Miniature Britain Film Scheduled For This Autumn

Harold Gough · Post by **Harold Gough** » Thu Aug 30, 2012 12:56 pm

George McGavin has been doing more filming with some of the technology he used in the film "Afterlife", which was about decay. This time, the technology will be used in the field for the first time.

A microscope camera capable of up to x 7,000, filming in HD, was used. Subjects were from bacteria up to insects. Even tiny marine fossils which make up chalk were included. The little-known Tradigrades (Water Bears) will get a very rare screening. Sex and violence in the compost heap will also feature.

The one-hour programme "Miniature Britain" has yet to be scheduled publicly. I will let folks know when I know the broadcast date and time.

Harold

Harold Gough · Post by **Harold Gough** » Sun Dec 09, 2012 10:21 am

The progamme is going out on BBC1 at 8pm on Wednesday 12 December.

Harold

endamadden · Post by **endamadden** » Sun Dec 09, 2012 2:14 pm

Thank you Harold. Recorder has been set for that one.

DQE · Post by **DQE** » Sun Dec 09, 2012 5:33 pm

Now I will hope that it makes it to the US, either in broadcast or DVD form.

Do they post such videos to youtube as a public service? Many PBS/NPR programs are available for free on their web sites and/or youtube these days.

emilien · Post by **emilien** » Wed Dec 12, 2012 5:41 am

Hello everybody,

I recommend watching the show, it will be great!

I actually did all the filming (using the Hirox Microscope) and the videos were amazing!

I hope you will like the show!

About the question of DQE, I know that some other BBC documentary came later on on youtube. For example, a very cool show called "BBC After Life". If you search for it on youtube you can see the whole show. So I guess it will be online within a few weeks or months.

Enjoy the show and let me know if you liked it

Best regards,
Emilien

PS: you can find more info there:
www.hirox-europe.com/company/customers.html
and more hirox videos I made:
www.youtube.com/hiroxeu

Harold Gough · Post by **Harold Gough** » Wed Dec 12, 2012 6:08 am

Emilien,

It's great to have you with us. It must have been a very special experience.

This evening I am committed to the first of this year's Christmas dinners so I won't be at home. The recorder is set.

If you have finished with the Hirox Microscope...

Harold

emilien · Post by **emilien** » Wed Dec 12, 2012 8:54 am

This was really amazing!

It's the 4th or 5th show I do with the BBC - until now only After Life and ths Science of Plant have been aired (a few more are coming in the next months / year) - but it was the first time I ever used the microscope outdoor!

We had 12 days of beautiful weather (a first in the history of England

) and we shot in many great locations - beach, forest, moor, garden, even cemetary...

I won't say more, watch the show and let me know what you think about it!

Greetings,
Emilien

Harold Gough · Post by **Harold Gough** » Wed Dec 12, 2012 9:02 am

emilien wrote:(a few more are coming in the next months / year) -

Excellent. The problem is getting long notice of the exact date of broadcast. We had to wait for the current listings magazine to know that. This gave seven days notice. It would have been only four days for (unlikely) a Saturday broadcast.

Harold

emilien · Post by **emilien** » Wed Dec 12, 2012 9:06 am

Well, if it helps, I would be glad to let you know when the next shows using my Digital Microscope are on the air!

For the moment, I know:
- "insect dissection" (2013)
- "survival" (2014)

Both will be quite impressive...

Have a nice evening and hope you like the show tonight!

Greetings,
Emilien

Harold Gough · Post by **Harold Gough** » Wed Dec 12, 2012 9:14 am

emilien wrote:Well, if it helps, I would be glad to let you know when the next shows using my Digital Microscope are on the air!

That would be good. Thanks.

Harold

canonian · Post by **canonian** » Wed Dec 12, 2012 2:13 pm

Thanks Harold for bringing this to my attention, I utterly enjoyed watching it.

Emilien,
What a great piece of equipment your have, it has shown me footage I've never seen before. I did have a look at waterbears before but never in this manner.

Thank you all.

johan · Post by **johan** » Wed Dec 12, 2012 2:34 pm

Emilien, looks like you and the presentor enjoyed yourself a lot =). I enjoyed the programme and some of the subjects that were used were very familiar. On a personal note I'm a bit of a moth nut and I was glad to see them covered, that MV trap used to collect them is something I run once a week in the back of the garden. On another even more personal note, I was at school at Rannoch for 3 years, that segment was a real "whoah!" for me =)

I know nobody probably wants to hear this but I actually think there are better programmes to be made about the small world. Nothing to do with you Emilien, or the eq, just the style of the programme, the way it was written and presented which came across as a bit lightweight. Some of the bits were very very interesting (ie the worm hairs, the mites on things, the cheese) but there was just something about it that didn't really grab my attention, don't know why. Maybe I'm spoilt by Attenborough style nature documentaries, their gravitas, filming.

Ps. You have the coolest job in the world

canonian · Post by **canonian** » Wed Dec 12, 2012 2:42 pm

johan wrote:...I actually think there are better programmes to be made about the small world.

It was noticably made for a wider audience. Attenborough is in an other league.
We, of course, are a bit spoiled by what we allready discovered and have seen when shooting macro...

I still enjoyed it a lot. It had some great product placement moments for the manufactor Hirox. Makes me want one ....

johan · Post by **johan** » Wed Dec 12, 2012 2:55 pm

canonian wrote:had some great product placement moments for the manufactor Hirox.

Hahaha, yes that made me laugh

One of the things about photography and photographers is that there's a certain amount of hardware fetish in these circles and the programme was a bit guilty of that. The segment joiners made me laugh, same 10 second film of the Hirox device in action, zooming?

But, of course any device that can show diatoms in action is pretty amazing, no doubt about that. Being a complete nerd I'm pretty sure that I saw some vignetting and aberrations on the primarily white (fungus or cheese?) segment at the end, but other than that it was all good. It struck me that the light was quite direct and contrasty, are you using some sort of fibre optic tech? I googled Hirox, I take it that the lenses for this are all made by Hirox?

canonian · Post by **canonian** » Wed Dec 12, 2012 3:10 pm

johan wrote:I take it that the lenses for this are all made by Hirox?

Lenses are coded OM (olympus?) and show some resemblence with the Mitutoyo series.
If you dig deeper in their site and the YouTube Channel theres a commercial (narrated by Emilien, the microscope operator in the BBC film)
The clip shows a very clever way of circling around the subject with a variable angle rotary head.
It really makes my engineering heart go a bit faster ( or is it the hardware fetish in me

)
With this rotary head, the measuring software, and all its possibilities, it's a very sofisticated piece of equipment.

Miniature Britain Film Scheduled For This Autumn

Miniature Britain Film Scheduled For This Autumn

Miniature Britain

It's tonight! Hope you like it :)