Another Eventing Cinema Win!

I've already explained about my trip to the Gatcombe Festival of British Eventing and completing my final Eventing Cinema entry before the weekend at Hartpury International. I'm pleased to announce that my entry has won the July August competition and so it's all down to the final judging which takes place in October.

Here is the winning entry.

And here's some extracts from previous blogs to explain some of the thinking and inspiration behind the video.

 .........I was really lucky to capture the really atmospheric shot of the mist rising from the wet ground as the sun started to warm it through and Sophie Jenman replaced a broken leather of Geronimo. I used the shot in the opening sequence of my Eventing Cinema entry.........

..........Saturday was mainly about the EQUEX China Advanced Section although I did take the long walk to capture some dressage action from the Open and Intermediate Sections. Fortunately, as it transpired, I was there to see Andrew Nicholson and Avebury and at the other end of the spectrum Vittoria Panizzon having a pig of a ride on Hoos Harry. Whoever Harry is he didn't appear to appreciate dressage but Vittoria's drop of the shoulders was priceless and once again I was able to use it in the Eventing Cinema entry........

Vittoria Panizzon and Borough Pennyz head for WEG

.........In the afternoon I concentrated on the fences in the Equibuild field and then around the water in the Park Bowl. As if to make up for Hoos Harry I got a splendid shot of Borough Pennyz and Vittoria Panizzon jumping straight at me over the double of houses at 10 b and c. Oh we put so much faith in that bit of string.............

It was great being invited into the arena to watch the prize giving just a bit of a pain that the pros get to stand in front. I did get some nice shots of Luxury FH and Avebury as they were presented to the crowd and a really pleasing shot of Avebury as he was walked back to the lorry park after the   prize giving.

Avebury: always a favourite of mine

...................The deadline for the final Eventing Cinema entry was stated as being at 09:00 on the Friday following Gatcombe so basically I had three evenings to complete my masterpiece and one evening for uploading. In the past the Achilles heel of my videos had been the music so for the final version I tried to improve this aspect of the production. I'd tried and failed to use a piece of popular music (charging someone £1000 to enter a competition where they might win a £1000 in gift tokens was never going to work now was it?) so I looked for something that was between pure royalty free and mainstream commercial and stumbled across CAPO Productions. CAPO run a very professional website and you can listen to their tracks in full before making your choice; you just have to imagine what it will sound like without a soothing voice saying "CAPO Productions" every 15 seconds!

Key moment: Just Ironic takes the flag out at 16b 

The music then set the theme of the video; slow start, bang! into a faster moving middle section all viewed at normal speed before a final reflective section building up to Avebury walking away victorious. The video is built around Just Ironic hitting his head on the white flag at the corner at the Land Rover at the Folley Fence and the video switches from slow motion to normal speed at this moment, synched to the introduction of the drums in the music. This tends to give the impression Ironic head butted the flag, which he didn't if you watch it all through at normal speed, but this a dramatic introduction into the mostly cross country section that follows. (I'm pleased to say Just Ironic and Craig Nicolai went on to complete the course).

Thank you for appearing in my video!

Finally some "thank you"s. Obviously to British Eventing and Horse Hub for organising and sponsoring, for Eventing Nation and An Eventful Life for really getting behind my videos on the other sides of the world, Capo Productions for the music, Equine Hour for retweets and of course Gatcombe Festival of British Eventing and all the riders, owners and connections of the combinations that appear in the videos. Should also say thank you to the officials who keep me safe and the commentators who keep me informed on the day and provide such an excellent sound backdrop to the video. Thank you all!