Malcolm Dent Digital Media company (MDDM) history page detailing the company's progress through 27 years in business making films around the world

MY KENYA

MY KENYA WEBSITE

Web Travel Guide

Malcolm Dent Digital Media Ltd is the name of the company that we work under. I, together with Carol my wife and Chris my son film and produce Travel and commercial DVD formats around the world. We also duplicate in all formats for our many worldwide clients in both PAL and NTSC, and design and host websites for clients, including streaming video.

My name is Malcolm Dent and I have spent the last 30 years making videos of anything that moved - or didn't - as the case may be. In the early nineties my wife Carol and I went on holiday with friends to Pinewood Village on the shores of Gallu beach in Kenya. as always I took my camera ( having left the professional gear at home I took a Sony Hi 8 camera just for a record). Above: Carol and I on Carriacou)


Never have I been more envious of BBC cameramen with enormous zoom lenses as when I am trying to capture my subject on a 12 to 1 zoom capability. I would trade most of the useless extras that manufacturers seem convinced that the purchaser wants, for a more powerful optical zoom lens.

While having dinner with Justin the manager, he mentioned that he needed a video of Pinewood to help attract people to his delightful resort. I explained that I only had a small camera with me, but the place looked so good that I was sure I could produce enough to help him.

Little did I realise then what a course of events would lead from that dinner. I sent the rest of our holiday as I usually do, getting up at sunrise to film the shore creatures, then travelling to various points of interest to gather material for the video. We then returned to England and I edited the film and sent it back to Kenya for his verdict.


During our second filming trip to Kenya, I linked my home town of Gosport in Hampshire through my Rotary Club with a project run by the Mnarani Hotel, using local people and paying them to produce desks for the local school. Many hotel guests sponsored desks which had their name carved on them.

Happily, he was delighted and ordered 500 copies to distribute to his agents around the world.
What made our video stand out was the attention to detail with the wildlife, as I would spend hours trying to film a crab coming out of it's sandy hide-hole on the beach, or remain motionless by a tree trying to capture a Humming bird (I have wasted more video on Humming birds than on any other subject, and never been happy with the end result).

		So, I had finished the project, had a happy client, but I was left in a void, for I felt that the video would be a useful selling tool, but to whom? Unusually for me I had a flash of inspiration. We had arranged the holiday with Tropical Places, who had looked after us through their Kenya rep extremely well, so instead of sending them a thank-you note, I sent the video. You can imagine my amazement when the CEO rang me up to congratulate me on the video and to ask if we would like to visit some of their locations and make films for them. Over the next 5 years we travelled around the Caribbean making videos of the Islands, using the same format that had worked so well in Kenya.
Malcolm cycling around Kenya

They just arranged all travel and accommodation, and it was left to me to film and edit as I saw fit and then give them the final edited video, which, apart from very minor changes was just as I had finished it. Carol accompanied me on several of the trips as I insisted on 2 weeks per location in case of overcast or inclement weather, and when underwater footage was essential, my son Chris came so that we could split our time and double the footage.
		Chris relaxing at the Mnarani

We shot on average 12 hours of DV footage on our Sony VX200 digital camera VX1000/2000 cameras and I cannot praise them highly enough. Small enough not to attract attention but high quality enough to give sparkling results, it is the still pictures from our video footage that populate these webs.

These have been superseded by Hi def 16:9 cameras which we currently use, but I still have a soft spot for the 4:3 ratio cameras

For the future, we are awaiting our next journey of adventure with our travel partners with anticipation, as they have broadened our horizons to the world through our video work, and we look forward to many more years providing the public with informative, honest appraisals of holidays around the world.


Pinewood beach at various times of the day, from sunrise to sunset