Grendon Hall
Back in July 2005 Northampton County Council invited EPC to a meeting to chat about the possibility of producing a promotional DVD for Grendon Hall Residential and Outdoor Activity Centre. This DVD could then be sent out to all the counties educational establishments and parents who are interested in sending their children to Grendon.
The front page from their original brochure.
After EPC pitched an idea on how this promotional DVD could be produced, the council were enthused and commissioned us to start production as soon as possible. By the end of July 05 the script had been written and the storyboard prepared. We were ready to start shooting.
Grendon cropped and turned into a watercolour painting.
Capturing all that Grendon does with the young people of Northampton took up to the middle of October. This involved the filming of many school groups and youth groups. Just over 10 hours of footage had been shot for the promotional DVD. Now the fun part began, trying to condense 10 hours down to 20 minutes.
The E.P.C. digital Grendon Hall DVD brochure
Editing, Animation, Soundtrack and capturing of cine film shot in 1946 took up the rest of the production time and was completed just before Christmas Day 2005. The first copies were produced and given out during the premier held at Grendon Hall on Thursday 5th January 2006.
The finished DVD artwork
This project
has proven to be one our most challenging and complex productions to date,
involving hundreds of man hours and man tears. But the final result has
turned out to be a very slick production indeed! One we are very proud
of!
Inside the completed Grendon Hall brochure
Special Effects
In many films these days there are special effects. Grendon has an incredible computer graphic sequence at the beginning to bring the viewer to Grendons geographical location in England.
The flying shot at the beginning of the Grendon Hall Promo
The transitions from sequence to sequence include multiple video windows whizzing around the screen to make it exciting to watch. Although all these things are intended, even in a documentary film such as this, sometimes there are things you have to change to get the shot you want rather than use the shot you have! Grendon was no exception. Although most people's idea of a special effect is to add something fantastic such as a creature, sometimes the effects themselves need to be 'invisible' because you need to add or remove something in a shot that is not out of the ordinary.
Original shot of pool with a boy who blocks the shot
Take the shot above for example. In it, a group of kids jump into the outdoor pool but the focus of the shot is interrupted by a boy who walks across the cameras point of view. They wanted to keep the shot and asked if we could remove the young man. As he walks in front of a girl, (obscured in this still behind his head), she was totally removed by replacing the wall and back pavement in the sequence. That removed his upper body and the walking girl. The path he walks on was replaced to remove his lower body and the trickiest bit was replacing the water to complete the removal.
After the "E.P.C. digital" department had done their thing!
With that done, the shot was incorporated into the finished movie to achieve the desired result. If the 'effect' isn't noticed, it's been a success.
Click the movie icon below to see the 'before and after' post production on this shot.
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