It was a Blue Blue Christmas!

Man City supporters came out in force during December to usher in the festive season and raise funds for the club’s charities.

It was a sea of sky blue in City Square as the fans donned their Santa costumes in their teams colour!

Over 900 supporters signed up to help City in the Community charities of the year including Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, Guide Dogs for the Blind, Children’s Adventure Farm Trust and St.Ann’s Hospice. The main event was a 4km Santa Stroll around the stadium, and each Santa had a race number and received a medal and goody bag on completion. It was like the stadium had been transformed into a super sized grotto as Christmas stalls served mulled wine and mince pies and real reindeer were brought in along with Santa’s sleigh, which Moonchester enjoyed a few rides in and an ice rink was constructed setting the scene for a great family day out! Etihad Airlines and Malmaison donated some superb prizes including hotel vouchers, VIP matchday packages and even club manager Roberto Mancini was on hand for the festivities drawing the winners out of the hat! It was a superb event and even City fans that couldn’t attend donated a whopping £500 online.

Robert covered the event Live for City and Endemol and you can watch the film online at http://www.mcfc.co.uk/Video/Features/Santa-stroll

Hints and Tips

Tech Specs

By Robert

Light meters? Lastolight shoots? Shine a Light!

Never ones to be in the dark, unless creative control calls for it we’ve invested in more of the latest Lastolite Reflectors and Soft Boxes for great soft lighting control and beauty lighting – and I reckon we’ve got the biggest Hi-Lite Screen Soft Box daddies of them all outside of London…unless of course you know better. With our portable units standing at eight foot by seven foot, or seven foot by six foot we can offer amazingly soft lighting control, and hi-lite white backdrops and we’ve also added to our portable Green Screen and Blue Screen capabilities.

With Light Meters at the ready and distinctly portable lighting solutions that allow us to set up Studio anywhere, giving that great studio look you’ll see that lighting can be everything. And for even larger shoots, we can offer you a really cool 4,000 ft square of studio facilities with catering, set building, makeup facilities, autocue, and coffees. Now who’s for a skinny latte with a shot of hazlenut?

Bending, Stretching, Winning!

Bending, Stretching, Winning!

A venture up to Scotland this month allowed us to participate in the coverage of November’s International Gymnastics Grand Prix held in the Kelvin Hall International Sports Arena in Glasgow. It was amazing to watch these precision-based determined athletics perform in the arena. Gold and Silver medallists fresh from the Rotterdam World Championship and Delhi Commonwealth Games battled it out to win gold for their country. We helped cover the live event for Sky Sports, broadcasting this prestigious sporting event to the world.

Hilton Hotel

Hilton Hotel

We soared the majestic heights of the Hilton Hotel towering over Manchester City Centre on Deansgate this month. We ventured deep into the heart of the hotel into the busy kitchens with Manchester’s Chef of The Year David Gale. David has a great track record for producing food full of flavour and fantastic taste and he did not disappoint. The dishes he created were superb including a starter of monkfish with imam bayildi served with spiced onion bhajis accompanied with cream cheese quenelles mmmmm!!

Place Your Bets!

Place Your Bets!

We took a trip to Fontwell Race Course in Southampton to interview top jockey AP McCoy who won this years Texaco Sports Star of The Year Award for his achievement in Horse Racing

It was a cold rainy day at Fontwell Park but that didn’t stop Tony McCoy from winning all of his races. Riding for trainer Jonjo O’Neill he certainly brought all our bets in! Tony has been honoured with many awards during his career and we got up close an personal as we discussed his winning record and this years big win at Aintree in the Grand National on ‘Don’t Push It’.

Need a Crew?

It’s smokin’

It’s smokin’

At Stockport Fire Service

Keeping up to speed with new procedures and gruelling training is just part of the everyday life of a fireman, but how about gourmet cooking? 4 Cheshire fire fighters have become stars as they compete in this years cookery challenge – but what can they offer head chef Marc Mattock’s and his team from the Dun Cow in return for all their teaching & advice? How about a trip into a smoke filled house to show what they do every day? The 3 Chefs were escorted into the Smoke House by the White Watch team from King Street Fire Station in Stockport in full breathing apparatus in search of a casualty giving them a full experience of a firemen’s duty and we went along to film!

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