Anna + Neil

So, last Saturday we filmed Anna and Neil getting married. The Sun shone and the sky was blue. Indeed it was a glorious day. The bride and groom were so excited to be tying the knot after a two year engagement that their excitement was sort of infectious. I think that the mark of a really moving wedding is when, as the filmmaker, you find yourself blubbering a bit through the wedding ceremony. This was one of those. Father Cooper the Priest had known Anna since her childhood and so the ceremony was really personal and accessible. There was a warmth and familiarity which made it fun.

Then we headed over to The Grange Hotel for the photographs. This is an amazing time of the year for light. On a Sunny day, the shadows that are cast by bare trees is magical and mysterious. Watch the trailer and you’ll see what I mean. Natural patterns caused by branches. I love it.

Painting the Town Blue!

Yesterday, I spent another day with Unique Kidz and Co. They asked me to come along to photograph some of their activities for World Autism Awareness Day. I suggested that instead of still images, I worked on a sixty second film of the day. World Autism Awareness Day was the first day of the Easter Kids’ Clubs. Everyone was working on activities to make things blue - they were hand printing, cake making, branch painting and balloon launching in blue. Everyone was very busy. I just spent the day mingling, filming a bit here and a bit there and then going back to the staff room to transfer my footage and drop it into the timeline. My idea for a sixty second edit came from a Vimeo weekend challenge a few weeks ago where they challenged people to make a film using clips that were just one second in length. Now a second doesn’t feel like it should be very long. However, when I saw some of the results of the challenge, I liked the format - yes you really can tell a story in a sequence of 1 second clips - and a second lasts quite a long time. So, we tried it with Unique Kidz - the story of a day in a very short burst of shots which are all high in content value. It was easy to edit and I tried to keep it free and easy - I think it works.

Unique Kidz and Co is a pretty amazing charity run by some rather amazing people. At the end of the day, the young people launched balloons - they were very excited. It took a while to set up and they did really well not to accidentally release them before the count down. I think that the shot of them releasing the balloons is fab - especially when you see them all turn and jump around with excitement as they watch their balloons fly away…. what we don’t show, but what was rather hilarious, was that the balloons pretty much all got caught in the trees at the edge of the playground. The power of film eh? You would never know!

In the evening, we went back and filmed Lancaster Museum - it turned blue for WAAD. Marvellous, marvellous!

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Jenny + Kevin

Last weekend we filmed Jenny and Kevin’s wedding at Patrick Preston Church near Endmoor and then on to Lancaster Golf Club. The wind howled, the snow drifted, and it was a brilliant day. Preston Patrick Church is an interesting church right at the top of a lane, right at the top of a hill. It’s quite remote - even the guests that came on the bus had to walk up the last quarter of a mile to get there. This was a joint package between Gorgeous Media and Tall Order Photography. We always enjoy filming with Phil. He really knows how to bring the smiles out of people - meanwhile, we skulk around in the shadows, hardly noticeable - which makes us a fairly good team on the day. When we had had our meetings with Jenny and Kevin, Kevin was determined that he would not smile on the day and that he did not think that a speech was on the cards either: On the day, he had been won over! He smiled away, and looked like one of the happiest grooms I have seen, AND he did a wonderful speech - which even had himself welling up!

Towards the end of our day, Jenny surprised Kevin by singing him the Adele Song, You Make Me Fell My Love. At the end of her performance, second camera Denise said to me, “those two are totally in love with each other!”. She’s right - you can see it in the edit.

http://www.tallorderphotography.co.uk/weddings/

Shirley and Brian (who?)

We filmed a wedding last Saturday at the Burnside Hotel in Windermere. Shirley had booked us way back in September - she had to be organised as it was a long distance wedding - Shirley and her family are from Dundee and Brian’s family are from Wigan. They were marrying in Windermere because it was somewhere in between (although the split was more like 80% - 20% as Shirley reminded the best man when he gave his speech!)

The wedding was a gorgeous one. It started out a dull, rainy day, but after the ceremony, the sun shone and the skin turned blue - we even went for an ice-cream with our bride and groom along Lake Windermere. An interesting combination of Northern Soul and kilts, it was an emotional day, but clearly a happy one. I was just relieved that Scotland vs England wasn’t a Six Nations fixture for the day - that could have made for an interesting part of the day to film. Good luck to you Shirley and Brian - thanks for letting Owen and me be part of it! x

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Unique Kidz and Co

I have just re-edited the Unique Kidz and Co film that I produced last year. Unique Kidz and Co are just going from strength to strength - mopping up awards and accolades left, right and centre - and rightly so. They are amazing. Anyway, the Government has not got hold of them and wants to showcase them on David Cameron’s Big Society website. They could only accept 5 minutes of film though. That is a challenge - to get a 10 minute masterpiece down to 5 was hard work. Which bits to leave out? In a way, I turned the task around and just tried to make a judgement about which bits needed to stay in - easy - the kids are the stars, so they made the cut. Have a watch of the film. It’s powerful. They are an amazing bunch. Proud to have been part of it. Would love to continue to be part of it. And I suppose with the odd donation of my time, I still am!

Lancaster University Lectures

Last month I filmed a Lecture by the Maths and Stats Dept from Lancaster University. It was delivered by John Whitehead and was the first of six lectures to be delivered at Lancaster secondary schools over the next few months. That’s what I love about this job: I know very little about statistics, although I did cover it a bit whilst at University - but not in great detail. I have distant memories of probabilities and tossing coins but that’s where it ends. I think I can safely say that had I not been commissioned to film these lectures, I would never consider statistics ever again. But once you get thrown into these situations, your world just gets a bit bigger. I always do my best to engage with what I am filming - this was a challenge! I went home with a head full of the impact of statistics on medical research. Things that I would not normally ever consider, I was forced to consider. This year is the International Year of Statistics. Follow this link to find out more...

Caroline and Darren