Filming the Vaisakhi Celebrations in Gravesend

Although we are based in Uxbridge, we are lucky enough to have clients all over the country. On Saturday we packed some kit into the car and headed over to Gravesend to film the Vaisakhi celebrations. Being one of the most important dates in the Sikh calendar, Vaisakhi is a day to celebrate 1699 - the year when Sikhism was born as a collective faith.

Our filming was on behalf of Gurvinder Sandher, MBE Deputy Lieutenant of Kent, who attended the event. It was an absolutely hectic day as you can imagine, with thousands of people there. The challenge was to capture some decent footage in a very short space of time with multiple thing happening at once. We filmed everything in 100 frames per second slow motion allowing us to maximise on any little moments we capture. By filming in slow motion we are able to extend even a 1-second smile into 4 seconds of usable footage. We also knew that there would be other people filming there, so to differentiate our footage and make something that would stand out we used a pro mist filters. This gives us a classic and dreamy look that works well with bright and colourful footage.

In order for this footage to be relevant to our client we needed a fast turnaround so we got working on this pretty much as soon as we got home. The voiceover was recorded and sent to us the following day and by Monday morning this video was done and dusted.

Filming live events is a huge undertaking, but with years of experience we are able to pull it off. We use a small crew so It's a fine balance of adequate planning to make sure we understand what is happening when, and also what is required from the footage that we capture - how is the video going to be used - this gives us a clear aim during the filming day, allowing us to make fast decisions regarding what to focus on in terms of coverage.

If you have an event coming up, give us a shout! We'd love to hear about your plans and discuss any opportunities with you.

Santiago.