Exhibition video production
Recently I was commissioned by Digital Drama to film and edit a variety of exhibition video content for The National Archives‘ launch of their 2019 Cold War season which runs from April to November. Their requirement was for some short films to be produced and installed into The National Archives exhibition space and uploaded to their online channels as part of their new exhibition ‘Protect and Survive: Britain’s Cold War Revealed’.
Exhibition video filming
In preparation for the Exhibition video production, filming took place at The National Archives in Kew, London. Working with Digital Drama’s documentary Producer Alison Ramsey I filmed, lit and sound recorded four interviews. The interviews featured The National Archives exhibition curator Mark Dunton, former Director General of MI5 Dame Stella Rimington, author and historian Dominic Sandbrook, and Dr Matthew Grant from the University of Essex. I also filmed a series of additional shots of relevant content held in The National Archives including some of the historic documents that are featured in the interviewees’ stories. These cover such events as the Cuban Missile Crisis, spying and espionage, the threat of nuclear war and the experiences of the generations affected by them.
This National Archives exhibition includes a series of talks and events including the presentation of these videos which have been designed to add visual interest to visitors to the exhibition space and to help explain the reality of life in Britain under threat during the Cold War. The main 13-minute film is for showing on a large screen with a selection of shorter filmed stories showing on smaller screens. Shorter trailers and related stories can also be found online via their social media.
Exhibition video post-production
The main 13-minute film features a series of interviews (described above). These were intercut with Pathe News archive footage of some of the dramatic events which occurred at that time and also the filmed content from the National archives own library. Subtitles were added to all of the exhibition videos in the Eurostile font to make them more accessible to a wider audience. Once we had completed the work of creating the final edit of the main film, it was then professionally sound mixed by Dubbing Mixer Luke Williams, one of my former colleagues during our time working together at the BBC. As well as mixing the contributors’ sound and the added music, Luke mixed in some additional sound effects to help bring the stories to life.
Videos for social media
In addition to the delivery of all the exhibition videos, I was also commissioned to edit a further series of promotional trailers to help promote the free exhibition across social media. These are 1920 x 1080 16:9 aspect ratio trailers and also square 1080 x 1080 edited trailers tailored for the various formats of social media some of which are being for paid advertising. An interesting ‘behind the scenes’ blog in which Mark Dunton comments on the exhibition film being well-filmed and edited can be read here.
Promotional trailer
I began my editing career as a promo editor for the BBC, so it’s always great to be able to continue to cut fast-paced promos and trailers (as the example linked to this page) as well as longer documentaries. If you would like any help with your exhibition video production, please get in touch.
