Click here to view the embedded video.

Vsb asked Honcho Designs to produced a short 3-5 minute long video for distribution on the web with the aim of encouraging more people to volunteer.

The VSB video was shot on our High Definition camera with 35mm lens adaptor giving a ‘film like’ look.  This look, combined the soundtrack and interviews from a mix of volunteers were added together to produce the final video.  We also interviewed the Lord Mayor of Belfast as a separate video to appear on the VSB website.

The VSB video was shot over two days.  One of those days was the ‘International Older Peoples Day’ with a range of activities happening.  The video was then edited together and made ready for distribution on the web very quickly.

If you are interested in becoming a volunteer please visit the VSB website for more information.  If you are interested in speaking with us to see how we can meet your video production needs please get in touch

Break the Cycle is being produced entirely by Honcho Designs and is due for release in Spring 2009.  To give you an idea of what it is about you can view the HD trailer below

Click here to view the embedded video.

Part of the requirements were to give customers the ability to receive and pay for training online via the website.  The site also gives Philip full control of the contents.  If he wants to put new services or pages on the site, it’s as easy for him as writing an email.

When it comes to personal training Philip knows what he is talking about, so one way he can attract more users to his site is to offer free advice on his home page.  The ease at which this can be done helps keep interest in the site and therefore attract more customers.

The schedule was extremely busy. We had to get footage of the action during the day and then edit together three videos to be distributed online on the same day on both Saturday and Sunday

This kind of event shows how a short quality production can be put together of your event in a super short period of time. Event highlights bring more attention and get the messsage out there to your target audience, sometimes even more than the event itself. In a short period of time there were over 35,000 hits on the six videos produced.

Check out some of the action from the weekend below…

Domain name registration, hosting, and search engine optimisation were all taken care of.  The WordPress content management system was used making it easy for anyone to update the site.  

A priority of the site was to generate as much interest for the film as possible. This was achieved through setting up a number of systems and marketing plans.  Administrators could also easily add quality content such as photo galleries and high definition video to entice more visitors.  

To drive traffic to the site we made use of a search engine optimisation system making it easy to enter in the required keywords, page titles, and article descriptions for all new content. All visitors also had the choice to sign up to receive updates. By signing for updates their details were entered into a database that could be used for further marketing purposes and increase the sites earning potential. Furthermore, the ability to share/save each article was added which meant increase exposure on other top websites. The site also had built in browser detection to tell if the visitor was using an Apple iPhone, and reformat the styling to suit the screen size.

Part of the marketing plan was to submit the site to all of the top search engines.  Pages and groups were set up on social network sites youtube, vimeo, and facebook to increase interest. This gave the ability to contact and bring more registered users to the site. Honcho Designs also create regular press releases that are sent out to the worlds top biking websites, generating more hits and increasing the sites search engine ranking.

Google Analytics code was embedded in the site to provide detailed statistics on site useage allowing site owners to keep track of things like average time on site, average number of pages viewed, top content, and traffic sources. This set-up allows administrator to keep track of the chages they make and the effects they have on visitors.

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.

Break the cycle images and clippings from media coverage around the globe

[Show as slideshow]

Petticrew’s don’t have much room for branding at the front of thier shop so it was important to create something that makes use of that space as best as possible.  The lightboxes really stand out when the light gets low in the dark afternoons of winter.

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Honcho Designs helped them with promotional material including posters, pavements signs, and display boards.  A collage of photos from the past 40 years were used to show some examples of people who have given up their time for others.

If you or anyone else have a story to tell about volunteering, VSB would love to hear from you.

We have just got our new 35mm adaptor and had to go out and get some test footage.  Basically the adaptor helps create the look of film using video.  The benefit of this is not only much nicer looking footage but also huge cost savings over traditional film cameras.

We tried this out in a forest to see how the adaptor and lenses would work in places that are not that well lit.  I have to say that I am pretty impressed with the results.  The edit was thrown together in under an hour with no colour correction or grading at all.

With the adapter the colours have come out more natural and organic than ever, and you can see the shallow depth of field (main subject in focus while other things out of focus) that can be achieved.

We also added an external monitor and follow focus to help with manual focusing.  This will take a few shoots to get used to as you can see form the video but from the first test it seems like this will take no time at all.  I’m looking forward to future projects using this piece of equipment!