Congratulations to Hamish Beeston – November PFRE Videographer of The Month

Congratulations to Hamish Beeston of Bristol, UK who the video jury has voted PFRE videographer of the month for Sep/Oct/Nov 2016. Click here or on the image to the right to have a look at Hamish’s winning video.

This is Hamish's third time winning the Video contest and he was voted the 2014 PFRE videographer of the year! Hamish is out there doing a lot of great videos.

Here are the results of the jury’s voting:

1. Hamish Beeston
2. Anders Carlson
3. Marcus Johnson
4. Tom Yurczyk
5. Allan MacKenzie
6. Jon Lindsay
7. Joshua Vernon-Rogers
8. Jose Cantanhedde

Note that there is a lot to be learned by just reading through the juror comments on the entries. Thanks to the jurors for their time spend on giving feedback to the entries!

Here are Hamish's comments:

Huge thanks to the judges for voting for my film this time. It’s a great honour in a really strong field. Also many thanks to Larry for this fantastic site, which is top of my bookmarks and which has helped my work no end over the last few years.

This film was particularly interesting for me as the developer client was unusually specific in his brief. This was not to be just a regular tour of the property (although that should be one element) but rather the key aim was to create an emotional connection with prospective buyers. The client showed me an achingly cool film about an East London hipster craftsman and requested the same - but for property. Easily said but how to deliver?

Various ideas were discussed such as having interviews with the developer / architect / carpenters etc or using actors to portray key demographics of the customer base. In the end, the agreed elements were the property, the wider landscape, local food and the client’s personal trainer, who also happens to be an international male model...

I’m always nervous of including people in property films as the line between cool and cheesy can be hard to find. Before this shoot, I watched every person-led film in the PFRE video contest archive for tips and decided to keep things really simple. The model would either be shot very wide or very close, ideally with most of him out of focus. The emphasis should be on the environment not the model. The exception to this was the shower scene where I just went for it. If you’ve got a top model in front of the camera, you might as well show him off a bit - I’ll let you decide if I got away with it!

In terms of the ‘emotional connection’ bit, the idea was to be less linear than in regular property tours, to use more texture / details shots than usual and to prioritise the images on the basis of how good they look rather than how much they take the story on. For example, I really like vertical downwards aerial shots and the end shot of the dappled sky with a bird flying through. I’m not sure how much they say much about the property itself but I love how they look.

Technically, the film was shot in Ultra HD 4K on a Sony FS7 with Canon E lenses 16-35, 24-70 and 70-200. Picture setting was Cine EI Slog3. The model sequences were shot at 50% slo-mo. Grip gear included tripod, tripod head, Wally Dolly 4m track and DJI Ronin gimbal. The ground shots were shot in 1x day with me as director / camera and Billy Bolton assisting. The aerials were shot the following day by local drone specialists Trigger Air, working to my brief.

I edited the film on Adobe Premiere Pro. Once again, the PFRE video archive provided ideas for the on-screen captions design.

Finally, a big mention should go to the music which was the client’s choice from our preferred online library Audio Network. It’s a great track which hugely helps the film’s mood.

PFRE Videographer of the Month Winners:

• April/May 2017 PFRE Videographer of the Month
• February 2017 PFRE Videographer of the Month
• August 2016 PFRE Videographer of The Month