Friday, December 06, 2013

Video on Demand



The Great Western Railway Band performs on platform 9 of Paddington Station at 7.30pm every Friday between Easter and Christmas. It's not the most obvious venue for a concert – at times the music is almost drowned out by the collective growl of engines travelling in and out of the great glass-roofed train shed - but lifting the spirits in adverse circumstances is just what marching bands are for, and the musicians play on regardless.

This short video was made for the inpaddington YouTube channel, with a brief to capture the spirit of the band and the life of the station in which it performs. It was great fun to make, and also a reminder of just how much the publishing and PR world has changed over the last few years. Before the all-encompassing rise of the web, a commission like this would more likely have been for a set of stills for use across a range of print products. Fortunately the demand for moving pictures has been matched by the ability of our once-still DSLR cameras to make them, albeit with significant additional requirements for audio equipment, editing software, beefed-up processing power - and some serious new skill acquisition.