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PROMOTE your product
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TRAIN your staff
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COMMUNICATE with Impact
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SUPPORT your conference
Promotional Videos, Conferences, Training programmes, Product Launches, Information
Up-dates, Corporate Training and Information videos - whatever your communication needs, Activity Media has the expertise to handle it for you.
Working closely with you throughout the process we ensure that the finished product is exactly what you need.
We provide you with all the elements for a professional production including project management, script-writing,
recording, direction, editing, voice-overs, music, graphics, VHS and CD & DVD production, packaging and distribution.
All our programmes can be distributed on tape, CD-ROM or DVD.
We tailor our services to your individual requirements to ensure your project is managed in the most efficient and effective way.
Most importantly, you get the programme you want - at a reasonable price
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Project Management and Planning
At the beginning of each project we work out, with you, a production schedule which will meet your delivery deadline.
Working from that date, we decide when each stage of production will occur.
As we develop the script, the selection and booking of performers, crews, facilities etc. begins so that the production process runs smoothly from one stage to the next, with final delivery on, or before, your deadline date.
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Scripting
We have to admit to a limitation here. Even though we can supply the highest standards of production, we can never know your product or service as well as you do.
For this reason, script writing is usually a joint venture between our wordsmith and yourself. In this way we can deliver an accurate message which has the motivational impact necessary to make the programme an effective piece of communication.
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Shooting
Whilst some of our programmes are studio-based, most are shot on clients' premises using either single or multi-camera techniques.
Each method has its own benefits and we will help you choose the most suitable for your needs.
Sound, too, can be as simple as a single microphone or a whole range of "live" sources, each with its own
particular
characteristics.
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Editing
Until a few years ago, editing was a matter of copying the selected shots from one video tape to another with a loss of quality at each stage. Nowadays, powerful computer systems handle vision sequences in a similar way to the way your word processor handles text. So, we can simply "Cut &
Paste" the sequences together and re-order them at a later stage.
This gives tremendous flexibility to the editing stage and, because it is digital, there is no loss in picture or sound quality. Your finished programme will be to the same high standard as the original
recording.
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Encoding
Recording pictures and sound straight video onto disc in its digital form would take up a great deal of space on a CD or DVD disc.
To save space, there are several of ways of compressing the video data so you can squeeze about one hour of video onto a CD and a complete movie onto a DVD.
Each of the encoding systems has its own advantages and disadvantages and we can help you decide which is the best for your
project.
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Voice-over
A professional voice over can make a great difference to your finished programme.
We have access to many types of male, female, character and foreign language voices and we can arrange translation of your script into almost any language.
Foreign language versions of a programme generally run a little longer than the English version because it usually takes more time to make a statement in languages other than English.
Our voiceovers are recorded in professional studios where the quality and clarity are guaranteed to be first
class.
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Music
To avoid having to pay extremely high royalties for the use of commercially available music, we recommend either "off the shelf" library music or, where the usage justifies the cost, having music composed specifically for your own needs. We can source composers when this is the best way
forward.
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Directing
Whilst the Producer deals with the planning and scheduling of the project, it is the Director whose creative input ensures the programme gets your message across to the audience.
He, or she, does this by careful selection of presenters, actors, etc. and, during the shoot & edit stages, selecting "shots" and "takes" in a way which will give the completed programme a rhythm and pace to hold the audience and generate
impact.
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VHS
In the UK, we have just one standard of VHS format and an LP version which doubles the recording time (and halves the play-back quality) of tapes.
In other countries where the television formats are different from ours, there are different ways of recording the picture and sound information so they play back on televisions in those countries.
The UK system is known as PAL and there are variants of this used throughout the world.
However, there are also variants of the first system of colour transmission which was developed in the USA and is known as NTSC. This stands for the National Television Standards Commission but, because of its inherent colour errors, it is often taken to stand for Never Twice the Same Colour!
The French also developed their own system called SECAM. Ring or e-mail us to find out what that stands for!
We will supply your programmes in the format required for their destination country.
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CD
CDs come in a wide variety of sizes from CD Business Cards which hold 80 Megabytes of data to full size CDs with 750 Megabytes of storage capacity.
The business card can display a series of still shots or a short video clip, a voiced description of your company and a link to your web site for updated information.
A full size CD can hold upto an hour of encoded video material with indexing for instant access and an on-screen front page describing the details of the video programme.
For much greater storage capacity, see our section on DVDs.
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DVD
DVD discs are able to hold about six times the amount of data a CD can store. One side of a DVD disc will hold approximately 4,500 Megabytes (or 4.5 Gigabytes) of data. One Gigabyte is equal to a thousand Megabytes.
This can be doubled to 9 Gigabytes by using a second layer of the disc which is near to the surface.
If you don't need to print a label on the disc itself, you can store a further 9 Gigabytes on the other side as well!
Because of this huge storage capacity, it is possible to encode a complete movie onto one DVD using digital broadcast television quality and, as DVD players are becoming standard in computers, DVD can be viewed either on a TV with a DVD player or from a
PC.
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Graphics
There are several levels of graphics you can use in your production.
If you have a clear PowerPoint presentation, we can take stills directly from it and, after some modification, include them in your programme.
Alternatively, we can create 2- or 3-dimensional stills or animations to illustrate a manufacturing process, give life to your logo and add that extra Activity Media into your product or service.
We animated an eagle from Bedford's coat of arms and made it fly over the town - the first time that particular bird had flown for about 400 years!
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