Luke Yerbury Blog

Selective Tweets? #fb

2011-08-18T23:47:00.001-07:00

Is selective tweets the best app to put tweets onto facebook?

Luke

www.befourcreative.com

Befour Creative's new Spot On at The Fringe Festival Edinburgh 2011

2011-08-17T23:46:00.001-07:00

We'll not tell you too much about it right now, but befour creative have launched a new product line called 'spot on' which is an online events coverage service giving companies the opportunity to get coverage of their event at a much more accessible price.
The channel can be found here:http://www.youtube.com/user/spotonscotland
Our first pilot upload can be found here:
If you're interested and want to know more then get in touch!

luke@befour.co.uk

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

M74 Reflective Roadstud installation video

2011-07-15T04:42:00.001-07:00

Here's our most recent film shot for Roadstuds.co.uk showing the installation of the studs on the new M74 'missing link' in Glasgow.

can also be viewed here:

http://www.befourcreative.com/news.html

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

Filming on the new M74 bypass

2011-07-15T03:04:00.001-07:00

So last month we were out filming on the M74 for our client Fleming & Co.
They produce reflective road studs (http://www.roadstuds.co.uk) and asked us to come up with a film they could use for their direct marketing and promotion that would demonstrate the way the product was installed. Previous films hadn't quite ticked all the boxes so Befour Creative offered up our help.
Here's a quick snap of us shooting in our hi-viz protective wear on the deserted road prior to opening.

The film is almost done so keep an eye out on our news section http://www.befourcreative.com/news for the upload of the finished article.

The photo is courtesy of Stewart Cunningham at Great Scot Photography (http://www.greatscotphotography.com)

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

Amazing Focus Free Camera. This thing really is quite impressive.

2011-06-22T00:22:00.001-07:00

The Lytro focus free camera is quite something.
The camera in question basically captures the entire picture without any specified focus point, and post picture taking allows the user to select what focus point they require.
It's really quite something. Have a look at the gallery and click on different parts of the photo to choose the focus point.
http://www.lytro.com/picture_gallery
I'll certainly be keeping an eye out.
Their blog can be found here
http://blog.lytro.com/

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

Cool film fest entry...

2011-05-16T03:08:00.001-07:00

This is what film festivals are all about. Stupidly elaborate shorts that make you stop and think.
"Happy” was the theme we were given by the organizers for this year's F5 Re:Play Fest, held in April in NYC, to create this edition's pieces, probably the hardest thing to convey in any artistic expression. After a good deal of introspection, and teaming up with awesome motion graphics artist Gerardo del Hierro, we decided that happy wasn't happy for Physalia unless pliers, microchips and a bit of soldering were involved, and with this idea we resolved to create the happiest machine Physalia has built to date."

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

How should we kill all those tiny malaria ridden mosquitos? Tiny death lazers! Of course!

2011-05-10T02:27:00.001-07:00

I was in Malasia for a while, and I can honestly say, that mosquitos are a real nuisance. If there was a place there, that was protected by a purple mosquito killing lazer system, I'd have gone there. For sure. Come 6pm when the sun goes down, you're basically game.

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

I feel like will smith in iRobot. I don't want to say I told you so!

2011-05-10T02:09:00.001-07:00

Listen up.
These Quadrotor things are bad news. I mean, they're freaky flying precise robot stuff that my nightmares are made of.
If we get attacked by these things you can sure as hell guarantee they're more agile and faster on their... rotors... than we'll ever be!

we're doomed

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

poor guy gets struck by lightening... TWICE!

2011-05-04T03:53:00.001-07:00

Am I a bad person for laughing at this?
I mean really!? It's so unlucky that just when this poor guy stumbles to his feet a bit fuzzy headed he gets shot down again!

Brilliant.

Hope he's ok.

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

is it time to start offering VHS to DVD transfers?

2011-05-04T03:14:00.001-07:00

I'd say every 6 months or so, I get a call, from someone asking whether we can transfer VHS to DVD.
One such call came in today.
Until now it's not something I've really considered as to me, VHS has been dead a long time. But maybe that's the point? I mean, now people are embracing online video and DVD content, perhaps more and more of these requests will come to light.

Well, to the lady who called asking for a transfer and we couldn't help out... that'll be the last time, for today we begin our transfer service!

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

Wedding Invite Record Player. Cool design, where can we get this made!?

2011-04-15T05:53:00.001-07:00

Wedding invitation record player is pretty cool!

http://vimeo.com/kellianderson/paperrecordplayer

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

Fruit Sellers and Trains DO mix, apparently. Watch this crazy video...

2011-04-15T05:14:00.001-07:00

This video shows Fruit and Veg sellers in Asia moving the bare minimum of their businesses out of the way in order for the train to pass through it's given path.
Kind of brings home the conditions these poor people live in and how easy we have it back here.

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

That can be my next tweet! Tweet generating website turns out funny statements.

2011-04-13T02:34:00.001-07:00

This website name 'That Can Be My Next Tweet' takes your twitter name, trawls your ramblings and generates a tweet based on its findings.
In the case of @tweetbefour:
"Online video viewers skip advertising done. Thanks BT! Not investing in Fife today."
Quite.

http://yes.thatcan.be/my/next/tweet/

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

Facebook is run by squabbling college kids...

2011-04-13T02:26:00.001-07:00

I don't like the fact that these people are making billions from our interest in their social network.
I say we put a stop to it now and all delete our accounts!

http://uk.gawker.com/5791303/mark-zuckerberg-is-a-backstabbing-little-shit-in-new-emails?skyline=true&s=i

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

Why you should never scrimp on HD backup drives...

2011-04-11T04:46:00.001-07:00

You have to laugh at the brilliant elaborate nature of this swindle. Poor kid thinks he's using a half decent Samsung drive to back his work up, only to find out that it is in fact a 128mb flash card stuffed into some casing and weighed down with a few bolts, to make it passable. I just don't get how much data this kid thought he was buying!? 128mb barely holds 5 mp3's!

http://www.hardmac.com/news/2011/04/08/magic-hard-drive

Moral of the story, don't buy cheap crap from china. See this video:

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

Props can be dangerous by Ali Maggs. http://tinyurl.com/6lgx8mb

2011-03-23T08:57:00.001-07:00

Quick blog post from Ali Maggs, Director of Chaos Created, our partner company, on how Props can be dangerous...
"Three things learnt… First of all, Arivind is clearly a talented and convincing writer. Secondly, Elle is incredibly nosy. Thirdly, I’ve got great people watching my back."
Read it here:
http://www.chaoscreated.com/2011/03/the-danger-of-props/

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

http://tinyurl.com/6lgx8mb

2011-03-23T08:52:00.001-07:00

I'm putting this here because I have no other place to keep it safe.
and it needs to be kept safe let me tell you.
I'm always interested in new marketing ideas, and someone dressed up as the company mascot is nothing new. But this dancing is just so ridiculous it's quite simply brilliant.
Android 1 - Apple 0

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

the 1950's supply the picture, and Danny Byrd supplies the score.

2011-03-19T07:43:00.001-07:00

Danny Byrd - Ill Behaviour (Ft. I-Kay)
Bootleg 1950's rework

nb. This is NOT the official video.

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

There's going to be a 'Super Moon' on Saturday night! http://tinyurl.com/6lgx8mb

2011-03-18T07:23:00.001-07:00

Apparently, once every 18 years or so, the moon, in it's elliptical orbit, passes the earth in perfect timing with the rotation of the earth to the sun to create the largest possible full moon in the sky.
We live in Scotland, so the chances of clear skies make this even more unlikely, but let this incredibly effeminate video explain:

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

Retro Video Clip of The Week: Betty Page. http://tinyurl.com/6lgx8mb

2011-03-18T04:38:00.001-07:00

Now I'm too young to know who Betty Page is, and when I came across this video, I have to say, if this were shot in this day and age, I think she'd be committed. It's like a pre 'webcam girls' style video, where a young lady dances about in front of a camera and removes items of her clothing. I think what really weirds me out is the close up expressions on her face, and the really awkward wide shot of her dancing for what seems like an eternity... It's almost like she's not sure what to do...
I think this video really sums up new technology for me, and how undiscovered it was, and how people didn't know how to react to it. Cameras are such a normal part of day to day life now, even my 2 year old daughter looks more relaxed in front of a camera than Betty does here.

Betty died in December 2008 at the age of 85.

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

Sexual video without the sex. Suggestive. http://tinyurl.com/6lgx8mb

2011-03-18T04:19:00.001-07:00

I thought I'd keep this here for future reference, as I really love the pacing of the video. It's a music video containing a series of improvised sex toys constructed out of various household appliances, I think it's shot really well and credit to the editor, I couldn't have done a better job myself!

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

Transferring 8mm film digital with a Canon DSLR http://tinyurl.com/6lgx8mb

2011-03-17T05:48:00.001-07:00

I don't actually own a DSLR yet, or own any 8mm film with a projector, however, I still think this film showing how to transfer the film to digital could prove useful at some point when a customer comes to me with some hair brained idea that they've concocted for their next online film!

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

Embarrassing website domains. http://tinyurl.com/6lgx8mb

2011-03-14T06:30:00.003-07:00

When you register your web domain, always make sure you check it over a couple of times to see you've not made some sort of innocent faux pas.

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

Clever Bus Shelter Ad http://tinyurl.com/6lgx8mb

2011-03-14T06:30:00.001-07:00

This is an add for £M security glass, pretty clever I think!

They should put this is Castlemilk in Glasgow and see how it fares up... they'd probably steal the whole bus stop.

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

Awkward iPhone autocorrections. http://tinyurl.com/6lgx8mb

2011-03-14T06:28:00.001-07:00

Autocorrect seems to really pick and choose the worst possible times to throw a spanner in the mix. As an iPhone user I can totally relate...

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

See the full gallery on Posterous

USB Powered Desktop Microwave!!! http://tinyurl.com/6lgx8mb

2011-03-14T03:09:00.001-07:00

I really wan't Heinz to stop teasing me and actually make this....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1191606/Beanz-meanz-microwaves-Heinz-create-gadget-heat-snack-60-seconds.html

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

http://tinyurl.com/6lgx8mb

2011-03-14T03:08:00.001-07:00

To answer your question. Yes. I am sad enough to want to sit in my house and drink my G&T's from these amazingly green Tanqueray recycled bottle tumblers.

I love Tanqueray, and as a result, I love this glassware:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/69091015/tanqueray-recycled-upcycled-glass-bottle

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

tiny wooden palette coasters. http://tinyurl.com/6lgx8mb

2011-03-14T03:04:00.001-07:00

Whenever I see a stupid but also cool product, you can rest assured that I'll be posting the link to it here.
On this occasion, it's the drinks coasters that are in fact tiny replica wooden palettes. Awesome.
http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/8/view/13305/designboom-shop-new-product-palette-coasters.html

$31 to buy it in the UK though, ouch.

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

Cutting FCP between 2 machines using the same project file. http://tinyurl.com/6lgx8mb

2011-03-11T02:41:00.001-08:00

So over the last couple of weeks we've been working on the latest shoot of the Timedancer WP7 App.
I've been cutting in FCP alongside one of the other guys on the project, Mazin Power, from Digital Snowball.
We decided fairly early on to split the workload between us, I took the first days shoot scenes and Mazin took the second. I'd been sent the rushes via hard drive by Ali Maggs of Chaos Created and once imported, both Mazin and myself had a duplicate set of rushes to work from. Now, Mazin is based in London, and I'm here at Befour Creative based in Glasgow, so we're not exactly around the corner from each other! We decided that the best way for us to cut the films was to create a project file that had a basic core structure. This meant that we were both familiar with the setup, and when we exchanged files we'd know our way around.
Exchanging files between each other so far has not proved a problem, however, Mazin is running a RAID system at his end which deals with his capture scratch, and I'm running a firewire 800 daisy chained rack which means our scratch files are not hosted on our local drives. Obviously the local route name of our computers differ and when we exchange files we will always need to sync up the media in the project, but I've come up with a good solution to make this process a little easier for everyone.
There's two ways to do this, but essentially the end gaol is the same, you want to create a folder that has in it, all of the files you need for the project, and they need to be arranged in the same file route as the person you're sharing the files with.
Let me give you an example.
I wand a main folder to contain the project, in this I want ALL of the files needed for this project, this must be mirrored on both machines.
e.g:

- Main Project Folder

- ProjectFCPfile.fcp
- Sound Files Folder

- Capture Scratch

- Render Files

This is a fairly basic example, but if you both set up your home folder in this way then when you open the file from the other person at your end, the media files contained within it will be routed through their home folder, so it will ask you to reconnect. When you do so, it will recognise the structure that is the same and it reconnect all of the files respectively.

The problem we have, is that my scratch is located locally, but Mazin has a RAID, and does not store his scratch locally, so moving it from the RAID means copying big amounts of data. The answer to this is to create an Alias of the Capture scratch, Render files etc... and place them in your route folder, this way when FCP looks for the files in the mirrored route, your alias will guide them to your scratch and render files. The only point is to make sure all your folders and aliases are identically named. If you've done that then you'll be fine!

here's what my project folder looks like at the moment, with an alias to my scratch which is held in a different part of the system.

Hope that's of some use!

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

Retro Video Clip: Top Banana 1990's kids show http://tinyurl.com/6lgx8mb

2011-03-10T02:03:00.001-08:00

I used to watch top banana at 6am on a saturday morning when I was about 6. I have no idea how I was able to get up at 6am every saturday to be honest because those days seem to be long gone! Oh well, it started out well! In this clip I love how totally inappropriate the second contestants dress is for an assault course!

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

Getting our blog to facebook... still... have we cracked it? http://tinyurl.com/6lgx8mb

2011-03-09T09:40:00.001-08:00

Might have cracked it with NetworkedBlogs
Anyone else have an easy solution to export a blog to facebook?

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

Space Shuttle Discovery Landing. http://tinyurl.com/6lgx8mb

2011-03-09T09:35:00.001-08:00

I think this was more of a big deal for the Americans than it was for us, but hey, guess it's the end of an era. They'll probably sell it on eBay now. I'd put a reserve on it. Condition - Used.

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

Test

2011-03-09T09:16:00.001-08:00

From Blogger

the lens mug. For the DoP wanting to be taken seriously. http://tinyurl.com/6lgx8mb

2011-03-09T08:44:00.001-08:00

This will defo be on my "things-to-buy-for-myself-and-not-feel-like-a-total-plank-for-doing-so" list.

http://www.creativevideo.co.uk/index.php?t=product/ca4729

mainly because my girlfriend will never buy me one!

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

Retro Video Clip of the Week: Radiation http://tinyurl.com/6lgx8mb

2011-03-09T08:16:00.001-08:00

I love how back in the 1950's they just experimented with such dangerous things so freely with no regard for the possible repercussions for human life. Shall we rub radiation on this girls face to see how well our facial cleansing cream works? Yeah sure, why not! What harm can that possibly do?

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

12% increase on online video usage in 2010 http://tinyurl.com/6lgx8mb

2011-03-09T08:08:00.001-08:00

Interesting white paper about online video statistics in the US in 2010.
"In December 2010, the average American spent more than 14 hours watching online video, a 12-percent increase from the prior year, and streamed a record 201 videos, an 8-percent increase."

Full article here: http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2011/2/comScore_Releases_The_2010_U.S._Digital_Year_in_Review

via MagnetVideo: http://www.magnetvideo.com/content/2011+online+video+statistics+-+february/14019

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

Real life lazers! pew pew pew.... http://tinyurl.com/6lgx8mb

2011-03-09T06:35:00.001-08:00

I honestly never thought I'd see the day that the handheld lazer was invented.
I mean, I'm starting to feel like my great Granddad when he was told that one day carriages would be driven by themselves and would no longer need a horse!
Granted, this lazer shoots 50 shots before needing new batteries and currently can only fire through a balloon and thin plastic, at a fairly short range, but we've all seen Back To The Future and it's only a matter of time before there's enough Gigawatts in a watch battery to shoot a whole in an armoured tank. Prepare for a Terminator-esque nuclear robot lazer war people. It's coming.

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

All things social media...

2011-03-05T03:49:00.001-08:00

So we've decided to go all social media with befour creative and get 'linked up'. Keep an eye out for the upcoming facebook profile and regular blog updates. We've registered with a couple of blogging platforms so hopefully you'll be seeing a bit more of us from now on.

Apparently according to Google, they like all this new fangled social media malarky, so I guess it's time we got up to speed with the kids and made ourselves heard!

What we've got to say is another matter entirely! but you'll be hearing from the like of myself, Luke Yerbury, and a couple of the guys here at Befour, like our script writer Arivind Abraham and our media buff Ali Maggs, as they've always got some interesting input when it comes to all things Befour.

More soon.

Luke

befour creative

www.befourcreative.com

why do I use a mac?

2011-02-08T04:25:00.001-08:00

I'll keep this short.

As a youngster I was brought up using a Mac, an Apple Classic to be precise.

One of these. It had a black and white screen, it had a 20mb hard drive, and it started up faster than my i7 with 16gb RAM.

Following this little beauty which made a pretty decent doorstop, we then went onto a Mac II, pictured below.

I remember being asked from friends and family about computer advice. People would tell me they were buying a computer, and they wanted me to recommend something, "come on Luke, you're a computer wizz" that sort of thing!
I said the same thing then that I still say to this day. You want a cheap machine for looking on the web and reading emails then buy a budget PC which you'll end up replacing in 2 years (if that). If you want to do a few more interesting things, image software, video software, layout etc... then buy a mac, invest your money now and have it last you for the next 5 years.
Frequently I got told the same thing. PC's cost less money for a better spec. Consequently, a lot of people who advised to buy a Mac, purchased a PC, which became rapidly outdated, infected with hundreds of viruses and died shortly thereafter. Did I have sympathy? Not really.

On paper, a PC may have twice the amount of RAM as the equivalent Mac on the market, it may have more hard drive space, and it may well come with the latest anti-virus software for free, unlike the Mac equivalent, and all for half the price. Is this a good deal? I'm inclined to say no.

Here's some things you need to know about PC's and Macs:

- PC's soak up a hell of a lot more juice than Macs. Their operating system is built from a maze of coding that the system has to decrypt and understand, the Mac coding is much simpler and easier for the hardware to handle. To give an analogy, if you take an engine out of a mini and put it into a double decker bus, do you think the bus will perform very well? No it won't, but putting a mini engine into a mini on the other hand will work very well indeed. The engine will output the same amount of power, but one vehicle will move a lot quicker than the other, because the way it's built allows the engine to perform to it's full potential.
Mac's don't need as much RAM or processing power as a PC to perform the same jobs as a PC and twice as fast. I'd link some speed test here, but google it and see for yourself, there's a lot of bias opinions on the subject so make up your own mind!

- Mac's don't get viruses. Not true, in the complete sense, but true in a generalistic sense. I've owned macs for 20 years and I've not had a single virus, or run any virus software either for that matter! Mac's don't come with anti-virus as generally you'll not need it. If you do get a virus then you'd be having to visit some seriously questionable content online and downloading some incredibly suspect files to manage to get a virus. Most of the time the built in systems will block this before it happens!

- Mac's will last you longer. I'd say this would be true 9 times out of 10. For example, my last laptop is being used by my girlfriend, it's now 4 or 5 years old, it's not running lighting quick but the internet works fine, it boots quick and all the other apps she needs function just fine. The laptop I owned BEFORE that one, my Dad is using. It's about 7 years old now, and I had it in uni. He's just about calling time on that thing. He's held off upgrading the system software and as a result the web browsers are becoming outdated, but still, show me someone with a 7 year old PC that's still got the ability to switch on, and I'll eat my words!

I'm done ranting, this all came about because of a recent discussion with a colleague who is switching back to PC's, and after seeing the following on a download site.

If you're going for a PC, then make sure you're well specced up, because as you can see, you're going to need it.

If anyone can sell vodka to the russians, it's Bill Gates. I wish I had the same level of business acumen.

house sale and other such grown up things.

2010-11-25T06:57:00.001-08:00

Well, it's been about 7(ish) months since I properly launched befour creative. It's been a little on the stressful side at times, but things are actually moving along in a very positive way. Next week I've got 3 meetings already set up with potential clients, and two of them have already mentioned possible film jobs too.

I had a friend call me up the other day, he's working in London, he's in the same position as me, and rather strangely, he'd be recommended to call me about some advice on finding work. Why is that odd? Well I suppose it's odd because I feel like it's something I'm still learning myself, but somehow, I'd got the reputation that this was something I was actually good at! During the call, I went through every single bit of knowledge I'd picked up along the way, regarding cold calling, virtual offices, talking about the company as a"we" and not an "I" (as I sit in the converted bedroom on my own in my girlfriends parents house). It was a strange feeling, giving out advice about things that I felt I really should be listening to myself. The very next day, I quit my job. Yeah, thats right, I quit my job, but not the film job you understand, the full time restaurant manager job I've been holding up as well as starting and running a film business at the same time. I can honestly say, it's a relief, and it's something that I'm really looking forward to. When I finish my job a week on friday, I'll be entirely dependent on my own income, which scares the crap out of me.
I'd always been told, and told people myself, that the best way of getting business is to pick up the phone and call people, one to one. Since quitting the restaurant job, the phone has never looked so appealing, and a good job too, as no I've got potentially 3 new clients as of next week!

I guess this blog is a way for me to document the development of my life as a bartender come budding cinematographer, to full blown MD of a digital film house in Glasgow. We'll see where it takes me!

On a separate note, myself and my partner have just purchased a new house. I say new, it's got decor right out of the 70's (literally, I checked) and currently the proud owner of a stairlift, but we've got some money to renovate so I'll upload some photos when I get them.

until the next time...

New front page and a sign of things to come...

2010-11-19T07:17:00.001-08:00

We recently upgraded the video hosting of our befour creative frontpage, check it out here. Basically, after being drawn to a rather clever little work around for downloading youtube videos, it became clear that I could in fact use youtube as a way of converting my videos from mpeg4 to .flv, a task which was starting to really get me worked up. Turns out you just need to open up the activity monitor, double click the link which corresponds to the video being downloaded from the youtube server and hey presto, it starts to download, all nicely converted to flash (it's easy to work out which one is the video as it's usually the one which takes a moment to full download because of it's size).

The reason this is proving useful for me, is because I use a mac, I'm not great at anything flash baed, but I do a lot of video for web which is better off in small files sizes. Perfect.

So to anyone looking to download youtube vids without third party software, my advice is to use the activity monitor in Safari. If you find the video opens up in a window instead of downloading then chances are it's an mpeg4, not flash, no idea why, although they do this for the larger formats "HD" in the size tab. If you want to download this, then right click it, copy the link, paste it into a browser based email to yourself, then open up the email from yourself, right click the link and save linked file to your desktop, boom. Done.

In other news, business is picking up, new office address and number, and considering it's only been about 7 months since our very first befour creative project ever, things are going really well! here's to the next 7 months!

That is all for now.

2010-09-23T03:06:00.000-07:00

So I don't think I'm the first person to blog about Katy Perry's boobs for sure, but after hearing sesame street decided not to run a clip featuring katy due to her boobs being 'too on display', well, I had to see what all the fuss is about!

Now...

I live in Glasgow, and this week I heard a story of a mother being arrested as she left needles and some heroin in her 5 year old sons bag which he then took to school, with all the other kids! Mother in Jail, child in care. Another day in Castlemilk.

America, really, you need to take a good long look at your cotton wool society and let kids be kids, they're not out getting a hit of smack, they're taking a cheeky look at a pretty girl of the telly showing... well not much at all! Get over it!

RUN VT!....

Jay Bharaj Playing "Staying In" @ The Stand Comedy Club 14/09/10

2010-09-22T03:17:00.000-07:00

One of our recent recordings shot at the stand comedy club inb Glasgow. This is Jay Bharaj poerforming 'staying in' on 14 September 2010

times are changing!

2010-09-22T03:01:00.001-07:00

so it's September, it's cold again, and I'm ready for the winter!

Things have changed so much recently, and in a brief chat with one of my clients, he suggested I started blogging again. I just looked at my page hits, and with over 1700 hits and over 150 hits last month, its seems silly not to utilise this traffic and at least capitalise on the eyes that I have gracing my ramblings!

So what's happening with Befour Creative? well, a lot really. Recently we've become VAT registered which I think puts us in a better position financially as our predominant work is coming from business users who are looking for promotional material and can ultimately claim the VAT back anyway!

Recently I had a call from a prospective client asking to provide a quote for some work in Glasgow. I decided early on in the conversation that I was not going to ask this person what their budget was, and for one simple reason. I think it's come a time now when we should be quoting realistically for the future stability of the business. It's all well and good quoting jobs to try and make a few quid, but if that job isn't going to make worth while profit for the business, what's the point in wasting time and resources? I'd rather let the smaller companies carry on doing that.

Every business has a benchmark, a level and a standard to which they will not fall below, which reflects the standard of work any client can expect to receive. In a conversation a few months back with some of my colleagues, it was mentioned that we should always strive to produce the best quality, most polished film services available. This is our niche, this is our USP, and as such, when people say 'that's way out of our price range', if we can't achieve this standard with the money they're offering, then I'm afraid it's time to part company. It's very hard when all you want in times like this is new business and new clients to help keep the business afloat, but in the long run, if that work has a detrimental impact on the company, surely that's more damaging?

So at the moment befour creative is on a marketing drive, we're pushing things forward and trying to get befour creative better known in the right circles. We've got a new 1-minute reel for everyone to take a look at, so if you have a minute (literally) take a look!

befour creative

2010-01-14T04:40:00.001-08:00

so as per usual it's been a while. I've taken some time out of bloggin and twitter and all that stuff to just get my head around setting up my new business and get everything on the right track. 3 months later and I'm pleased to say things are going well.

Today the website went active. http://www.befourcreative.com/, have a look and tell me what you think!

So what is befour creative? Well, befour creative is a strand of befour (www.befour.co.uk) that predominantly specialises in films for business, live performance recordings and new media solutions. It aims to exploit the latest in video technology to make the medium of film and video much more accessible to everyone.

It's only in its early days and we've got a long way to go but I think we've got off on a good footing.

Currently we're looking for freelance cameramen to put on the books should we get more work than we can cope with (fingers crossed!!) so if you have a CV and showreel then fire it across to creative@befour.co.uk.

That's all for now, I'll keep you posted on updates soon.

5:13 Twitch Article

2009-06-22T08:23:00.000-07:00

No mention of any work from us at Befour Film though! What's that all about!?

http://twitchfilm.net/site/view/paranoia-and-fear-in-perantauan-pictures-513/

"Inspired by the real-life event of the 1996 nationwide blackout in Malaysia, 5:13 tells the story of two individuals in a desperate fight against paranoia, terror and eventually each other as they struggle to face growing, inexplicable threats from the outside whilst stripped of all information and resources. Vivien (Samantha Tan) awakes on the night of her wedding anniversary to find that she is alone, her journalist husband Richard nowhere to be seen. All electricity and phone lines are dead, and her only sources of information are the sudden infrequent news reports beeping through an emergency radio frequency. The broadcasts repeatedly refer to a worsening situation on the Thai-Malaysian border, where an unexpected incident has seemingly caused widespread chaos and destruction. All Vivien knows about Richard’s whereabouts is that he is in a village near that region investigating a story about a bomoh (Malaysian shaman/witch doctor), and in her anxiety she cannot help but dread that there is some connection between the two. As the night progresses, strange noises begin to surround the outside of her home, and worry turns to terror as something gradually tries to break in. Out of nowhere, her husband’s best friend Ash (Iki Putra) comes to her aid, bearing a strange message from Richard on his phone. A message that is soon to be contradicted by one she receives herself. As the night wears on, fear and paranoia begin to take hold. Not just despair at the events going on outside the house, but the emergence of old fears that have long underlined their lives and still cripple both her and Ash. As doubts and suspicions grow, deep cuts are reopened and old wounds are freshly bled.
Slowly but surely, both Vivien and Ash learn that what you trust can hurt you."

5:13 Official Trailer

2009-06-15T01:58:00.000-07:00

The Official Trailer for our new film 5:13

TJT Grading

2009-06-11T06:28:00.000-07:00

I've recently been grading 'The Joshua Tapes'. Currently I'm using a combination of desaturation, curves and contrast in Magic Bullet Looks, and also utilizing the Colorista filter to balance some shots in certain scenes.

We've been using a 500gb Western Digital drive to hold the footage for the render. At the moment I've been having consistent problems with FCP crashing mid render. On several occasions losing parts of the render and once also corrupting my FCP project file making it useless! In future I'm sticking to the LaCie D2 range intended for pro tasks, can't go wrong! I'm pretty sure the WD drive is crashing because it can't handle the massive render time involved in grading HD footage. Also, what with the brilliant hard drive formatting options available for PC's, I've ended up ditching the NTFS 3g formatting and re-formatting the WD drive to Mac OS (Journaled) in an attempt to make it more stable. So far the crash rate has gone down a little but it's still happening.

So hard drive issues aside, I've graded the film to give it an older look, to make it much more filmic than that of standard HD footage. Combined with the depth achieved from the 35mm lens adapter, the look of the film is awesome. Once I checked over the color safe levels of the footage, I've applied a very conservative broadcast safe filter to the footage to make sure there'll be no problems once the film has been distributed. This is something we learned from the production of s'kali, our last feature film.

At the moment my only reservation is the fact that when we tried to display the film on a 42" HD LCD TV, we could see a lot of artifacting and the colors popped massively. On the flip side, the colors of the desktop displayed on this screen also popped a great deal, when the film was displayed on the two machines we've been grading with, the footage looks great, colors are balanced and there's no noticeable artifacting.

Well now the deadline has been pushed back due to the extensive render time, it'll still make the deadline for delivery, but some cunning mobile editing is in order, as so far this film has been cut and graded in London, Bristol and Glasgow so far on both Mac and PC! Never one to make our lives easy!

Below is an example of the difference in grading for a scene in the car, the left is the original cuts, the right is the finished grade.

Grade Example. Untreated (Left) Treated (Right)

Grading 513

2009-05-15T03:54:00.000-07:00

With only a few available days left to grade, I've hit a bit of a dilemma. I've got myself a copy of the latest Bullet Looks, and now I've been having a little play with the filters I've decided there's a look I've created which I prefer to my original 'steel' look I created to start off with.

I like the idea of there being a slightly purple tint to the footage, it takes you away from the usual de-sat looks and gives it a more interesting picture. The problem is this. We shot the footage using the Letus 35mm adapter, which needs a hell of a lot more light, plus it adds a grain to the footage making it more comparable to actual 35mm film. With the grading as it stands with a standard desaturated look with subtle moonlit lighting effects the grain looks good, it's done its job and there's no problem there. However, once I add further filters to the footage, the over all image is really cool, it looks great and I think it adds a lot more in terms of the whole 'Horror' feel to it. The problem is this filter bumps the grain, thus making it a lot more noticeable. Personally I quite like it, it gives the film a very gritty look which I think works, but I don't know how the others would feel about it.

The top is the original footage, the second is the current grade, the third is using Magic Bullet Looks to give it a slightly different twist, apparently at a cost.

Grading 513

2009-05-13T00:50:00.000-07:00

So I've now had the footage for 513 for a few weeks now, and finally being able to de-sat the picture and play around with the contrast finally makes all the weeks sat filming in blue lights all worth while!

The intention of the blue gels during the shoot was to create a steely moonlit look to the film in post production, I think it was somewhat easy to lose sight of this on set and looking through the rushes as it's hard to see how the final picture would come out! At the moment I've just been using the FCP filters to grade the film. As we were using a 35mm lens adapter, the light getting into the lens was dramatically reduced so I'm apprehensive to use any complex filters as it will affect the grain in the image and could look worse when projected in HD.

513 raw footage before grading

Here are 2 frames from the footage, before and after the filters have been applied, so far just 85% desaturation, contrast and 3-way color correction.

513 footage after grading

Website up!

2009-03-16T10:09:00.000-07:00

Ok so Ali prevailed and fixed my problem, nice one Ali! Turns out all my hard work in Photoshop, Imageready and Dreamweaver paid off as amazingly it worked first time!

Well as I said before, there's not much on there aside from my 2009 showreel, links and contact details, but feel free to check it out if you're really that bored!

http://www.lukeyerbury.com

website

2009-03-15T21:04:00.000-07:00

Not being one for the technical side of the internet, I'm currently trying to get some sort of further web precence by setting up a website (lukeyerbury.com). Now there's not much really to put on said website other than my most up to date showreel and some links to sites such as this one! But alas, such a simple task has come up with problems before it even managed to get off the ground.

So far I've managed to design the site (see below), which I constructed in Photoshop, then spliced in Imageready, then tweeked the HTML in Dreamweaver, working in the code to hold my youtube hosted video. Clever. I thought so.

screenshot of lukeyerbury.com... soon to be uploaded, I hope.

So the design isn't exactly going to blow your mind but it serves a purpose and I don't like to over do it when it comes to a website about myself!

At the moment when I upload the relevant files through fetch, I'm getting a message from the server telling me I don't have permissions to view it when I try it in Safari. To be honest this sort of thing baffles me, which is why I've emailed my technical magician of a friend Ali Maggs of Chaos Created to sort me out! Hopefully he'll know what to do.

Anyway, thats it for now. I'm off to test out cameras with Sony in a few weeks time in Surrey, some sort of solid state workflow they're bringing in which is supposed to be pretty good so I'll blog about that I'm sure nearer the time. Plus now I actually have some business cards too which helps when you don't have to scrawl your email on the nearest napkin using a pen you borrowed from the barman. Professional.

befour film, and befour commercial.

2009-02-22T07:49:00.000-08:00

So for the last few months, I've been spending my time building up a plan of action for the befour brand. So far we've got a new logo, and we've generated a plan to work on from now till July. I think 2009 is going to be the turning point for befour and I'm looking forward to see how the company grows. We've been working on 5:13 and The Joshua Tapes in post now for a while, and once the films are complete, we're expecting to have a brand new company identity with all the related material to boot.

How the new logo looks when placed over an image.

Brand identity is looking good. I'll be focusing on making sure the look of befour remains consistent. Ali Maggs will be taking charge of the technical side of things, sorting the website and using the most up to date and sophisticated internet wizardry to make sure we've got a site that reflects the level of skills we've got to offer as a company. We've split befour into two companies, befour film, and befour commercial. These two companies offer different services, befour film offering our creative film services, where as predictably befour commercial offers more of our bread and butter work for businesses and corporate groups. They will have individual websites, separating the two branches enough as to avoid confusing prospective clients as to exactly what it is that we are offering. The majority of our work in 2009 will be focused on befour commercial, as befour film is our creative wing, more often than not funded entirely by ourselves with no input from external companies and clients. Ultimately the three partners (Arivind Abraham, Ali Maggs ans myself, Luke Yerbury) have a goal to be able to produce creative works in film that is not restricted by the pretentious attitude in media that dictates what's the the 'norm' when it comes to shooting a movie. We want to enjoy our work, we're not interested in one-upmanship, we want to work together to make films that are new, inginuative, and exploit the most cutting edge technology in order to achieve this. Who knows, maybe one day we'll shoot something on 35, but I can imagine it'll only be for the sake of being 'old school'! HD is the way forward, and befour film will without a doubt demonstrate the possibilities of HD in all it's future work.

So it seems that these days everyone needs a website, so pretty soon I'll be registering mine. I'll be sure to put the links up once it's here. Thinking I'll be keeping it pretty basic so for now.

FILM GRAIN!!

2008-11-05T06:28:00.000-08:00

Ok so the editing process is going well for both films, although there seems to be one problem which just refuses to be put to rest. The grain.

When we first started the pre-production for these films, we decided on what equipment we were going to use to shoot them. We chose a Panasonic P2 camera with a Letus 35mm Lens adapter system, which produces a film grain look as part of the system. Since looking at the first few cuts of the trailers, certain members of the crew have mentioned the 'grain' and whether it can be cleared up! Now, obviously this is a funny statement in a way, seeing as it was something that was created in the first place for the effect of replicating that of real film stock. Anyway, although we shot both films on DVCPRO HD and they both are in High Definition, you still CANNOT under any circumstances expect the quality to be the same as that you would find from a million dollar production in Hollywood. It's a nice idea but quite simply the kit just isn't up to the job.

Since S'kali, the advances we've taken in production value are massive, the look is amazing, the shots look so much better and the entire project looks leagues ahead in terms of professionalism. Even so, a film with a budget 5% of that of a film you might see in your local cinema, the difference in quality is bound to be noticeable.

'The Joshua Tapes' and the trusty Panasonic & Letus 35mm Lens Adapter

So shooting something in HD doesn't in anyway guarantee that the final product with have the highest possible definition. The format may well support that amount of definition, but if the budget won't stretch to a £35k camera setup, plus lenses, monitors, lighting and storage, then you have to do the best you can with the budget you have available. There's room in the format to present the full glory of HD, but obviously it relies on the source delivering that definition in the first place. Do I think we did the best with the budget, of course, the footage looks amazing and the leaps forward we're making as a team is massive, and I'm really excited to see where we'll go next. Every time we produce a new film the difference is incredible, and as long as our team keeps pushing the boundaries of technology then we'll stand to produce some fine work in the years to come.

August Update 08

2008-08-21T15:52:00.000-07:00

Well, as far as the editing process is going, I'm not too sure, I've been working so hard since getting back to the UK I've not had a second to myself! Arivind will be coming down to bristol soon to oversee some of the cut with Ali (Maggs) so no doubt I'll endeavor to meet up with them both to see the cut myself when he arrives. In the mean time I've been cutting my updated showreel. The main reason for this is because in the new year I think I should be about ready to move to scotland and start work up there, given the birth of my first child!

After looking over the footage for the film I'm very confdent about the look of the films, I think they are going to look great and I can't wait to get involved in the post production process. I've been playing with some filters that I might run over some of the footage for certain scenes, only problem so far it that it seems to take about 2 hours to render 1 minute of footage. I think I need to look further into this first!

Here is a peak at my new showreel, let me know your thoughts:

Luke Yerbury Showreel 2008

Post Production woes

2008-07-29T12:48:00.000-07:00

So, a quick update regarding the cutting of the films we've recently been filming, 5:13 and The Joshua Tapes.

After the fun times we had last time cutting s'kali, it seems that these films are going to be no exception when it comes to their fair share of technical issues. Last time we cut the films, we were using the trusty G5 system with Final Cut Pro. This time around we opted for the PC system using Premiere. When for the love of god will these two systems decide that they want to work together? Considering how long this has been going on its really quite pathetic how much stuff is still not cross platform.

There's no massive problem here, the footage is fine, the only issue is that because all the P2 footage was imported using FCP, it gets encoded into a 'mac based' DVCPRO HD format. Now, until I look into this a bit more, I'm sure this is just a codec issue and can be resolved either buy getting the correct codec, or bulk converting all the files to a format the PC can understand. The former is obviously the preferred.

If anyone wants to let me know of any thoughts regarding this then please to let me know what you think. Until then I'm going to be trawling the net to find out possible solutions.

The Joshua Tapes Teaser

2008-07-12T03:38:00.000-07:00

Just a quick one this time. Here's a sneaky peak at the new film The Joshua Tapes that I've been working on following the shoot of 5:13. This is a road trip film involving 3 friends. There will be a full trailer available sometime in the not too distant future.

The Joshua Tapes Teaser

If you have any comments please pass them on. All feedback is good! Granted it is only 40 seconds though.Figured it was a good time to put up this as last night we all celebrated the end of shoot with a quite eventful wrap party! See attached photo...

always the professional

5:13 Teaser

2008-07-08T03:00:00.000-07:00

So myself and Arivind have been putting together a quick trailer for people to see online. This will be the only material available in respect to the 5:13 Horror film until we officially release the first Trailer.

Have a look if you've got time, it's only a minute long

5:13 Teaser

Here's the YouTube link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlXu8jBHIGI

So far the only comments from crew are that they don't like the font at the end... noted.

Bangkok - Thailand

2008-07-07T03:08:00.001-07:00

I was planning on writing a massive story about my trip to Bangkok,

but I've changed my mind. Instead I'll keep it short.

This place was not what I was expecting. After the years of having it glorified by the countless 'experienced' gap year student travelers, I was met with something that only disappointed somewhat. Don't get me wrong, the city itself is a beautiful place and I can see that in the past would have been an amazing place to visit, but now, not so much. Once we'd ventured out of our hostel located off Sukumvit Rd (something 25, not sure!), it was shocking to see the extent of the prostitution and how far it had come. I was told we were staying in one of the nicer locations in Bangkok, away from the hustle. But even in the pub around the corner, we were hassled for sex and other services, which only got more and more intense the further in town we went.

On this occasion I'm going to hold myself back from ranting on about the fat white guys with small thai brides, I'll be here all day.

Whilst there, myself and Arivind decided to go for a film in the cinema. We went to see Wanted, and all in all I thought it was a great movie, plenty of action to keep you interested and some good twists too. The strangest part came at the beginning, by that I mean, during the ads! We were sat in the cinema hall watching countless Thai ads that we couldn't understand, quietly laughing between us at some of the stupid ads they bang out, when all of a sudden the whole place stands up! We obviously follow suit and discover that the national anthem is being played, and its normal for this sort of shit in Thailand. Fair enough to them, they love their King over there, cos I can't imagine this happening in the UK with some addidas clad youngsters standing up and silently saluting the queen before watching the latest american pie based rubbish. Wouldn't happen.

Overall the food was great, we mostly ate in local stalls off the main roads, places filled with only Thai people, seems that if the locals eat there then it won't give you herpes just by looking at it. Beer prices were ok, seemed that they'd gotten a little more expensive but not too bad, about 100 Baht a beer, give or take. We did find a club that was frequented by just Thai youngsters, the doormen were a little reluctant to let us in but eventually they did, and it was a nice change from being hustled for money and sex all the time which you seemed to find in a lot of other bars. If anyone is going to Bangkok anytime soon then I'd recommend finding places like this by asking the people who run the hotel or hostel you're staying at, generally they seem to know there stuff, you just need to tell them you're not interested in all the sex stuff!

I'd say that budget for more that you'd expect to spend in Bangkok, it mounts up quicker than you'd think. Worth a visit, but don't think I'll be heading back anytime soon. Keep an eye on taxi's, make sure they're metered, and if you ride a tuktuk, make sure you haggle a price first; we knew our destination was 100 Baht but initially the driver tried to charge 200, seems to be the price you pay for being white.

So cambodia is the next place I'll be visiting, who knows what that will bring!...

End of Shoot

2008-06-30T04:52:00.000-07:00

Today is Monday 30th June 08,

In the early hours of Sunday, we wrapped the shoot for The Joshua Tapes. Generally, I can say the shoot went well, although, as with every shoot without exception there were problems along the way.

The shoot finished with a stint in the lovely surroundings of Sabak Burnam (I say this with and air of sarcasm... see photo)

The rather ironically named Hotel Swan Kee

The shooting was going fine in SB, we were getting all the coverage needed and the shots were looking nice. By the final few days in SB we were filming nights so the cast and crew were getting tired and a little cranky to say the least. Anyway, come the last day of shoot in SB and we pick up some of the best shots yet, real good ones, and some funny stuff for the blooper reels. Well, this would have to of course be the section of footage that the camera would decide to lose!

Once we had returned back to KL and looked over the footage on the HD's, we found that there was a chunk missing, this of course being the best footage we had shot the whole time in SB!

Let this be a warning to you pioneers of the filmmaking industry. We've been shooting two feature films on DVCPRO-HD, shooting directly to 2 16GB Panasonic P2 cards. Every time we run out of room on the cards we need to offload, which is where the macbook pro comes in handy. This process takes about 45mins on full P2's. On one occasion I noticed we'd lost some footage somewhere, and I couldn't tell you where that footage went missing either, so we decided that a new workflow had to be implemented.

The Trusty MacBook Pro + Panasonic P2

From that point on the number of clips on the camera had to be cross-referenced to the number of takes on the timecode log sheets. Following that, the number of clips in FCP before import had to be checked again, to make sure they were the same. Then once imported, the number of clips found in the capture scratch needed to be checked to make sure all had been imported.

It seems that if for some reason the camera is switched off or disconnected during import into FCP, then it struggles to re-import all the clips again when the process is repeated. I noticed this as when re-importing some clips, FCP was picking up the wrong timecode and importing clips that I already had imported. The only solution was to delete the clips I already had in my capture scratch then force FCP to see the timecode of the remaining clips.

So, even following all of these implemented procedures, we still lost some footage. Can I explain to you why? well... no. At the moment I am putting it down to the possibility that sometimes when the P2 camera is connected to the Macbook, it only mounts ONE of the TWO cards that are in the camera. Meaning that only half of the footage is being imported. Thus meaning yet another step to take into consideration when importing footage; take note of how many drives appear on your desktop!

So enough about my rant about P2's, offloading, FCP and losing footage! It's all in the past now. Moving on to what's coming up.

Tomorrow is tuesday, myself and Arivind are off into central KL to do some shopping, we've been taking it easy since finishing the shoot as we're so tired from 6 weeks of hardcore filming 2 feature films!

In an informal meeting in the pool, Arivind and myself were discussing the future of film production. Seems that the film industry is not doing well at all when it comes to funding. So tell me something I don't know! If we're going to stay in the industry then its time to start coming up with ideas that make money and stop chasing dreams of shooting the brilliant visions that pop into our heads at a whim. We have all these ideas of shooting films that express the feelings and experiences we're going through ourselves, but realistically, is this what people want to see? I don't know, maybe, but are they willing to part with money to watch it or just wait till it comes out on TV? Hey, these days they might as well just download it!

So even if we come up with ideas that could cost millions to make and genuinely bring the people to the screens, is it enough to make a profit and keep us afloat? I don't think it is. The more we spend, the more we need to bring back to finally make a profit. Why not just save some grey hairs and come up with some scripts that will cost a fraction to produce in the first place!

For me and the guys at Befour and Perantauan, we'll be working on some projects that will be made from the smallest of budgets. We'll use actors who want to work for free, crew who want to pay their own way just to be on set. The reason behind this, is because as producing video becomes easier by the day, any old shit can make it to an audience, however big or small, seems that its the decent material that will truly make the cut, not just the shit scripts that get the budget cos some fat millionaire in the US doesn't have anything better to do with his money.

Look at Chad Vader, millions of fans worldwide yet it was made for next to no money by a couple of guys and put on youtube. It's time for Befour and Perantauan to start producing the material that people actually do want to see, original material, produced by people who actually see the industry as more than just a money making venture. Obviously we all know that a project needs to make money to stay afloat. Rather than just throwing money into the marketing of a film simply to make the profit for a mediocre excuse for a script, we've got to start increasing the number of films made for the passion. Now the technology is catching up and allowing us to do so, its time to let the audiences dictate what we see in the cinema halls.

The amazing new film Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Well, we have a few good ideas for films that will be going into the early stages of pre-production fairly soon, so maybe once these films finally hit the digital screens things will have progressed somewhat! The days of such shit commissioning as Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull will be firmly in the past. We can only hope.

I will say this, for the love of god please leave Back to the Future as the trilogy it was meant to be, please.

2008-06-14T09:06:00.000-07:00

Here's some photos from the locations of the film, The Joshua Tapes, I'm currently working on in and around Kuala Lumpur.

one of the villages we're using for a lot of the car dialogue sequences

Arivind Abraham giving diretion, with Benji Lim on camera

One of the shots we used in the film. A catchment lake outside KL

Brand New Blog!

2008-06-14T07:56:00.000-07:00

Right, I've set up a blog, because, well, any sane person in media who needs some form of coverage should do so I guess! So here it is.

For now, don't expect much, but once I get things rolling you can officially watch this space!

Luke