We're delighted here at Make Mine Media to be producing high quality proffesional videos at such a good turn around. Since January we've been able to put out a video every single week and this has all been down to the proffesionalism and talent of our crew.

We've been concentrating a lot recently on motion graphic work using the best of CGI, animation, Photography and motion graphics to produce short and interesting little videos for your company.

Our process is really simple and aims to leave any client with a smile on their faces...very much a hassle free process!

There's been a little alarm ringing in my head over my personal freedoms more than I would like recently. First, as blogged here, a law was passed that just by seeing smoke packets you'll become addicted and they should be hidden from view. A very dangerous president to set.

Then we had all the controversy over the UK's plans at looking at all our emails and  messages. (although our internet providers and google already do this)

Now amazingly the coalition wants to block all pornography as a way of "protecting the children." Anyone with kids, go onto your internet browser, click on parental controls, block porn, done.

Let's not debate the merits and downfalls of porn. It's often joked that 99% of the internet is made up on it, but we all know this isn't true. It's 80% cat videos and 18% porn!

It just seems absolutely crazy to block an entire country's porn on the basis of "protecting children" when as I've said before, there's perfectly fine ways to restrict what they're looking at. If this law came into place then it would mean people would have to ask the government for permission to turn off the censor!

Our lives are becoming more and more censored and this government especially seems to want a firm grip over what we're doing online. Although there may be darker intentions, I imagine the real proposal for this law is so that anyone who wants to watch porn will have to pay to get this censor down.


What is franchising? It may surprise you to know that some of the biggest companies in the world are actually franchisors. The likes of McDonalds, Starbucks and Subway all offer franchising packages.

what does this mean? Well essentially it means that you get to use their successful name, brand, marketing and advice to run your own store and make money from it.

This is especially interesting as if you're thinking about setting up a new burger business for instance, it means you wouldn't have to spend time, effort, and money building up a reputation and getting the word out.

It isn't just the big companies that offer franchising and there are a range of opportunities across the globe aimed at all kinds of sectors.

If you're interesting in franchising why not download a free app? Just search franchise news 24 on the app store.

This app let's you browse franchising opportunities, get some free advice and view videos on each of the companies (with some lovely CGI ones done by ourselves) you can also drop them an email for more info!

Don't delay, download today!

Make my monster grow! Our new shiny client list and promo came out today and demonstrates that our quality service is leaving a lot of people very happy!

You'll also see a few sneak peeks of projects currently on the go that are about to be announced over the next couple of weeks!

We also welcome a new member, web designer Matilda (tilly) Swinn. Whose been working on a few of our new dating sites customers and a travel blog.

Our plans for the future are to continue to expand and continue offering our top class service and hopefully our list of happy clients will just keep on growing and growing! :)

When should you update your website? How often does it need to be refreshed?

Nobody ever seems happy with the website they've got.

When companies think about changing their website they see it as a long and slow process where each tab and function is debated over, and quite often that's what it becomes.

It doesn't help that web designers are so rarely seen as an asset in house and so these projects are farmed out to expensive companies for whom the debate and changes all sound like extra money.

Indeed often companies need a new website because the people who made theirs originally will charge them for any and all changes they want to make!

Changing a website doesn't have to be an ordeal, but this is where content is shown to be a real asset. Content can be re-written and reused on your website and if done right will attract people even to the ugliest of sites.

Where it's impractical for a company to change the look and feel and usability of it's website every week, you can update and change your content. which should be done AT LEAST once a week.

After all, it comes across as unprofessional if you're blog has nothing in it from January until March!

Changing your content will have a bigger effect then just putting an extra tab here and making this green.  Website design is your store front, content are the goods inside.

OG

Grab your microphone and star in our quirky animated rom-com, The Penny Black!

With the first sequences started to being realised we could really use a hand filling in speaking roles, even if you don't have professional equipment just using your laptop or computer's internal mic will help us to animate!

There are a range of parts available from a few short lines to major characters and you'd be a part of something very interesting! As you can see from the picture we're early on in the production process so this would really help us out!

Grab your mic and help us out! 

Just go to the website: www.makeminemedia.co.uk and go to get in touch, fill out your details and we'll send you a script with a choice of parts!

Our video for The Homeless World cup 2012 went live today! This yearly contest sees people who are homeless or have been homeless use football as a way of breaking down the barriers between countries so we can all concentrate on the big problem of homelessness.

The Homeless World Cup Foundation works with and supports a network of 73 international partner organisations whose goal is to improve the lives of the people using football as the catalyst.

This year the event is being held in Mexico City, but it's location changes every year. If you're interested in a homeless charity event you can get involved in, the UK are hosting the Homeless Film Festival throughout april!


You can see our little video here.

The Penny Black, our quirky animated rom-com has now picked up a sponsor!

Find Love Young is a brand new dating site specifically for people under 26! We're all addicted to our emails and social media so it seems crazy to us that internet dating is considered an "old person thing."

Find Love Young offers a fun and safe way to chat, flirt and meet new people, and could help you find that special someone.

The film is currently in pre-production and is due around september! More updates here!

There are other Bad Guys who don’t run on stranded human levels like the Aliens in ‘Aliens’ , The Thing from ‘The Thin’ or the volcano from (you guessed it) ‘Volcano’. Often when you get the conflicts of ‘man vs. nature’ or ‘man vs. the unknown’ it’s up to the audience to anamorphize the threat and decides why it’s there.

The Alien from the film of the same name can be seen as a monster with no purpose but to kill, but it can also be seen as a lone creature fighting for its own survival anyway it can against force that would want to kill it. Also its this unknown factor that creates inner conflict in the protagonists such as paranoia and doubt, giving a new complication to the conflict. 

I know there are many other types of villains but I’m running out of space. So to round things off the characterization of ‘Bad Guys’ is just as complex as any hero, as any characterization of any character should be. But is often the villains who are the most fun were the audience gets to let out its negative emotions and evil side of selfishness, anger and the total freedom only found in film, even if they villain are always destine to lose why not have some fun along the way. 

The best example of alternative character interpretation is Arnie in the first two Terminator films.  In the first he was a cold, unfeeling and relentless monster, a thing to be feared because it couldn’t be stopped and wouldn’t stop till its mission was over. In the second film all the same attributes that made him ‘evil’ made him ‘good’ especially when compared to Robert Patrick‘s T-1000.

Other villains also represent the nature of redemption, with gives the audience the reassurance to embrace change into their lives, just look at Severus Snape or Doc Ock from Spiderman 2.

The best example of this is good old Darth Vader, excluding the prequels, episodes 4 sets him up as a being of great power and mystery willing to kill anybody who gets in his way.

Then at the beginning of Episode 5 you see him as being an obsessed driving force looking to find Skywalker possibly for revenge, but then at the end we get our big reveal! He’s not all that bad but is actually looking for someone to help him destroy the real evil in the galaxy, and who better than his own [SPOILER!] son.

With this knowledge Episode 6 makes him more sympathetic, a guy who joined the wrong side has now got trapped. But by the end he sees the error of his way and finally redeems himself. T

his 3-film charter arc allows the audience to first get excited by his mystery then be worried by his motives then relate to his plight and finally see his redemption, showing even the worst things can be overcome and the worst people are still human.  

The last part on friday!

RB

"There is no good or evil in the world, just points of view"

But in films, narrative the audience needs an emotional connection to story and its characters, this is why protagonists (the Good Guys) and antagonists (the Bad Guys) exist.  The job of the protagonist is to struggle against the odds so we by doing this the viewer can compare the character traits hero to their own and relate this fantasy struggle to their every day struggles.

Whereas the role of the antagonists is the opposite, they get in the way and create obstacles. This role gives the audience an object to hate and feel relief that this problem can be overcome.  But like any character they have to be realistic, motivated and go through character development as much as the hero, even when they are threatening the world with a ‘Giant Space Laser’ or ‘sending winged Monkeys to seal a pair of shoes’.  

Weirdness aside it’s in the connection back to the idea of  ‘different points of view’ and alternative character interpretation. This can give us a mangling of morals that create ‘Anti-Heroes’ seen a lot in superhero films like Batman in The Dark Knight who will break the law to uphold it.

The more villain version of this is the ‘Idealist Villain’ like Hugo Drax in Moonraker, a person who wants to save the world in his own ‘unique’ way. There are also ‘Sympatric Villains’ characters that have tragic backgrounds which they turn on the world, like Lord Shen in Kung Fu Pander 2 or even Hitler himself in Downfall.

More about villians next Tuesday, right here on Make Mine Media

RB

"We may not exactly be producing Hollywood films, but that's certainly what we aspire to." says Oliver of his two films in pre-production.

"For SAUR we had a number of teaser trailers, and for these two projects we already have teasers out there. It's partly because we've not shot/animated much at the moment but partly so we can involve the audience on the journey to the final pieces."

With quirky animated rom-com The Penny Black not due to be released until September time the plan is that over the coming weeks and months we'll start to realise pictures either from the film or that have a connection to the film.

The first such picture came out this weekend on our Facebook page, and was a sketch of a woman and in this article is the second piece of the puzzle.

"I want to try and keep people interested about the film, the plot is a well guarded secret and I'm working closely with the animators to ensure the end result is something special. As for Cavernous I want to be in a  position to shoot at the end of April."

So although it's hardly Inception or the Dark knight returns, the pieces of the puzzle are being laid out.

"Some will be on our Facebook page, some will be on here, some will only be on twitter, some may appear on blogger. It's going to be a real easter egg hunt!"

SB

"All flash and no substance."

Having spend considerable time, effort and money getting the latest web developer on their team, after hiring a team of graphic artists to make the visuals fresh and interesting, having bought the rights to countless stock photo imagery to lay over their sight like a velvet nightie… well you get the idea.

After all of this, their website doesn't get views, doesn't get people interested and doesn't build up a relationship with the customer. My prognosis as above "All flash and no substance."

It seems the days for flashy websites is over. There was a time when in some international pissing contest, companies seemed to compete over who had the most Over The Top intro to their site and who could use the fewest words, and who had wasted the most money.

There were some sites for whom this approach worked, namely Hollywood Summer Blockbuster Websites. Anyone running one of these? Thought not.

There are 3 main reasons why these types of sight have become few and far between, the first is that internet access laws mean your website has to be accessible to everyone and most flash sites don't have too much text on them. 

The second is that flash has fallen out of favour with the almighty Apple and is now being ditched as platform by many other computer/smartphone/tablet developers.

The third is what i'm always harping on about. To have a successful website you need to offer your reader something. Something interesting, funny or useful. You need to have substance.

OG

Wer'e a talented bunch here at Make Mine Media and that has recently been showcased as our Head of Photography, Emma Sywyj has had her work featured in a big name art magazine.

"Trebuchet’s writers are university lecturers, record label owners, gallery curators, professional journalists, avid readers and you. We’re here for anyone who wants to look under the hood of culture, check the points and plugs, and take it for a spin in any direction home. This is deep play for the creative savage."

Link Below:

http://www.trebuchet-magazine.com/index.php/site/article/emma_sywyj_interiors/

Kodak have filed for bankruptcy recently, which is a sad day for all. The company, most famous for it's bright yellow disposable cameras, just hasn't kept up with the pace of technology.

It's a shame really as i have such found memories of being "The cameraman" on my summer holidays and waiting excitedly for weeks and weeks before we got to see the end result. (then I'd realise my fingers would be all over the lens)

In fact I often say that my very first still camera which was a chunky kids- reusable film camera was one of the reasons I got into videographer later in life. 

It seems now that the vultures are circling, second hand sales have suddenly risen with people hoping that the old models might be worth something in 10 years time. The company will probably be bought out as it's brand still has some residual value, but all in all it's a sad day for photography.

Everyone seems to have assessed the problem "Didn't move with the times" you have to wonder just how much money was spent at the company trying to do just that. The proof of just how big the company once was can be seen recently at this year's oscars which for the first time weren't held at The Kodak theatre.

R.I.P

OG

source: www.pinoytutorial.com

Google and Facebook have both been in the news recently. Both are making changes to their websites which will effect millions of people around the world.

Facebook is forcing down upon is it's new "Timeline" theme, whereby you're entire Facebook past is dragged out for all to see. This means if you've posted something private or embarrassing (and who hasn't) it's all the more easy for people to find.

There's speculation that this might mean that people are more careful about what they post publicly, and some are even saying it will lead to less time on the social networking site. As for the design itself it hasn't proven very popular, and we have to say we find it a little confusing and distracting to look at.

Moving onto google who as you might have seen are changing their privacy laws. With all of it's services including maps,youtube,shopping,blogger and more combining their information on you to target advertiser's information.

This is worrying a lot of people, and indeed it might not even be legal in the EU but Google says it's made it's privacy laws easier for people to understand and simpler to use.

This is a case of two large organisation putting themselves and the needs of their investors about the need of the customers. Never wise. Although hang on, that conclusion sounds familiar…. when we talked about 3D films we said much the same thing. 

It seems this generation of entertainment providers and platforms "for the people" were just waiting for their first shot at real money to screw us all. Not a big surprise.

OG

For more updates or to get involved email cavernous@live.co.uk

With the teaser trailer being released today, Cavernous is well under way in pre-production. 

Rob Baguley has come in as script supervisor and is overseeing the tone and balance.

 "The first thing I asked oliver was, how big do you want this to be?" said Rob.

The answer came out "Well let's just let our imagination go wild and I'll worry about how we'll accomplish it later."

The teaser trailer, compiled out of a mixture of motion graphics and stock footage indicates the level that Oliver and co are pitching at.

"We wanted to do a small self-contained drama, but that doesn't mean we can't have a big scale back story!"

SB

 

With google changing it's policy and wikipedia going on a black out because of proposed regulations about changes to copy right law on the internet we thought we'd give you a few tips to avoid getting in trouble.

Don't mess with…

Big brands are famous for their SUE EVERYONE approach to infringing on their copyright or brand. Especially if you're talking about them in a  negative light. 

Borrowing images…

One of the biggest things we're asked about is if it's okay to use images found on google on your website. The short answer is no, but I would say that if it's perhaps a news related article, then that is much more acceptable then stealing lots of images and putting them as the main images on your site.

Pictures of People…

Video/pictures/testimonials from people should be taken with a signed talent release form stating what the purpose of the content is and how it will be used. It is not right to reuse testimonials and get rid of the date without re-sign for permission. You should always put the person's needs/request above the company's.

Sharing…

If there's something appropriate to your site or an article you'd like to emulate then it's better to share a link then just copy/paste and then re-write it. Quoting the source is important.

Freelancers/groups

In the terms and conditions given when you hire a freelancer it should stipulate who owns copyright. In theory you both do. Your company can use it for x purpose and normally the freelancer can use it as a portfolio. If there's a project where a few people are working on something then they all have the right to use that content.

Can we get away with it?

Yes. Is the short answer, although we'd never encourage you to take what other people have done and put t on your site, it certainly is happening. If you're a small organisation or if you use content and don't pass it off as you're own work/provide links to the original source then in the short terms you should be okay. Anyone with a big site can't get away with this, and there's a big difference to borrowing an image to copy/pasting an article or stealing a video.

If someone asks you to take down something they claim belongs to them, then double check it and take it down and there should be no problems.

OG

"We had SAUR2 all wrapped up and were planning to shoot towards the end of march." says Oliver of his proposed sequel to mega low budget CGI film, SAUR.

"The story followed the documentary maker, everyone thinks his film is a fake and he can't convince them until someone else comes and has also seen something large and scaly. It was going to be a horror, but still an indie horror."

"Sam and I had another idea for a plot that was set on a fishing boat, where they catch something strange, in the end we've combined the best of these elements and have something that should be dramatic and exciting."

Cavernous has just started pre-production and similar to SAUR it's going to be a purely non profit film with all proceeds going to charity. The story follows a family of 3 as they find something whilst exploring a cave.

"it's much more a drama about what they do with this thing, and similarly what this thing might want to do with them. We have the special effects shots pretty much figured out, and are going to be working on the best way to create the creature."

With the script currently being developed between Samantha and Oliver the process starts with planning and arranging the film, and locations, film crew, actors and finance all have to be secured.

"We hope to be filming in summer. There's still a long way to go but by announcing the project we hope to get more interest and speed up the process, anyone interested get in touch!"

I'd like to start the blog by saying that I think Harry Redknapp is a great manager, and I'd have him down my club (sheffield united) any day of the week.

This year I predicted that Spurs would finish third, which at the moment seems like an obvious bet, but at the time certainly wasn't. Last year I thought they'd get a top 4 finish but just missed out. "If only Harry could stop thinking about the england job." I said "Spurs would do so much better."

Yes, for a man who claims to have the writing ability of a 4 year old, Harry sure has been interviewed in an awful lot of papers talking about his life,loves, and popping in questions about the england job.

He's not front runner for one of the hardest jobs in football, and it has been his own constant stream of publicity and press appearances, often talking about the england job when it wasn't up for grabs, that have seen him do this.

Obviously his coaching talent etc as well, but it's hard to deny that other suitable managers aren't even being considered, and it's probably because they haven't been embraced by the media as much as Harry,I hope he thanks his publicist if he gets the job.

Oh and as for my front runner, I'd go with David Moyes on the basis he's never had money to spend, has brought people through the ranks and has a crop of british players. Unlike Harry who has been able to buy a whole new team, Moyes has more experience in using what he's got to get results which is more reflective of the england job.

OG

It seems women are using social media almost twice as much as men. A new telephone study of around 2,000 yanks found that in the last two years the number of people using social media had doubled and that women were more likely to sound more time and contribute more to social media feeds.

Despite the wide range of different social media platforms ranging from Facebook to Stage32, we see this trend across the board.

Some other interesting trends have seen that despite the rise in use of social media both men and women have become lazier in terms of their activity online. The amount of times that people update their Facebook status for example have gone down. The biggest use of Facebook at the moment is people commenting on other people's photos. 

How can this help us wanting to promote our business online? Well not only does it help us understand the current target market more closely, it also shows us that if we want "active brand ambassadors" online that they're much more likely to be female.

It can also give us some ideas around photo based marketing, seeing as that's what's getting most people's attention.

OG

It isn't often I  toot my own horn on these blogs, but two weeks after the relaunch of our website, and the results speak for themselves.

Currently there are over 1,500 likes on our new Facebook page. We have over 2,500 followers on twitter. SAUR has had over 1,000 views. Website views have gone up 30%. Enquiries have also significantly gone up.

Seemingly over night we've become a very popular little company. The important word there is "Seemingly" Since the start of december I've been putting into place a CPI (Cross Platform Integration) strategy to increase our social media output.

I contribute this success to my philosophy about content. I believe that if you can capture people's imagination and provide them with either something fun/useful then you'll create a positive relationship with them. 

It isn't all about selling, it's about making people positive about your company so that if/when they might have some work for you, you've already created a good impression.

So check out our twitter- @makeminetweets for daily Rules of Film, a silly look at some of your favourite films!

Don't look too long at the image below. You might suddenly have the urge to destroy your lungs. This seems to be the alarming theory brought out by the government that just by displaying cig packets behind counters.

This seemed to go through without much opposition, but one does have to raise the question, what's next? How long is it before alcohol is deemed "too dangerous" to even be seen by children? No one can argue that just by seeing a packet, noticeably with "Smoking kills" all over it, that people will be influenced to such a degree. 

Don't get me wrong, I hate smokers, I managed to nag by granddad and by dad to stop, but I just feel that this is a step too far. We should be concerned at the level of influence and intrusion into our personal choices that a "nanny" state might have.

What are your thoughts on the matter?

Okay so I think it goes without saying, we've made a few changes. New website address, www.makeminemedia.co.uk, as we finally decided to get rid of the hyphens, new website look, which aims to be more colourful and easy to navigate, new logo that's much simpler and new team member in Alex, our newest video specialist.

Alongside all of these changes you can also see SAUR our little dinosaur film for the first time below, and check out saur's blog page for interviews and more from director, our very own Oliver Gwynne!

Our new year's resolution? To make MMM grow! 

It seems an obvious question doesn't it? You know who your customer is, don't you? When was the last time you actually got out from behind your desk and went to have a chat with one of them? Or are you just relying on a series of pie charts and data to tell you what the like and don't like.

With all of your marketing activities and indeed when writing content for your website it's important to have your ideal reader in mind. Okay so if you're an electronics store or similar you might say "well our audience is everyone."

It isn't. Even if you have a product or service that anyone might buy you still have to brand yourself towards a specific group of people, and have ideal customer in mind.

Take Apple, pretty much everyone has an Iphone (apart from us) but the two core customers are young people for whom the Iphone is a status symbol, shows you're trendy, and keeps you in touch with all your friends. Where as there is certainly  secondary market for the older generation (sorry guys!) who want something that's easy to use and can hep them out in their everyday lives.

So it's important that you have some ideal customers in mind when you're writing. Give them names, write descriptions about them, and have no more than 5 in mind for when you're writing.

Our last tip is to make sure you don't put "the almighty brand" in front of what your customers actual want to read!

A couple of weeks ago I was out talking to our friends at Tarta Plastics. Being the sort of person that people open up to we got talking about all sorts of stuff and then before I knew it, and i'm not sure how we got on the subject, we started talking about the She Wee.

The She Wee is a product that was on BBC's Dragon's Den, and is a device that allows ladies to use the toilets without sitting down. The product is produced by Tatra Plastics based in Bradford who were pleasantly surprised by the amount of numbers and regular orders they got through the company.

Then one day they got a call asking if they could make it in shiny, golden version of the product.

They couldn't get their head around it. Why would you want that product to look nice? Who are you going to show it to? They were then told that the product would be sold in Ann Summers stores.

It's about here that I should have said "Okay, I don't want to know any more!" but curiosity got the better of me, and the faint of heart should probably stop reading now. (Don't say I didn't warn you!)

Ann Summers saw great potential in the She Wee and wanted to sell it in a set of golden products. What was the use of the product? Let's just say it involved bodily fluids as a sex act.

The point of this story? Sometimes you have to do disgusting things in business. Oh and if anyone from She Wee is listening, what about a glow in the dark model? 

Memetic Marketing. Memetics is the study of how information passes from one person to the other, and one big new player in this market is of course, social media.

Social media has rocked our world in the last five years, causing great debate about the way we communicate with each other, and also being involved in riots and revelations across the world.

Despite it's predominance, it's easy to forget just how new this medium is, and although some companies don't want to admit it, they're just not sure how to use it.

First of all i'd like to quickly point out how using social media can be bad for your business. Setting yourself up on the likes of Facebook and twitter is easy stuff, and you might think this gives you an additional way to communicate out to your staff. What you have to be aware of is that this can also form an excuse for people to spend their time on Facebook when they should be working.

It's also dangerous to set up a media channel and not have a full plan of what you intend to do with it, how that relates to other social media stream and then what you intend to get out of it.

You'll all probably be thinking that you want to build up a large cult of followers, but what's the point if none of them are actually buying your product/service? The good thing about a website is that you can see clearly how many people have made the effort to come visit your site, where as with social media it can be trickier to judge it's effect.

If you're a B2B (business to business) then i'm not sure there's a massive need to do social media. It's good to have you're clients all liking you on Facebook and showing how popular and happy they are with your service. It's not good to have 100 of you're friends liking you because you've asked. Ultimately another business is not going to hire you based on Facebook credentials, having followers with drunken pictures can only damage your reputation.

If you're customers are on Facebook, then what do you want them to get out of the experience? Do you want to lead them to your website? Do you want to et them talking about a subject that relates to your business? You need to have a clear plan of how much time you will put in, and what the physical results will be. 

Ultimately it comes down to how good your content is, because most of the time your customers won't care about what you've been up to. It has to be focused to help and interest them.

If you'd like more help and advice about social media then why not contact our partners, M3 Publishing?  (tell them we sent you)

In case you're unfamiliar with it. Triple play sets are when you get a movie in 3 different versions, Blu Ray, DVD and a Digital Copy.

What's so interesting about this is that it shows that the industry is essentially putting it's hands up and saying they just know which is going to be the next big format. 

There had been a natural progression up until now. Two new formats would battle it out for the market and then the winner would go on to wipe out the old tech. So in our case HD discs battles Blu Ray and lost.

Yet Blu Ray has been around and still hasn't managed to fend of the dominance of the DVD. This could be in connection to the state of the world economy, I mean who can afford Blu Rays because we can't. It could also be in connection that unlike the leap from VHS to DVD, Blu Ray isn't a whole lot better than DVD. (Yes I know we're always harping on about that)

At the same time we have a steep rise in the amount of people downloading their content online. (whether legally or not) So for the first time ever the distributors are giving you the chance to make up your own mind and giving you three different copies of the film. Even if that means you sell on the other two.

So who is going to win. I suppose it's all a matter of personal preference. I'm not a big fan of watching films on my computer, and even though they've come down in price I'm not that bothered about Blu Ray. You see i'm waiting for something else.

In fact I've now literally been waiting 4 years for the next massive leap in tech. Red Ray. So okay, it needs a better name but Red Rays are going to be designed to work alongside RED cameras. (They're not just cameras with paint on them) they shoot in a  format which is 10 times better than HD. (and cost £30,000)

My mind can't comprehend the quality of the picture, or if we even need that amount of pixels, but until my favourite films are available on Red Ray i'm not bothering with anything else.

Bat-man. Bat-plane. Bat-mobile. Bat-copter. Bat-computer. Anti Shark Bat repellent. 

Recently the old 60's Batman show got me thinking about branding. Now we all know that branding is simply slapping your name in front of your product. Although that said there is "Disney DVD" and "Disney Blu ray." 

What is a brand? It is more than just your name, or your logo, or your house style. It is something that lives in the long term memory of your customers. So perhaps if slapping "Bat" in front of things helped me remember them then we too should brand it like batman.

There is a pretty clear strategy we've seen developed in recent years for anyone with a new product/business and a boat load of cash. Think about shopping internet thing, Very. Does anyone remember their first television advert? It said the word "Very" an awful lot. Much easier to slip into a script then "river island" or "T.K.Maxx." The aim of the advert is not necessarily to tell you about what the company does better than anyone else, but just to get you to remember the name and associate it with the celebrity endorsements. Those two blonde TV presenters. Holly and erm that other one.

So perhaps it wasn't very effective. 

Obviously building your brand is more than just repeating your name, but as a means of getting your name stuck in people's minds it's not such a sin. We seriously considered starting all of our services with "M's" So Make Mine Movies. Make Mine Marketing. Now if we can just think of something for copy writing and photography. 

Wer'e back with another exciting blog, same bat-time! same bat-channel!

Last Monday my dad and I both had meetings up in Bradford, both seemed to go quite well and as we returned and were getting changed back into our casual clatter he commented on my tie.

"Thanks" I said "This is my lucky tie."

"That's funny, I'm wearing my lucky tie too."

Lucky ties. Lucky underwear. Lucky Clover. it's strange all the every day objects that we can attach the term Lucky too. Sports people are known for being superstitious and having rituals to try and get them in the zone.

Much like Dumbo's feather it's probably all in our mind, and that with a positive outlook and that extra bit of confidence we can achieve what we set out too. 

That said it's hard to deny that when external forces start flinging good stuff your way like you can't help but wonder if it's in connection with something you did different that day. The same goes for those things we claim as "unlucky."

Do you have any strange rituals or lucky objects you bring about with you? was there anything you considered unlucky and threw it away?

As for me, I know it's probably just coincidence but yesterday when i was out talking to more clients I still wore that lucky tie!

We've had a busy week or so here at the Make Mine Media camp. Moving offices. Taking on new staff. Fighting for new clients. Producing a new animation show. Still more on all of that in the near future.

What's been concerning us today is our terms and conditions, which we've rounded off, had the lawyer look them over, and are ready to use in all our future dealings. It's the usual stuff. Don't steal our work. Don't sue us. Pay us. All resonable requests.

Still it got us thinking, wouldn't it be great if you could have your own terms and conditions in life?

In theory we already kind of do, although it's laws that govern us. The problem with a terms and condition with life is that there's no accounting for all that random stuff that happens. In theory you should be able to put " Be a nice person and good things will happen." which is what we're all taught through school, but no matter how nice you are, that won't stop lightning.

Still it is being applied in various sectors. We do have greater choice now. Take online dating, there you can be as picky or as casual as you want and you can choose the sort of partner you'd prefer. So "No smokers" for example.

If we had the power to do this in real life, wouldn't it be temtping to go "Work hard and you will DEFINETLY be rewarded." or "you WILL find love, no matter who you are."

We don't live in that world, although it does sound nice, at the end of the day it is how we deal with those hardships and heart breaks that ultimately defines us as human beings.

(Although we wouldn't complain if we could have "Make Mine Media will produce your next awesome video)

With it's former dictator finally out of the picture Libya can start a fresh and build a democratic new country. The new guys in charge have already said that they want the U.S. and the U.K. to become their allies, and who can blame them. Starting a fresh takes money.

As this is a new era for the country, with a new flag, I was thinking that they'd probably want a new name as well. Even if that's just New libya. That's when I said jokingly, that one way of raising funds would be to sell of the country's name to a corporate sponsor. So call the country Nike, or Coke, or McLibya.

It seems crazy, but thinking about it, this would generate publicity on a massive scale for the company and would raise a lot of money for libya too. The company would know that their brand would from then on be tied to the image of the company, and I would hope, would want to set about making sure it was the best country in the world. Though obviously this would never happen.

The point I wanted to make is that Libya, not unlike millions of businesses around the world is effectively going through a re-brand. Changing it's leader, changing it's flag etc. Obviously unless massive changes are made within the country then it will not be able to prosper, but by changing the outside as it were, it can act a s a signal to the rest of the world that a positive future awaits.

We ourselves could use some changes to the website and collateral, but we like you can't afford just to slap on a fresh coat of paint, hoping it will hide the cracks.

We'd like to welcome M3 Publishing as our new partner! Back when Make Mine Media was just a glint in our collective eyes, David Lomas was one of the first people we talked to. We found we had shared ideals when it came to commnunication and blogging. We both also found that we were fed up of working with companies' that charge an arm and a leg for a service. Looking to get the most money from their customers. Both our companies are based the foundation that by providing an open and honest relationship with our clients, we can only grow stronger!

Everly Pregnant Brothers

Out filming last Saturday night with my good friend and amazing music video director Helene Michaelides. We were filming in the Sheffield Lyceum Theatre, and we were filming a local band, The Everly Pregnant Brothers. 

If you haven't heard of them before, they take classic songs and give them a bit of northern cheek and turn them into humourous parody songs. 

So, me Helene and Vanessa turned up early to scope the place out and find the best possible camera angle for the gig. Which naturally was right in the middle of the theatre. Only the gig was sold out. So there would be someone sitting there. Drat!

After contemplating what to do I suggested we ask the band if they'd mind signing something, or giving out back stage passes, or giving free merch, which they were up for. So just before the doors were open we placed a little hand scribbled note from the band saying we'd like the seat.... and hoped for the best.

Luckily for us, not only had the bloke sitting there come on his own, but we had an extra ticket meaning he would only have to move a few rows up! So me and my camera got  a prime view of what was a very entertaining gig!

As my dad always says " there's no harm in asking."

HD or high definition. The next supposed level of quality for your viewing pleasure. Is it better than normal tellie? Yes, no doubting that, but we want to talk about the way those two little letters were used.

When HD Discs and Blu Ray battled it out to see who would get to take over the reins from DVD, both made alot of bold claims about their picture quality. One Blu Ray advert which has noticeably been dropped claimed it was 4 times better than your regualr picture, this is not the case. It isn't even twice the quality.

Then there was the rise in editors and video production companies slapping the words HD on their business cards, as if this was something new. I honestly don't remeber the last time I edited something that wasn't HD.

Then we come to another gripe the term itself HD encapuslates 3 different pixel aspect rtio systems which is why you may have heard of something being "true HD" and others not.

HD quickly just became another buzzword and although people generally had an idea what it meant, that didn't stop manufactuers taking advatnage of this. I can't begin to count the amount of camcorders sold with a HD sticker slapped on them.

Take for instance HD Flip Cams. sure it may film in a HD format, but th picture quality is never going to be anything like that of what you'd expect when you think of HD quality, because the lens is so small. It doesn't matter how good eye sight you might have if you're looking through a fogged glasses.

Our point is that when it comes to technology there are an awful lot of buzzwords used to convince us that something is worth while, and in specialist feilds like Video Production and Marketing people tend to use alot of terminology and jargon. That's why here at Make Mine Media we strive to make everything easy for you to understand and starting next week we're going to have a series of videos passing on all our juicy knowledge and part one is called JARGON BUSTER!

Tune in!

Into town we went on thursday filming our new promo for our little company, when we saw the oppertunity to meet a cult icon of screen and television, Brian Blessed.

He was there promoting his love of Yorkshire where he was born and bred and the new eco friendly buses from Stagecoach.

He was telling us about completiting cosmonaut training at the age of 75 and how he dreams of going into space and oliver was telling hom about his experiences at NASA Space camp in Florida.

He was also telling us about how he and his wife had helped rescue and asave thousands of animals from abusive homes.

A true gent, and a little eccentric, it was a pleasure meeting Brian. (we'll have to do a whip round and see if he'll do the voiceover for the promo vid)

At work Oliver is Mr. Sensible, always very careful about the crew’s safety and legal responsibilities. Out of work he tends to get himself into mischief (because he goes looking for it!)

For a number of weeks I’ve been trying to find the best way into an abandoned factory near the railway in Sheffield. As one does…

I scoped the place out a few times and found an entrance next to an office building. There was a worker from the office standing outside on his break having a smoke and I walked down with a big bag asking politely if he knew a way into the building.

He looks suspiciously down at the bag, I look suspiciously at him looking at the bag. After a minute of this I tell him I want to go take some photos.

He says this is fine. All I have to do is hop the fence by standing on a ledge about 6cm long over a river, with the camera bag putting me off balance and drop down the other side.

I don’t think it’s ruining the suspense to say I do this and get to the other side and was not disappointed. There’s the strong smell of weed on the other side with every inch of the place graphitised or burnt. There was a real atmosphere here. Still I thought it better not to spend too long there and after I took some footage and a few snaps I quickly hopped back over the fence.

Everyday we are bombarded by thousands of adverts all vying for our attention. Competition between companies for your business has never been tougher and as such they are having to turn to more creative and sneaky methods than ever before: Guerrilla Marketing.

Here at Make Mine Media we’re all about creative ideas, and have been following guerrilla marketing campaigns with much interest, however we wanted to debate how good this form of advertising is for you, the every day businessman.

Let’s start with the positives, a guerrilla campaign is similar to a stunt in that it should be designed to attract publicity towards your product/company. The theory is that by catching a prospect off guard it’s more likely that you’ll be remembered and that a positive relationship will be built up.

The negatives however are that guerrillas marketing has been accused of directly influencing culture to the point of being invasive to our everyday lives. There’s also no guarantee that people will “get” your ad.

I’d like to look at is the companies using this technique. Skoda, Nike, Coke. These are all companies that spend millions on advertising, and can easily afford to take the gamble that people will appreciate the campaign. They have such massive brand recognition that just  about any advert with them will be noticed.

For those of us without multimillion pound advertising budgets (hands up!)  we may have to stick with traditional marketing methods but that doesn’t mean that a creative campaign can’t captivate your customers!