The Fire Service College

The Fire Gateway is a web portal which has been developed to allow businesses and the general public to access, and interact with, an array of fire-related services on-line. The Fire Service College are the responsible body for the Fire Gateway. Nomos Media were responsible for providing a full-time 1st line support function for the Gateway, for providing an interface between the public and all 44 Fire and Rescue Services in England, for managing all 3rd party suppliers and contracts and for designing and managing all developments across the Portal.

We provided Nomos with a short testimonial for use at trade shows and events. Nomos, being a web technologies organisation specialising in the production of provision of internet based services filmed the content on the Canon 7D and provided the footage on hard drive. We ingested, transcoded and creatively edited the footage to a 3 minute video and delivered on both HD and SD.

Picture courtesy of Fire Service College

Greek TV Commercial

WIND Hellas is today one of Greece’s largest telecommunications operators with an annual turnover of €1,26 billion for 2008 and more than 6 million customers in mobile and fixed telephony as well as in broadband services.

We were asked to provide recordings for this Greek TV commercial by our friends at DNA Labs which aired in Greece throughout the month of December. They approached us in the final hour, requesting a recording of English children singing the traditional "1-2 Buckle My Shoe" rhyme. We managed to turn the recording around the same day and deliver via our FTP account, an edited recording the next day. The guys at DNA Labs did a wonderful job with sound on the final commercial.

"The client was super happy with the latest version, thanks a lot" [George Lowtronik Ramantanis, Mixer/Sound Designer DNA Labs, Greece]

Lab Consultancy for Dolby and Technicolor

At the end of November we were asked to provide consultancy services to Technicolor on behalf of Dolby Laboratories to check and ensure the operation of the optical sound camera installed at the Technicolor Pinewood Site. The visit was part of Technicolor's ongoing program with Dolby to maintain the highest quality of soundtrack photographic processing on motion picture film and is carried out as part of Dolby Laboratories' Lab and Camera Certification program.

We provided a full check and test of the optical sound camera along with process control training for Dolby personnel resulting in an improvement to the already high quality soundtrack reproduction. A full report was provided for the certification records and future reference.

Business of the Month Award

Today, Dreambase Studios was presented with the Business of the Month Award, sponsored by Marriott Hotels. We were very happy to receive this award after only 3 months of trading. It was a pleasant surprise and we were delighted for the recognition. We were treated to a wonderful 3-course meal and champagne reception.

Wootton Bassett Repatriation

A grey mist hung over the market town of Wootton Bassett and seemed to match the mood of the people who lined the High Street. Click here to read the full article:

Filming this particular repatriation, the plan was to turn around a newscast edit in the same day using Sony's EX1 tapeless workflow. We were able to work quickly and efficiently ingesting the XDCAM clips into the workstation and edit seamlessly. We also discovered a neat little add-on for the firefox browser that allows you to capture flash content from websites such as YouTube. We used the Flash Video Resources add-on to capture some stock footage for the newscast. We then up-scaled the footage to HD using MPEG Streamclip which worked well.

Installation of Plasma

We have been very busy juggling clients and the completion of the studio installation. Today was the arrival of our 50" HD Plasma. It really does look great and will be a huge improvement for the clients, offering a fantastic HD picture whilst mixing 5.1 soundtrack.

Anyone Can Play the Guitar

Oxford born Jon Spira was introduced to the medium of film by his dad and one of his earliest childhood memories is assisting his father in the creation of short animations using Super 8mm film. Since returning to Oxford Jon has been engaged in an ongoing documentary project which seeks to trace the history of Oxford's music scene over the last 30 years. To read the full article, click here:

Jon Spira and editor Ben Lavington Martin visited the studio with a rough cut of the feature music documentary "Anyone Can Play the Guitar". We offered advice on the sound post production and Jon was happy with the consultation. He is currently in the process of trying to secure funding to complete post-production for sound mixing and legal and licensing fees for the feature-length documentary and we look forward to working with Jon in the near future.

Our Time Alone

Our Time Alone is short film by Gurchetan Singh (dir) / Hank Starrs (prod) for Blank Slate, part of the UK Film Council's New Cinema Fund Digital Shorts Scheme. Blank Slate is a UK-wide digital short film scheme supporting the next generation of cutting-edge black, Asian and minority ethnic filmmaking talent. Blank Slate is produced by B3 Media in partnership with the UK Film Council and Arts Council England.

Dreambase Studios provided complete sound post-production for this short film involving foley recording, ADR, sound design and mix as well as creating a DVD working copy for the B3 Media tour.

"We really love what you guys have done with the film. I look forward to working with you again very soon" [Hank Starrs - Producer]

To view the trailer, click here.



B3 Media Blank Slate Showcase @Encounters Short Film Festival
Bristol Watershed 2009

November Press Release

Today was our first press release for Dreambase Studios Limited. Since starting the company in September 2009 we have completed the sound post production on a UK Film Council / B3 Media funded short film, sound post production work for Dolby Laboratories, editing webfilm for a number of companies as well as providing sound consultancy for the National Film and Television School.

Dolby 5.1 Mix for IBC

IBC is the leading annual event for professionals involved in the creation, management and delivery of entertainment content. IBC prides itself on the highest technical standards in its demonstrations and conference facilities. It could not do this without the active support of many companies who provide equipment and expertise including Dolby.

Dreambase Studios was commissioned to re-mix a total of eighteen, 5.1 soundtracks from various broadcast and film sources to provide a 5.1 showreel piece for Dolby to demo at the IBC event.

"Great job, easy to work with. Delivered on time and on budget" [Mick Dwyer - Senior Engineer, Broadcast Systems, Dolby Laboratories Inc]

Ubisoft: Assassin's Creed II

Ubisoft is a leading international developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment products.

Dolby approached Dreambase Studios for the editing of elements and HD title overlays of Ubisoft's 'Assassin's Creed' demo pod at the IFA consumer electronics show. (A showcase for innovation and the technology of tomorrow.)

Picture courtesy of Ubisoft Entertainment.

Radio In Schools

Radio In Schools is an independent, not for profit organisation. It offers a safe podcasting platform to allow schools, children and a new generation of listeners to get their voice heard in their own communities.

Dreambase Studios provided 100% post production creating a promotional video for the nationwide launch of Radio In Schools. A high definition version was used at trade shows and a standard definition version for the Radio In Schools website. We provided video capture, ingest, upscaling, transcoding and editing as well as sound design, mix and music composition delivered to a very tight schedule. The promo can be viewed in full on Dreambase Studios' Vimeo and YouTube channels.

"I love the ident, sounding fantastic and really like the direction of it." [Melissa Thom - Director, Radio In Schools]

Picture courtesy of Radio In Schools.

Welcome To Dreambase Studios

Today was the first day of trading for Dreambase Studios Limited. We work in what was the birthplace of Wiltshire Radio. The studios were designed and built by Grimshaw Architects in 1982 [see pics below] and were home to the radio station as it re-branded to GWR FM in 1985, after a merger with Radio West.

The studio construction offers well isolated rooms, minimising cross talk with good acoustic performance for reference mixing and with the aid of sand filled pods in the exterior of the building, the noise floor is very low indeed. This makes it perfect for ADR and Foley recordings allowing maximum dynamics to the source audio.

For us these are exciting times indeed and as the studios (as we!) evolve we hope to provide production, post-production, engineering and innovative solutions to a variety of digital media content creation.