And the Oscar goes to ….


 

This week I unleashed my inner Steven Spielberg to produce three films to support one of the projects I have been working on.

Before you get too impressed these were not in the class of ET, Jurassic Park or Jaws, but mini-films featuring pianos. However, despite the more mundane subject material and lack of dramatic special effects, I felt weirdly proud as I posted them on YouTube and attached them to my finely crafted press release.

Those of you who have been following my blog will know I am providing some additional communications support to Hall For Cornwall for the next few months. HFC have loaned some of their equipment to local organisations while they are closed, and I thought it would be interesting to find out where it had gone and who it was being used by.

Having discovered that three pianos were being loaned to local churches and a secondary school, I arranged to visit the temporary homes to find out what their owners thought about the instruments – and to film them in use.

After being welcomed at St Mary’s Church in Penzance, St Ia Church in St Ives and Mounts Bay Academy, I filmed each of the pianos on my iPhone and interviewed each institution’s musical directors before returning home to produce my cinematic masterpieces.

Having been assured that iMovie was easy to use, I watched the obligatory YouTube tutorial and set to work. Several hours, and quite a lot of coffee and strong language later, my three 90-second films were ready for broadcast. Having gained approval from the three organisations and HFC, I uploaded them to YouTube and added them to the press release I sent out to the waiting media.

As a journalist I usually use words to create images, so having to think about visuals, camera angles and cutaways was a different challenge. Making sure the camera was in focus and the sound was recorded properly was hard enough without worrying that I had missed some key shots.

But practice makes perfect, and my efforts have left me keen to try again. I am already planning my next cinematic masterpiece which will feature winding a clock (trust me, it will be more exciting than you think) so watch this space…