From Russia With Love

Hi-Gloss has again been working with our favourite diva, miss Shena Winchester again. We're the British side of an International co-production of the music video for Shena's new single '24 Hours In Moscow'. Having already produced two music videos for the singer (Nasty Little Rumour and Aphrodisiac) we shot some very effective footage of Shena in a simple studio setting (with some rather complicated lighting) that we'll be editing together with footage shot last weekend on location in Moscow with Russian pop heart throb Alex Sparrow.

Things Are Beginning To Look More Colourful!

Well, It's been a super long work flow but we've been putting the final touches on our London Eye project via the hugely talented Mr Tom Balkwill (www.dirtylooks.co.uk) and his mighty Baselight grading system at the fantastic Locomotion in Soho. The film is looking fantastic and the fabulous jib shots (courtesy of master DOP Gareth Ward) of the London Eye as the sun is setting are especially impressive. Considering we shot over three days with varying weather, Tom has done an amazing job of seamlessly blending the various segments together and we are super excited to showcase the final result...coming soon!

LG Short.

Another exciting project wrapper filming in November. After 3 days of castings and several location hunts, we went ahead with the short film shoot for LG's new Scanner mouse, an amazing piece of equipment that we were given the task of showing off in a fun and creative way. Am not able to reveal said way currently but you'll see from the pictures below that we had a lot of fun and were also very mindful not to spill any tea or coffee anywhere on the rather pristinly white location! We filmed using the Panasonic FA101 which turned out some great pictures (though was a trifle complicated to use), some nifty tracking and a simple lighting set up and were very happy with the results on what was a rather packed day (though we managed to run just 15 mins over schedule!). It was also rather fun listening to our actors gossip in between takes and we couldn't help but be reminded of the bitching on the excellent sketch show 'Extras'! More info coming soon.

Busy. Busy. Busy.

We apologise for the lack of updates recently, we have been rather busy juggling multiple projects:
After having shot an additonal evenings worth of footage in order to capture a spectacular sunset over London (from the roof of the Royal Festival Hall, no less!), the new London Eye promo film should be finished within a few weeks. We've also been filming in Bristol and are due to film up in Scotland for another project from Dairylea and have several new shoot dates in France and Ireland for the series of films we're producing for Britvic.
We've also worked with stylist Michael D on a trio of beauty-based films for Silvikrin hairspray and are currently in the casting process for a viral for some amazing new software designed by LG, having written a comedy based viral that we plan to shoot in mid November. At this stage, we can't say much more but this one's going to be a lot of fun! More details coming soon.

We'll also be working with our favourite air stewardess Pam Ann (aka comedienne Caroline Reid - above) on 5 films for her new show ' You F'Coffee' coming from NYC to London early next year. As usual we're planning lost of ultra camp and fabulously creative parodies and sketches, some of which will feature in Pam's second DVD release, coming in 2012.

EDF Energy London Eye Shoot - Day 1.

Well, things got off to a rather hectic start on Day 1 of our EDF Energy London Eye shoot last week but our attention spans soon fell in line with the 30 minute rotation period of the Eye and we just about managed to achieve everything we needed before Sun down (having rotated a mighty 12 times in 1 day!). Although the weather was not quite as sunny as we would have liked, our fingers are crossed for this week when the second day of principal photography takes place. Day 1 consisted mainly of filming actors within the capsules themselves whilst day 2 will also involve some rather fabulous jib-led shots of the Eye's impressive exterior. Day 3 will essentially involve a time-lapse of the sun rising and falling behind the Eye as well as shots of the surrounding urban environment (St Pauls Cathedral, the Ghirkin etc).

Curvy, Really Curvy or Super Curvy?

We've been super busy of late (thus the serious lack of posts on this here page) juggling projects for Britvic, Bravissimo, Shockwaves, Dairylea (at the brilliant Camp Bestival) and very excitingly, The EDF Energy London Eye (Details in post below).
Below are a few pictures from this weeks Bravissimo shoot which involved a lot of cleavage, some seriously hot lighting (adding to the already roasting temperature) and one or two wardrobe malfunctions! It was a very successful shoot though and was also great fun as the team from Bravissimo were an absolute hoot to work with (especially Bev!). We intend on having the final product (a bravissimo and Peppperberry clothing promo film) completed within the next week.

Hi-Gloss at The Top Of the World!

Here at Hi-Gloss, we are currently very excitable as we've been chosen to create the next promotional film for London's most dramatic and exceptional land mark, The EDF Energy London Eye. After much hard work, we presented our conceptual ideas to the team at the Eye two weeks ago and learnt of our success in winning the contract shortly afterwards. We feel very honoured to be entrusted with the job of presenting the Eye to the world in all of it's towering glory and have some fabulous ideas that we simply can't wait to see come in to fruition. Having experienced a rather glamorous champagne reception on The Eye last week, we took our first reccy in the extremely humid hours of early Monday evening but once we had stepped foot in to our gloriously air conditioned capsule, our cares were forgotten and we got to work shooting some test footage above our beautiful city. It goes without saying that it is truly an exceptional experience to be so high above all else, able to take in London's full magesty in all of it's traditional and modern glory. Along with the euphoric highs of the trip, we also began to think on the practicalities of the situation with regard to filming. Within the capsules themselves, we will be somewhat restricted but plan to use tracking and a 20ft or 40ft jib for some of the more dramatic exterior work. We will be shooting on our favourite camera, The RED again and may do some pick up, time lapse shots using the 5D. Below are some screen shots from some test footage shot at our recent reccy:

Aphrodisiac Music Promo Shoot - Day 1.

It's been quite a week here at Hi-Gloss Towers. Over an intense two days, we shot the music video for DJ Ivan Roudyk's new single 'Aphrodisiac'. Day 1 took place at a fabulous, completely white town house in North London and featured two incredibly beautiful models, gallons of milk and a ton of feathers!
Save for a blown bulb or two and one major problem with the jib, the day went very well and we got the shots we needed. We managed to follow the shot list and story board very closely though due to time constraints were unable to film a living room set dance scene and a scene involving a 100 fps hair dryer...
Having flown in from Russia to take part in the video, Ivan's principal scenes were shot during Day 2 which took place at a large white studio in Islington. We also shot a few pick ups (involving feathers and lace underwear - see below) and all of singer Shena's scenes. More pictures and details of day 2 to follow shortly...

The case of Sara and the exceedingly loud bird.

Well, we had a barrel of laughs yesterday whilst working with the delightful Radio 1 presenter Sara Cox. We were filming for a campaign (for a very famous brand of cheese), tucked away in a beautiful suburban pocket of clapham that somehow managed to transform in to a rather noisy place in which to film, the main culpret being a bird with a clear desire to make it as a a TV presenter. Twice on the call of "Action!" did our feathered friend immediately begin whistling as loud as possible, drowning out Sara's voice and causing us all to corpse in to laughter.

At this early stage, we can't go in to any detail regarding the project but suffice to say, shoot day 1 was great fun (aside from the numerous airplanes, sirens, quarreling squirals (yep!) and various DIY sounds hindering our progress). This, however was probably very good training considering our next shoot for this project will involve a gang of kids!

Ladies, ladies, ladies.

Well, we are currently half way through the casting process for the Aphrodisiac music vid project and things are getting rather steamy at Hi-Gloss towers with the casting of beautiful Russian model 'Karina' who is flying in from Moscow to shoot the promo in early June. We have a stream of stunning women to see in the coming days, what with two leading ladies still to cast...
We are also very happy to have secured Sara Darling as stylist on the shoot. Sara (previous Fashion Editor at Disorder magazine) will be providing some fabulously chic outfits for singer Shena Winchester amongst other decidedly...sexy pieces for our actresses.

We also did a reccy at the first vid location today. The town house that we'll be using is like a large, glamorous white mirrored box with the most wonderful natural light (much to the delight of our Gaffer) and thankfully, we have enough room for some cool tracking shots and the use of a jib (which we'll use during the bath scene, for which I was the stand in, above).
We are super excited! Watch this space for what looks to be Hi-Gloss's hottest production to date...



In other news, Hi-Gloss is set to do a spot of shark diving with a certain celebrity TV presenter. The footage will be used within a new promo piece we are creating for the brand of a rather refreshing soft drink...All very secretive at this stage but looks set to be a super fun (if scary!) shoot.

More news on this soon.

Granny Power!

We recently teamed up with trendy web design company The Late Night Salon for an interactive web page for hot Red Bull rival, Red Rooster. Whilst tucked away in a small green screen studio for the day, we had the pleasure of working with actress Ellen Hussey, most known for her role as one of the famed Shreddies nana's. It was incredibly hard keeping a straight face whilst shooting as this lady was SHARP and said her innuendo laden lines with such relish that some of them were deemed too inapropriate to be used! There were moments when literally shaking with oppressed laughter, we weren't able to watch the monitor for want of completly cracking up. We shot several other characters (The sexy sports coach Roxy and the stiff upper lipped General Rooster) against green screen for the online campaign but twas granny who made the biggest impression (we were shocked and delighted all at once!). The company were thrilled with the virals, which are currently making the rounds via Facebook and other social networks. You can watch more of Granny's films including 'Granny's Guide To pulling' (amongst other amusing 'How to' films) on the new Red Rooster home page, below:

http://www.redroosterdrinks.com/#/Home

Time to get downright sexy...

...with our video concept for new dance track Aphrodisiac by 'Russia's biggest DJ' Ivan Rouudyk.
We're currently narrowing down several rather sexy ideas for the video shoot, due to take place in late May/early June and boy are we going to blow your socks off with this one!

Think glamour, kitsch and retro sexy for what will represent a track that will no doubt end up being an Ibiza anthem this Summer....

The single also features the soulful voice our favourite disco diva, Shena Winchester whom we have worked with on numerous occasions, most notable producing the video for her disco fierce single 'Nasty Little Rumour':

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HcWrQ9i2n4&feature=fvst


Just as we did with NLR, we plan to shoot using a Red camera but this time, we're going to be strictly studio based (doing 6 locations in two days was NOT easy work!). We may, however be building a cool reversable set to realize the concept fully. We are also planning to use an animator to provide a contrasting element to the live footage. Lots to organize in just three weeks!
More details coming on this soon...

Squash Monster Madness!

Hi-Gloss completed 3 different projects for Britvic in March, the most fun of which was the filming of a series films for their Robinsons brand. We filmed former Nickelodeon presenter and Dancing In Ice star Laura Hamilton constructing three wacky monsters out of Robinsons double concentrate bottles for the launch of new kids website www.robinsonsfun.co.uk and for use on various TV spots promoting an online competition.
Having always harboured the desire to work on Blue Peter, we were thrilled to here that immortal line "Here's one I made earlier" more than once!

http://www.robinsonsfun.co.uk/squashmonsters/











We were also lucky enough to take home with us the final squash Monster (pop-up puppett) made by Laura's fair hand! He's now quite at home in our flower pot watching (and in the process loosing his hair) over our two naughty Tango Gotan's whom have been rather badly behaved of late. You can hardly blame them when considering what we did to their friend last year:



TANGO GET YOUR GOTAN CAMPAIGN VIRAL:

Welcome to the New Hi-Gloss News Blog!

6 years after starting Hi-gloss Productions ltd, we've decided to change things around a little and launch our new site/show reel and this here new news blog!

For our first post, I'll get you up to scratch with what's been taking place, thus far in 2011.












In december we flew out to Denmark to shoot a rather glamorous photoshoot for skin care brand (and regular client) IMEDEEN. They in turn flew models in from Hong Kong, Brazil, The UK and the Neverlands to be photographed by top fashion photographer Steen Avald, in his rather plush studio in Copenhagen. In January we completed the edit and the film was launched in the UK, France, Japan and Portugal.
You can view the film here:
http://www.capturedonfilm.co.uk/imedeen20/











We've also been worlking with B&Q on a number of innitiatives to help turn ones home in to more of a green-friendly place...Having filmed Ellen Macarthur and Alan Titchmarch in January, we were asked to make a short film featuring new B&Q ambassadors Kirstie Allsop and George Clarke.

We also worked with Bacardi on an exclusive behind the Scenes preview of their upcoming Bacardi Manifesto film and have secured a Nationwide filming project with LG and their new 'Cinema Experience' 3D TV's...More news soon!