Iceland comes to life in High Definition
February 28th, 2009 3:43am

We've had a busy few months here at HD Heaven, and we're particularly proud to have recently completed post-production and grading of an RGB 4:4:4 super-high-definition Feature for celebrated compser Philip Clemo who came up from London to finish his production "The Air Holds Still On My Breath" in HD Heaven's huge main suite.

In the Summer of 2008, Philip spent two weeks in Iceland filming this major new work. The project, shot on HDCAM SR full high definition video, is a collection of abstract and ambiguous mood paintings to compositions from his highly acclaimed new album ‘The Rooms’, described as ‘quietly mesmerising’ by The Times in the UK.

The film, 42 minutes in duration, uses the hugely diverse Icelandic landscape of ice and fire as a metaphor for different states of being, echoing the journeys taken on the album. It captures contrasting landscapes, weather and lighting conditions, textures, scale, speeds and distances, representing the contrasting moods on The Rooms.

The project was shot using specialist camera technology to capture extreme slow-motion details of geothermal activity and waterfalls, and from the air using an ultra-smooth gyro-stabilised camera mounted on a helicopter.

The footage is absolutely stunning, and we feel that the final product reflects Philip's passion for quality imagery.

We've also completed another series of Fifth Gear and The Gadget Show for North One Television Midlands, and we're working on programme 2 of The Gadget Show's 11th series right now.

Add to that a pop video for local Brummie band One Eye and a short feature film for the same band, plus a smattering of TV Commercials and that's all conspired to keep us busy little bees.

Thanks for reading, and drop us a line if you think that HD Heaven could help you in your next production.

Cameron speaks clearly in High Definition
October 10th, 2008 10:10am

When party aides needed a facilities house in Birmingham to edit Conservative Leader David Cameron's Party Political Broadcast for national transmission last week they naturally turned to HD Heaven. 

Senior Editor Tony Quinsee-Jover used one of HD Heaven's three Avid DS Version 10 suites to complete the Hi-Def edit and graphics manipulation and create the deliverables. 

With less than 24 hours before transmission HD Heaven also used their status as The Midlands' representative for Adstream to digitally deliver the final product to S4C in Cardiff, eliminating any worries about the vagaries of couriers and road traffic.

More HD
February 19th, 2008 7:27am

We seem to have run out of rooms to accommodate our Nitrises (Nitri?)!

    Yes, for we have just started beta-testing the spanking new Avid¦DS v.9 kit, giving us greater compatibility for film DI work, including RED camera workflows. This kit is so clever in fact, that pretty soon, we think our editors will be redundant.... and we'll probably just get in an automatic machine to replace the tea boy.
Last week, DS Nitris blew out its tenth candle, with HD Heaven beta testing since day one, and now having three (yes 3!) full-blown DS suites.

    Whilst Japan's progression into the Ultra High Definition era (16 x HD) is underway, the UK production scene in contrast is seeing more HD projects gradually filtering through, albeit with a sluggish pace.

This month, our HD deck is spinning the tapes to the tune of a pop promo requiring a simple level-correction grade as well as a 74 min feature film for grading, roto and graphics.
Oh and occasionally we do unexpected HD editing when some of our TV shows accidentally have the DV<>HD switch set to HD on their Z1 !

    Finally, this month we say hello to Matt who is joining the crew of the good ship HD Heaven as an assistant editor taking over from Joe.

Two Suites Now at HD Heaven
July 12th, 2007 3:37am

Winter Update
February 12th, 2007 6:15am

The past six months has seen us busy with a range of projects from golf bags to insurance, golf shoes, furniture, holiday apartments, gardening products, double glazing, Tour De France bumpers, Birmingham City Council promotions as well as a further two series of Fifth Gear and Gadget Show, along with their worldwide re-versionings.  We even found the time to make the shiny new title sequence for Fifth Gear.

Last week saw the start of the online and grade of 450 minutes of Gadget Show Series 6, which we have continued to work closely with since Series One - providing the show with a look, special effects and their legendary competition giveaways.

Further projects on the Heavenly Horizon include 600 mins of Fifth Gear Series 11, 600 minutes of National Geographic's successful series I Didn't Know That, BBC's Victoria Cross 2 along with its Behind The Scenes/Making Of, and The Independence Party's broadcast manifesto. That's a total of over 1700 minutes broadcast programming in the next few months - so just about enough to fill an hour's airtime on a BSkyB multiplex then.

We are currently in the process of installing a second AVID¦DS Nitris suite to accommodate this work.

We're Not Sleeping
June 9th, 2006 9:48am

Well.... it's been a long time since our last update: eight months, 26 x Fifth Gears, 20 x Gadget Shows, over 100 commercials, 5 x Channel 4 Education '100 hottest Web Searches', one new premises, a new 64-bit machine, several corporate videos, a National Geographic commission, a 6ft trampoline (which doubles up as a high-definition projector screen if you flip it on it's side and get someone to hold it against the wall) and 3.2TB of storage later and we find ourselves back in the summer again.  Apart from that, we've just been sitting around on our comfy leather sofas sipping tea and moaning about the weather.

We are pleased to announce to have (almost) completed the online and grade of series nine of Five TV's Fifth Gear on our new AVID DS Nitris 8.0, a 64-bit finishing system - a bit like having a 'Faster' button on ye conventionale machine.  To the best of our knowledge, this is the first UK series to be edited exclusively on 64-bit architecture.

Over the summer we will be completing the online and grade for the following:

• National Geographic's first UK commission for North One TV- "I Didn't Know That" - a scientific look into the secret life of everyday objects
• BBC's follow up to Victoria Cross, fronted by Jeremy Clarkson
• Worldwide reversionings of Fifth Gear and The Gadget Show.

Around these, no doubt a few TV commercials; and apart from that, we also hope to grade our skins with whatever the UK's weather has in store for us.

Over the Christmas period we were kept very busy moving into our spacious yet cozy new premises (which by the way Santa DIDN'T pay for).  We are now situated on a ground floor (no more lifts!), offering two offline suites, an online suite, a reception, an office, a kitchen, two WCs and a shower room.  Specifically refurbished to our own design with 1GB Ethernet backbone, audio/visual/control links around the building, and sound-proofing, we work closely with The Audio Suite who occupy the first floor, in a digital environment (although it has been known for people to use the stairs - don't know why).

Don't forget to watch this space for piccies of the building and the virtual tour- which we'll be uploading soon.  Or you could just drop by and have a look in person - we think you'll be impressed.

Get Into Fifth Gear
October 3rd, 2005 7:26am

This week marks the beginning of the eighth series of the successful 5TV car programme Fifth Gear as HD Heaven starts work on the conform and grade of programme 1 which airs a week today - 10th October 2005.

Another series of 10 shows, HD Heaven was once more chosen by producers North One Television Midlands for Video Post of the complete series.

Particular care is taken with grading Fifth Gear to give a consistent and colourful look, whilst avoiding any accusations of being derivative of 'that other' car show!

The Gadget Show is now airing
October 3rd, 2005 7:15am

Series Three of The Gadget Show starts airing from tonight, 3rd October 2005. 

This is the first of 11 programmes in the new series, produced for North One Television Midlands, part of the All Three Media group.

HD Heaven have completed the Video Post on every Gadget Show programme to date - creating many effects shots, complex keying and graphics as well as some pretty radical grading.

Fancy a new home in Spain or Brazil?
August 11th, 2005 7:27am

If so, one of the 34 commercials recently completed by HD Heaven for Koala TV/Smart Media which are advertising property shows around the country should fit the bill.

34 commercials in one day plus an approval DVD?  Sure, no problem!

Mega Edit
August 11th, 2005 7:19am

HD Heaven have recently completed video post of six 45 minute Megastructure programmes for North One Television Midlands for Five TV.  Edited from material originally commissioned in the US plus original extra footage, they cover subjects as diverse as The World's Strangest Airport to The World's Biggest Aircraft Carrier.  Destined for transmission from 22nd August they were written and directed by Julie Richards.

Spirit Of Soho comes to Brum
July 26th, 2005 6:02am

We've pasted below a copy of a press release that is currently doing the rounds.

Two companies will shortly be bringing to Birmingham the 'Spirit of Soho', when their combined, new, state-of-the-art film and television postproduction facility becomes fully operational.
It will mean that at last the UK's second city has a commercially-available centre of postproduction excellence equal to the very best facilities available anywhere - including the industry capital, London – all under one roof.

The Audio Suite (UK) Ltd and HD Heaven Ltd, both presently based at the Custard Factory, Digbeth, are making a bold statement about the viability of Birmingham as a Programme-making location, by offering the type of top-end Audio and Video facilities demanded by the most discerning of Producers. The two companies already provide exclusive sound and picture mixing and editing facilities for prime-time television programmes such as ‘5th Gear’, ‘The Gadget Show’ and ‘The World’s Greatest’; as well as for various dramas, documentaries and current affairs; and cinema and television commercials.

The new studio complex is being architect-designed, constructed and bespoke-fitted in partnership with The Custard Factory, considered by many to now be the UK’s premier media-village, and will be in close proximity to the existing Custard Factory site.

The new facility will offer three cutting-edge sound studios, one of which will be a 48-track Dolby Digital mixing theatre, plus a 24 track Dolby Surround studio, complete with a dedicated voice-studio. Pictures, at HD Heaven, will be taken care of with Avid off-line video editing and a fully-loaded Avid DS Nitris on-line video editing.  Both the sound and video studios have full High-Definition capability.

With contracts recently exchanged between the two companies and The Custard Factory subsidiary CFNX Ltd, work will shortly be commencing on-site, with the first clients already booked-in for January 2006.

Managing Director of The Audio Suite, Neil Hillman MPSE – a member of the American academy of Motion Picture Sound Editors – explains how combining with HD Heaven came about: “The innovative use of new technology between HD Heaven and ourselves gave us the ability to move data quickly and securely between the picture and sound stages, traditionally an area where work-flow can slow right down. Our tapeless methods of moving broadcast sound and pictures meant that not only could we speed up the mechanics of the post-production process - with no loss of quality - but we could also demonstrate real cost savings as a result. This has proved to be extremely successful for us, and we have found ourselves co-operating on projects more and more. So, logically, it seemed to make complete sense for our clients to have all their needs catered for under one roof, allowing us to further enhance the services we can offer”.

HD Heaven’s Tony Quinsee-Jover added: "As well as the obvious logistical advantages of HD Heaven and The Audio Suite being under one roof, the opportunity afforded by the bespoke design of the new premises is allowing us for the first time to offer our clients an environment which matches the excellence of our product.

"From the innovative double-height reception area to the intimacy of quiet relaxation areas our clients will feel as pampered and well cared for as their programmes. We have given much thought to what clients need when attending a post-production session, and no expense has been spared with the provision of comfortable seating, high-speed internet access, fax machines, telephones and much more to make our clients feel as relaxed and contented as possible.

"Having both companies under the one roof makes it easy for a client to pop from one facility to the other, approving a special effects shot one moment, and a surround-sound mix the next.

"Birmingham has needed a top-end facilities house to match anything that London has on offer for many years. Finally, with the completion of this project, it will have one."

Wowee! No updates yet this year!!
June 1st, 2005 6:19am

Okay, we'll correct that situation.

It's amazing, when you get busy, you forget to actually tell the world how busy you are, so here's a list of things wot we have dun so far in 2005 (in no particular order).

Another series of The Gadget Show, plus worldwide versions.

Another series of Fifth Gear, worldwide versions to be reversioned in the next few weeks.

Two more series of Fifth Gear have been commisioned to start later in the year, doubling in length from a 30 minute programme to 1 hour.

Two Harley Davidson commercials reversioned for UK network broadcast for The Gyst.

Numerous (okay, around 50) TV Commercials for Carlton Midlands.

Special effects for the last episode of ITV's Date My Daughter.  This was for Hotbed Media.

68, yes, that's SIXTY-EIGHT variants of a Computeach commercial for local agency RBH. Interestingly, these were the first ever commercials which we delivered digitally via the internet.  Converted to high-quality Mpeg2 files (better than DVD) we simply drop them into an ftp space from where they are distributed around the country.  With 32 different stations for transmission, to have supplied tapes would have been a logistical nightmare (not to mention prohibitively expensive).

4 more 1 hour "World's Greatest" programmes for 5TV.

Oh yes... and please say hello to Joe, our newest member of staff.  Joe is a recent graduate and is working his way through the company, learning DS, Xpress, and of course, how to make coffee!

That's it for now, and we'll try not to leave it 6 months before the next update.

A Gadget for Christmas
November 25th, 2004 12:15pm

HD Heaven have just completed final post production on a 1 hour Christmas special for Five TV. 

The Gadget Show Christmas Special airs on December 6th - just in time for you to rush out and buy all those fascinating gadgets you never knew you needed until you saw this show.

HD Heaven did all the grading, effects, compositing and graphics work for this North One Television Midlands Production.

This Gadget Show Christmas Special is just a taster for the new series of The Gadget Show which is already in production.  The series starts post production at HD Heaven in January.

HD Heavenly Country
October 20th, 2004 6:27am

Countryfile, the popular BBC rural and environmental series hosted by John Craven recently came to HD Heaven to "add gloss" to one of their stories. 

"One Man and his Geese", a 30 minute item covering three days in the life of a Drover, needed that extra polish that HD Heaven excel in, and the producers were extremely happy with the cost-effective end result.

You can catch One Man and his Geese as a standalone documentary, plus in three parts within the next month's Countryfile.

RTS Award
October 11th, 2004 9:19am

Desi DNA, which we made for the BBC earlier in the year has just won "Best Lifestyle Programme" at Saturday 8th October's Midlands Royal Television Society Awards.

The Victoria Cross - For Valour, another HD Heaven post-produced programme, was just pipped to the post at the same awards.

Old News carried over from 2003
October 7th, 2004 1:58am

Three series of Fifth Gear for North One Television Midlands (formerly Chrysalis TV), airing on Five TV. The work includes graphics, compositing, special effects, audio sweetening and more.

Two "Best of Fifth Gear" programmes

Martin Brundle's Supercars - a sell-through DVD starring Martin Brundel wherein he tests and evaluates the top ten 200mph+ Supercars in the world

The Victoria Cross, for Valour - a one hour documentary for BBC2 which was very well received. We graded the complete programme and added a few subtle enhancements for special effects sequences..

"100 Worst Britons" for Hotbed Media aired on C4. Originally booked to grade the programme over two days, last-minute legal changes meant that our workload expanded enormously to ensure that the programme was completed on time. Grading, Online, Graphics, TX supply. Over 100 hours total split between two editors in one week.

"100 Worst Pop Records" - another extravaganza for Hotbed/C4. This time 3 hours duration. Grading, Captions, Effects.

Over 100 TV Commercials for a wide range of clients, airing on a variety of stations throughout the UK. Notable among these was a whole raft of 10sec, 20sec, and 30sec commercials for Play.Com, the online DVD and CD supply company, plus commercials for the Police, Fire Brigade, and several local councils.

Two Digital Short dramas, one funded by the Screen Council West Midlands, the other for Television Junction.

Malai Monologues for BBC3. An ethnic mix of comedians out on the street, entertaining passers by. A series of six 15 minute "shorts". Having been transmitted once already, by popular demand they are currently airing once again.

On the strength of the success of Malai Monologues, we made a short series of 4x30 minute episodes of Malai Presents... for BBC2.

Desi DNA - another run of six programmes for BBC2. Aimed at the young "Desi" audience, this magazine series required many effects from our extensive range of plug-ins as well as some pretty intensive colour grading.

The Gadget Show - a brand new 10 part series which "road-tests products in fun and inventive ways". It's been reviewed as "Tomorrow's World with attitude" and is both fun and informative; cutting through the hype to bring you the lowdown on some of today's more esoteric (and not so esoteric) gadgets. We're offering full conform, grade, sfx and delivery of this series for North One Television.