Ben Kelly Lanbury

Directing real estate filming – with Ben Kelly Lanbury

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So I was asked to create a film on a property development in London with Ben Kelly and Ben Gannon from Lanbury Group.

Apparently over lockdown searches and transactions of residential property have sky rocketed, and are still soaring month on month. During lockdown we searched property 50% more than the year before in the UK. October saw the most transactions than any October for over ten years.
The real winners in property development (like Ben Kelly and Ben Gannon from Lanbury), are the ones who make stylised films of their property and for residential retail estate, the ones who can do virtual viewings.
So the two Ben’s from Lanbury asked me, “What are my ideas for filming a multi-million pound property development or stately home?”. So it got me thinking. The two most important elements are for me are:
1. We need to show desirability
Whether you are filming for a major stately home or the city apartments that Ben Kelly and Ben Gannon develop in the centre of London with Lanbury, you still need to exude desirability.
Depending on the size of the estate, drone footage at first is a must. We’d obviously like to start at the entrance to the stately home and hover over the long driveway, circling over mowed lawns and gardens, climbing up over a grand oak tree, then slowly descending onto the gravelled driveway. I think we’d need a subject matter. That subject would be a young man or woman driving in a unique car up the driveway. The drone would follow him / her at first then take it’s own path. We need the audience to imagine they are doing this, that they can see themselves taking the same route to the house. The luxury will be obvious, but the feeling of “I could live there” may not be so straight forward.
2. Obvious Luxury and ease of living
Drones are so small and controllable nowadays that they can easily fly through a house, around the living area then whizz outside to the pool, then up to a top balcony showing a couple having a relaxing drink, then through the French windows and into the bedroom quarters.
It is essential to show this luxuriousness and for you to allow the audience to think “yeah that could be me there”.
Anyway, just a few quick thoughts. I wish Ben Kelly and Ben Gannon at Lanbury every success in their property development.
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TV commercials Director from London for digital content

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If you want to make creative and professional digital content then you need a professional TV commercials director.

Lawrence Jacomelli recently shot a very exciting campaign with Beast Agency London for Cayman Luxe. Beast have a great team and ideal business model for digital content production. So if you are looking for a video production company for digital content then visit Beast Agency.

Cayman Luxe is the official website for the Department of Tourism for The Cayman Islands. COT together with the creative agency Mr.H were looking specifically for a video production company for digital content that would be able to produce exceptionally high quality for a very limited budget. They choose Beast London based on their showreel and felt immediately that they were in very safe hands. Beast video production company shot 14 spots for their online video marketing which you can see at www.caymanluxe.com and for the directors cuts visit Beast London. Our aim was to create a whole series of video based around the theme of the sensations you feel when you are on a Caribbean island experiencing the most luxurious and relaxing holiday. It’s all about moments and feeling. And this is expressed through the campaign which was in two parts. ‘Moments’ we use photogenic high speed slow motion to single out special and perfect moments. Slow motion is a fantastic way to immerse the viewer into a moment. It evokes huge amounts of emotion and intrigue into the action. We always are in ore of the beauty of the picture and the experience we see those in the shot having. It’s a great way to promote holiday moments in a luxury travel video.

And in ‘Barefoot’ we see how the touch of toes in the sand or relaxing back on a hammock can create the sensations of simple pleasures which remind us what life is really all about.

Lawrence is a TV commercials director from London with over 18 years of experience, 500+ TV commercials and over 30 top level awards in that time. He has worked in markets all across the planet  and with 100’s of Adevrtising agencies and production companies. “As a video production company for digital content, Beast approach their work in a very different way to a usual London video production company. They are a content company and as such they bring a creative thread along with a production efficiency to their work. Smaller crews and less opinions on set give an incredible sense of freedom and this is where the roots of creativity can grow and flourish. If you need to make a video for online marketing purposes then it’s clear that you need a video production company for online marketing. This is a specialized field and as such you need to choose a company that fits the brief with the appropriate business model set up.” Lawrence Jacomelli, London TV commercials Director.

London TV commercials Director for digital content

Although we were shooting for online where the deliverable is HD 1080p, we always shoot 4K in order to have the flexibility of punching in to a shot in post production. In order to create really powerful and emotive imagery means choosing the right camera and lens for each scene. For example in this shot bellow we have used a macro lens with extenders to create an incredibly short depth of field and then shot at 120 FPS slow motion in order to capture the water as it trickles over the foot and between the toes.

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We have a mixture of smooth tracking shots and hand held observational shots, in every case the composition will be perfectly thought out and arranged. We don’t want to have a load of rough shots. These scenes are all about the simple pleasures and beauty and the capturing of nature. So this is what was reflected in the shooting approach. We of course had some challenges on location. Not as many palm trees or starfish as we had imagined. But with some intensive scouting and creative camera angle and composition we managed to make all of the stories in the series perfect and on brief. The Cayman Islands are an amazing tourist destination. This time we only visited Grand Cayman but we certainly hope to discover Cayman Brac and Little Cayman on our next website video production.

Photography for website video productions

When it comes to photography you’ll notice that many companies will shoot generic imagery without really considering how to make the image truly impactful and photographic. At Beast they know that you don’t have to flood every shot with light and that very often less is more.

Great photography is all about the photographer. Finding the right angle, composition and art direction. This is where Beast can be set apart from many other video production companies for digital content as they have incredibly talented directors who work in conjunction with their Creative Director Victoria Taylor. In terms of their shooting approach they never want to make the images and scenes over processed or fake. “People want to feel they are getting a natural experience and so we give them truthful and emotive storytelling. We will take our time and study the locations available before working out a detailed shot plan which takes into account the optimum time of day to be shoot each sequence. Shooting at the right time of day with the right lighting look and effect will be crucial in creating the overall sense of beauty and harmony which is stylish and enchanting.”

How can our digital content for website marketing be different?

When it comes to designing our shots and actions and photographing this story this is exactly what we had to do for every scene. We asked ourselves, how can we make this shot unique and interesting. What will make it sexy and appealing to the audience. We had a great team and in such an incredible location as the Cayman Islands we are very excited to get creative and look for those interesting places and shoot them from unusual angles, using slow motion to enhance the action and make for really emotive storytelling. We want a film where each shot is better than the one before and the viewer is left wanting more. Asking the question – where is this incredible place?

We shot on RED EPIC with a full set of master primes and macro extenders and had a SONY A7sii for second camera and under water shooting. We used the Ronin Steady cam for smooth tracking shots and use SKYMAX for the aerial photography. So if you are looking to make a video and searching for an online production company or a content production company then try Beast London.

 

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Ikea Living Room Shoot

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DAY 2…

A lot more banging and then a lot more rehearsals! Shouldn’t that chroma cloth be green?

This spot was 35″ but again because of the technicalities we spilt it up, this time into three bitesize pieces. Here’s the last shot where the camera comes around from behind some shelving units to reveal the new living room layout and the family at was in their new environment. All the foreground elements we shot on separate layers so that we could determine the correct length for each section of the spot in the end. To see more check out beast.agency

 

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Ikea Kitchen Shoot

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Shooting for Ikea in Jeddah was an experience that I will never forget.

It reminded me of the commercials I was shooting around 15 years ago in Bucharest – It was wild and untamed and it was great!

We had a technically challenging couple of scripts where we have around 30 changes of set within one camera movement. This meant plenty of time for prep and rehearsals.

We split the 45″ spot into two halves to make the execution more manageable. The first half we see the ikea workers clear out the dingy old set and then there’s a wipe just before the table gets flipped. Most of the set effects are real but we did throw in some CG where it just wasn’t possible to do it in live action – Like the table and chairs flipping and the cooker hood descending. I have my good friends at Studioset to thank for the CG and all the hours and hours of re-tounching – great job!

The set itself and all the mechanics and tricks were design by Corvin Cristain and myself – working remotely and with a local set designer worked out great in the end. All credit goes to the local production company, Made in Saudi, who supported me through the whole process and gave 100% to make the best possible end product for their client.

One huge battle we faced was the size of the two sets in the one studio. Given the task at hand it meant that we needed at least double the normal space around the set in order to put the lights and have room to move the set pieces in and out during shot. Unfortunately we had at least half the necessary space so by the end of two days of shooting, the studio had been completely devastated! The local cast were very good indeed, and stuck with it on what turned out to be two late nights/early mornings!

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