So, a year on and we’ve made our first million!!

Or not! What I really feel we have done in the last year is pave the way for a huge amount of growth. A little more than a year ago I was arguing with my parents every evening trying to convince them that doing this was a good idea. My case was to get a loan and attempt to set up a video production company with Jamie that would then fund our lives and future. From their perspective all I wanted to do was get a loan, buy a load of expensive gear, mess around with it and then come crying to them when it all fell apart. The university route on the other hand seemed far more appealing to them and getting into thousands of pounds worth of debt like my sister was OK as its the accepted thing to do in the world we live in. When someone actually wants to follow their dreams and make their life their own the majority of people are far from supportive.

As much as those months of arguing were hell I really do have to thank my parents so much for making me be absolutely certain of what I was about to get into. It also gave me the months to properly asses what gear would be the best for our intended purpose. Originally I was looking at the Sony PMW EX1 with the Letus DOF adapter, but in the time leading up to actually getting the loan the DSLR’s started to boom in the video world and the Canon 7D became the obvious choice. I am certain that had I obtained the money straight away I would of brought the wrong camera and would be kicking myself right now.

Our weapon of choice

Anyway less about a year ago, more about right now and what has happened in the last year!

I have the advantage of writing this after Jamie has written his blog so will talk more about the stuff we got up to aside from freerunning. What is crazy is the way that a year ago Jamie knew of freerunning and that I had been training for many years but that was it,  a year later and he is well and truly established in the community I am so proud to call my friends.

Example

Obviously a huge part of Visive has been free running but we are also trying to break into other fields of video production and the last year has shown us doing exactly that. I remember early this year heading down to the studio to be greeted by Jamie telling me that a friend had lined us up with a job filming a gig on behalf of a promotion company. The artist performing at the gig….Example, someone who I have always been a fan of and since then has been smashing the UK charts. A job this good was a shock in such early days and we were determined to do it properly! We did this by forgetting a tripod plate, ending up buying a new tripod and then dropping one of the cameras, a pretty scary experience seeing that the gig hadn’t even started yet. All in all the gig turned out amazingly and its mistakes like that that have made us improve the way we work. Checklists are a must before every job now!

On set

Another pretty eventful job was a music video we were shooting in South London, Jamie was working so I brought along Visive’s trusty companion James Addis to lend a hand. One of the most nerve wracking moments of the last year was to turn up at the studio to find the “provided lighting” consisted of only two tatty lights rigged to the ceiling. After climbing a rickety scaffolding tower to reposition them and using some pretty unorthodox filming techniques the shoot actually turned out a lot better than expected and the last thing we heard the video was doing the rounds a couple of months ago on some urban music video channels.

Probably our most successful shoot to date actually started with quite an unfortunate accident where boarding a train home after shooting in London I scraped a passenger with the glidecam, the resulting conversation ended up with us filming a promotional video for his art gallery. It just goes to show that jobs come from the strangest of places.

Anyway I could literally go on all day about the amazing experiences we have encountered over the year but I wont…Instead I want to thank everyone who has supported us and watched our videos. I may be making a big deal out of nothing but to us we have really come along way and I cant wait to see how far we can get in the years to come!

Working away...