovens and our interactive friends ‘Mike O’Wave’ and ‘Lucy Lunchbox’.

Siobhan Gillies - Events Producer

MarkM Speakeasy Company News, Team News, Work Completed