We wanted to do something a bit different to their norm, so decided to play on the words a bit.  The result is what you can see below.

Once approved, we shipped 1,000 flyers directly to them, ready for distribution.

Brace was tasked with creating the posters and ticket artwork – and printing them to boot.

This event was held in December and was a great success, with the show finally outgrowing its debut location, having to move for the next event!

They gave us a shout and asked how we could help -
“Easily” we told them, “let’s burn your discs to CD-Rs and print them with retail-grade litho print!”

Having convinced them that their timeline was fine, we got cracking and delivered the discs right on time.  The lead guys at Plus One were over the moon.  No worries, guys!

Their DVD being readied for release in Malaysia was to have an accompanying DVD in the case, containing a documentary about Fatima.  Due to the tight timescales involved, there was only one place they could turn to sort some artwork for this extra disc – here at Brace Media!

We listened to their ideas, and found the relevant images from their project to use, and put the artwork together.  Once approved, sent the artwork to Malaysia electronically so they could get cracking asap.

Smooth!

But, they had a bit of an event going on, and needed a quick shrink of the posters to A4 size – and then 1,000 copies printed properly – and fast.

Could we do it?  We were happy to!  The changes were made, and then the 1,000 prints produced quickly, in time for their deadline.

The event required A3 posters and tickets to sell.  Brace was asked to continue the artwork from early events and get everything printed in good time to get publicity out there, along with ticket sales.

All went according to plan, and the night was a very busy one!
As for the fights themselves… they’ll be online soon at www.GymratHeroes.com

With the number of monthly visitors always on the rise, the gym was in need of some more membership cards for people paying cash. We helped them tweak the artwork a little to reflect the colours in the gym now – and then proceeded to print 10,000 business card sized membership cards for them, on nice uncoated paper which can easily be written on with a pen.

With the cards delivered directly to their door, they were chuffed to be able to start using the cards straight away for their members.

It centres around the story of Fatima (Portugal), where in 1917 a modern miracle is believed to have occurred.  Three children there saw the Virgin Mary who spoke to them, along with some other sights that only they could see.  For a long time they were mocked, as nobody believed them.

Since the project began, it grew from its short film roots, into a full feature length piece -- being Directed by Dom & Ian Higgins and Produced by Natasha Howes.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPmat50pU-M

The film has become somewhat of an international phenomenon in the religious circles.

Our team were asked to come on board, with a brief that followed the pattern of the film itself.  It started small, and grew into something much more huge!

Initially, we were doing some basic encoding and DVD duplication of a copy of the film for the cast and crew.  But later, we actually got involved with authoring the full feature DVD with menus (in 8 languages), subtitles, disc design, cover design, 24 page booklet design, and DVD replication!  Not only this, but we also needed to author the disc twice -- once for the PAL (mainly European) market, and again in NTSC format (covering mainly the USA).

But -- we didn’t stop at that.

At the same time, we were also responsible for designing the film’s promotional poster (in 2 sizes); two mug designs; two T-shirt designs; taking care of blowing up small images into large-scale print sizes (see the shop front window -- the black & white images of the three children are blown up from genuine archive photos of the real children); and around 30 designs and layout for large-scale monolith prints (again with 8 languages) for the exhibition in Fatima itself.  It was great fun working on all this, but even better to see photos of the full-size prints!

To top it off, we had to get everything to Fatima so that The 13th Day team could set up their shop, exhibition and everything else in time for the beginning of the festival there (starting on May 13th), especially as the Pope himself would be there during the first week, and driving right past their location!

So, we got 55,000 retail-ready PAL DVDs replicated and shipped there, 5,000 NTSC versions; 500 A2 and 500 A4 posters delivered; 250,000 full colour folded leaflets printed and delivered there; 5,000 prints of 13 different postcard designs each; 2,500 branded envelopes for the postcards; and digital files over to local printers there to take care of the merchandise and monolith printing.

It was great!

Apparently when everything got there and the guys were setting things up, the weather became pretty freezing…. Well, you can’t have everything right…!

[Show as slideshow]

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For further info or to buy a DVD, please visit www.the13thday.com

The school, as is their yearly practise now, had been working on their latest film project for their actor graduates. Rather than just pack the graduates off with a nice slip of paper, BSA choose to back up their qualifications by getting their acting graduates to act, in front of a camera! Having been professionally filmed, these scenes are distributed on DVD to various acting agencies and such like.

The now-regualar, BAFTA award winning director, Michael B. Clifford, was responsible to choosing the films, casting and directing the scenes. This year, they shot the films on a Canon 5D digital SLR camera in HD. 

Once we had the footage in our mitts, we worked out how to once again bend the specifications of a DVD, to allow for the amount of content and navigation required to show all 36 actors individually and together in scenes.

Taking designs provided by Make Brand Studiofor the DVD packaging and accompanying booklet, we reworked this in 2D for the menu design to make for some nicely dynamic graphics and transitions.  Due to the very tight timeline for this project this year, we were unable to create 3D menus as we had done last year.  Oh well…

Once the complex DVD authoring was complete, we next had to replicate and print the complete DVD packages in time for the very tight delviery schedule – that is covering both the discs, cases, inlays and 24 page booklet.

We hope that the graduates like the resulting product as much as the Birmingham School of Acting staff.

The contest is an MMA fight event taking place on Saturday 19th June.  With new fighters coming in, it’s being billed as The Next Generation, with matches showcasing fighters both from the last event and some new.

There will be several bouts – and we can only say fair play and good luck to the contestants.  It takes a lot of guts to get in a ring with another fighter!