Voluntary Service Bureau held the Creative Extremists event at Stormont Hotel, Belfast. The strapline for the event was ‘fighting for the common good’ and it had some high profile speakers in attendance including the Lord mayor of Belfast, and the MP David Blunkett.

Honcho Designs Looked after the branding of the event including logo creation, email shot, stage branding design, content for the stage projection screen, and video coverage.

Round 3 of the motocross GP series took place near Istanbul in Turkey at the weekend.  Check out one of the videos produced for Freecaster.tv. Belgian Cameraman Tim Van Goethem was out with his Sony EX1 hooked up to a Letus 35mm adaptor to get some sweet footage.

The motocross season has just kicked off and Kawasaki decided to go down the route of a video production to promote their 2009 teams.  Belgian producer Mike Van Cleven commissioned Andy Yoong from Honcho Designs to help shoot and edit the videos.

The video was shot over a period of days in the south of France on a hired track and studio. Four videos were produced, one for each of the three teams, and one for the 2009 press team presentation.  Kawasaki found this method to be a huge success after having thousands of views online within hours of being released.

Check out the Kawasaki motocross website for more information.

Intro/lifestyle video for the set-up day of the first round of the 2009 Motox GP in Faenza Italy.  Video and edit by Andy Yoong – Honcho Designs

Saturday Practice and qualifying sessions.  Camera by Tim Van Goethan / Andy Yoong.  Edit by Andy Yoong

http://www.vimeo.com/3524339Honcho Designs is producing an Irish downhill mountain bike film called Break the Cycle.  We just recently came back from a session with Top World Cup rider Ben Reid.  The video is part of a marketing campaign for the film.  We release a short teaser video of each session to keep interest.

The video content is a great way to keep interest in the official site of the film and encourage more visitors and subscribers.  The videos can also be embedded on any site, further increasing their reach.  They all link back to the film website.  Teaser videos have helped to give the film exposure to over 100,000 people in a short space of time.

Blick Shared Studios in Belfast have organised the Lizard lounge event in conjunction with Pinkfly PR which will feature DJ’s Joe Lindsay and Sofakid.  They came to Honcho Designs to design the event logo and promotinoal materials including flyers, poster and eamil invitations.  Be sure to resrve your ticket by emailing lizardlounge@blickstudios.org.  Tickets £8/£5 for Blick members. 28th February ’09, 9pm – Late

Another WordPress theme designed and developed for the Northern Ireland Optometric Society. WordPress is an open source content management and blogging system which allows novices to update content on their web site with ease. All hosting, email, and domain registration was taken care of.

Various plug-ins can be added to the wordpress system to add a wide range of functionality and tailer the site to your needs including – adding photo and video content, posting content to social websites (e.g facebook), subscriber database and mailing list etc.

Another event covered for freecaster.tv.  All shot edited and distributed on the web with one day at the mx international race in Valence in the south of France

‘Colin Ross Rides Cavehill’ was entered into Irelands Wee Adventure Film Festival (WAFF) 2009 which was held in the Sugar Club, Dublin on 13 February.  The WAFF which began in 2008 is organised by John Connolly and is a celebration of adventure sports.  This years festival featured 12 films,  our video came in second (people’s choice), and first was a BASE jumping video ‘Birdman to BASE’ by Niall Hanley and Kieran Ryan.http://www.vimeo.com/1520253

Höoptedoodle films contacted Honcho Designs to colour correct and grade their latest documentary “Prods and Pom-Poms”.  Directed by Ben Jones & Paul Hutchinson, Prods and Pom-Poms tells the story of a group of cheerleaders from the Sandy Row area of Belfast as they prepare for the St.Patricks day parade, and an event in Glasgow.

Since the documentary was shot across a period of time there was the inevitable colour shift in some scenes, so the main goal was to achieve consistency across different clips.  A slight grade was added to increase contrast and then a special de-interlace method was used to give a more film like look.

Prods and Pom-Poms recently screened at a private viewing at Queens Film Theatre and recieved a very positive response on both the content and the overall quality of the finished production.

Find out more about grading services here

Voluntary Service Bureau wanted a video that they could put on their website to show the work of their volunteers and to encourage more people to sign up and offer their time to others.  See more in the Video Portfolio section

Northern Irish motocross racer Philip Martin came to Honcho Designs to create branding for his new personal training business Absolute Fitness.  We created the Identity and then provided Martin with a package to kick-start his business.  The package included the design of letterheads, business cards, a website, and a branded van. Printing of the stationary was provided by Honcho Designs, along with the application of the van graphics, and web site hosting, meaning less time wasted by the client chasing up various suppliers.

New or established businesses should not dismiss the importance of a carefully developed brand image. Get in touch to see how Honcho Designs can help you.

I’m just back from the Redbull MotoX of Nations event at Donnington park in England.  MX of nations is the biggest MotoX race of the year with countries from all over the globe competing.  I was there to put produce a few short videos documenting the events of the weekend for top online extreme sports entertainment channel Freecaster.tv.

The work at this event was highly demanding but I managed to cope and deliver the content on time.  I had to shoot video during the day and edit this video together for uploading to the Freecaster website the same evening.  Three videos were produced each day, so in total six videos were shot, edited, and delivered in two days.

The facilities available at Honcho Designs allow for the edit suite to become mobile so content can be delivered unbelievably quickly at any location with power and an internet connection.  The 35mm lens adapter was used to give a more film like look on day 1.  A special post production technique was used to give super smooth slow motion shots.  Check out some of the action below…

Andy Yoong
Honcho Designs

The official site for the Irish Downhill Mountain Bike Film ‘Break the Cycle‘ has been launched.

Honcho Designs set up the whole site.  The WordPress system was used making it easy for anyone to manage content.  The plug-in system was customised to allow for embedded images, files from video sites like YouTube ad Vimeo, seach engine optimisation, and site statistics.  The default WordPress theme was modified to reflect the branding of the film.

Site set-ups like this really do make it as easy as writing an email to manage content on a site, so if you are looking for a presence on the web that needs to be updated regularly, and is easy to manage, look no further.

We have just recently taken delivery of a 35mm adapter, follow focus, and external monitor for our HD video camera.  The adaptor allows the use of 35mm camera lenses and creates the look of film without the high costs involved.  It allows for the ability to have a shallower depth of field, and also adds a more organic look to the footage, while boosting colour saturation.  Check out the portfolio section for some early test footage.