We’re very excited to announce the release of a digitally remastered version of our first Pole Exercise DVD.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been hard at work reworking and improving the quality of the video.

We’ve had a lot of comments from you about the DVD, some of it telling us what you liked (which is great :) and some telling us what you’d change.

What came up most in your feedback was

• The quality of the teaching was great, and you liked having all those moves on one disc too.
• The quality of the footage wasn’t so great. In particular, it was rather dark.

Recolouring the DVD

You’ve probably noticed how the ‘feel’ of the colours varies between films. Take the image here from the latest Transformers blockbuster: it’s vibrant, energetic and glossy; the colours really seem to pop out of the screen, reinforcing the action movie theme.

Now compare it to the screenshot from Lost in Translation. These colours are a lot more subdued and desaturated to give a darker, more melancholy feel, again complementing the plotline.

Most of the film and TV you see today has been recoloured (or graded) to give the look that the director was after. Luckily this is done after the film has been shot, so we were able put our DVD through the same grading process.

After settling on the look we wanted, we spent quite a bit of time making the footage brighter and more vibrant. We also revised the music and sound, updated the move names (adding some alternative names that are now common) and replaced the DVD navigation and extras to give it a more polished feel.

Here’s a short video showing the original footage (actually one of the better clips) and the grading steps we applied to make the new DVD.

DVD 1 remastered

I’m extremely proud of our remaster. It’s great to be able to showcase our teaching in a better light (literally!) and it shows how far we have come as a producer of DVDs.

The DVD is on pre-order now and will be released on 15 February. Order now to get your DVD posted as soon as the new stock arrives!

I’m sure you’ve all seen the shocking pictures from Haiti over the past few days. Haiti was hit by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake on Tuesday, 12 January, destroying much of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

The Red Cross estimates 100-200,000 people have died and up to three million have been affected. Haiti is a poor country anyway, but what little infrastructure they had is now virtually gone.

Haitians feel very alone at the moment. The promise of aid has not yet materialised and many locals are still digging through the rubble with their hands.

Most of the bodies are covered in white bed sheets or rolled inside carpets, but others have been left exposed to the hot sun and the stench of rotting bodies has begun to fill the air.

Families who are desperately searching for their loved ones are gingerly uncovering the sheets that cover the corpses in the hope they can at least identify family members.

– Andy Gallacher, BBC

The people of Haiti need our help. Taking a lead from Chuck Anderson, James White and others, we’ll be donating 100% of the sales of the Pole Exercise DVDs (DVD 1, DVD 2 or both together) bought from this site for the next week (15 January – 21 January) directly in support of Haiti. So if you buy Pole Exercise DVD 2 for £19.99, we’ll donate £19.99 to the DEC appeal.

“It’s easy to feel separated from things like this based on geography, but it doesn’t mean we’re not all in this together. Every bit counts. My heart goes out to you, Haiti.”

Thanks to

• Jessica
• Claire
• Georgina
• Cherri
• Caoilfhionn
• Nathan
• Zoe
• Cammie
• Doris
• Maud
• David
• Ana
• Jason
• Dawn
• Emma
• Sarah
• Linda
• Michelle
• Angela
• Luis

After eight long months of production, filming and editing, Pole Exercise DVD 2 is back from the duplicators and ready to ship. (If you’ve pre-ordered, your DVD is already in the post.)

What’s on the DVD?

Pole Exercise 2 teaches you 16 advanced and 11 training spins, climbs, poses and inverts to take your pole dancing to the next level. Each move is taught in the same clear, step-by-step manner as our first DVD, with close up and slow motion shots to help you perfect those graceful pole moves.

Flexibility is key to any truly impressive pole performance, and Pole Exercise 2 also packs in a comprehensive stretching section with 14 positions for you to master.

There are four dazzling routines from our expert instructors, showcasing moves taught on the DVD. Each also has a teaching view to let you learn the routine yourself and help you construct your own mesmerising pole showcase.

Buy Pole Exercise DVD 2 →

DVD teaser video

If you’d like to take a look at some of the teaching and routines on DVD, here’s a preview we put on YouTube a little while ago. (I know it says ‘coming soon’ at the end. It was at the time.) Or click through to watch in HD.

Behind the scenes: a look at making the DVD

Last December, I decided to film a second Pole Exercise DVD.

After weeks of castings in January, I managed to whittle down the applicants to a select few awesome instructors (Jen, Jenny and Owain) who would teach and perform with me on the new DVD.

I was also lucky enough to get bendy Sarah (she’s an ex-gymnast) on board to star in an intensive stretching section, something a lot of people have asked for in the past.

The filming took place in March over an intensive few days. I’ve been on set many times before, but this was the first time I’ve been in charge of a professional film crew, producing – and sometimes directing – the shoot. Once it was over (and after a few days to recuperate), the raw footage was collected and sent over to the Lucy Productions core for editing and post-production.

Some might think that what you see filmed is basically what appears on your TV, but this is far from the truth. I’m sure you know how photos in the media are heavily processed before being published, and the same is true for film.

Only it takes a lot longer. Even in Hollywood, directors almost always spend significantly longer working with their editor than they do on the entire production and filming.

First we edited the DVD, which took 10 long working days, even with our stellar editor on hand. We then exported the DVD, a process that, unless you have a computer like this – and I really don’t – also takes days.

Then Andrew took it to the depth of his computer genius and started to colour correct and enhance the footage. Clips where bad lighting made me look like I’d emptied several vats of fake tan over my body were replaced by natural-looking shots. It’s quite incredible what the software can do, and quite vital when you see how badly coloured some of the footage is.

As an actress I’ve been involved with many films and adverts, and I’ve learnt a huge amount about the editing process.

Our production company has gained a huge amount of experience during the post production stage of the DVD, and we can now offer a huge range of services from Photoshopping and grading to editing of both still and moving images… but that’s another story.

Finally, after weeks of finding and eradicating mistakes (and then going back to the re-exporting stage – tedious is an understatement), we were ready to go with the graphics. Andrew took complete control and, with helpful suggestions and input from me, really shone with his designs for the DVD front, back and booklet.

At the start of November we sent the artwork and a master copy of the DVD to the duplicators, and this Friday I took delivery of a huge pile of beautiful, pristine, individually wrapped DVDs.

Now ready to launch after a hard year of solid work, I proudly give you Pole Exercise DVD 2. A product of passion, dedication, hard work and commitment to a belief in a fabulous sport and contributed to by wonderful people.

I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I have making it.

With all my love

Lucy
xxxx

I spent a long time (rather too long!) working on the DVD cover. The picture comes from a nice photoshoot of Lucy taken by AJ. We wanted to project an image of pole dancing as sporty, athletic and sexy, but also welcoming and friendly. And we wanted a striking image too of course. And we feel that this photo gets pretty close to meeting these (perhaps contradictory :) requirements.

The Photoshopping, with its glows, light bursts and rainbow gradients, draws on a number of different styles, but particularly on the amazing work of James White and Chuck Anderson. I certainly wouldn’t want to compare what I’ve done to their oeuvres, but I’m very grateful for the inspiration.

As with DVD 1, we have long pole on the back. I think it’s a fun way to give a flavour of what’s inside and to show several moves and performers in one image… and without taking up too much horizontal space. All of these photos (and the others here and in the gallery) were taken by Caroline Derrick, who was on set throughout the DVD shoot.

The DVD face is a photo taken during Lucy’s routine. Each routine has a different theme and look, and it’s nice to be able to show off at least one of exciting costumes we used. And, at a practical level, the picture’s roughly square so it fills most of DVD face.

I wanted to include an image of all the instructors to show teaching side of the DVD, and we were lucky enough to have some great group shots of everyone clustered around a pole. Plus it’s certainly easier than piecing together performers from different shots to make a collage. :)

And finally, here’s a box mock up I made for the shop.

Click on any of the images to see a bigger version.

If you’d like to see some more pictures from the DVD 2 shoot, head over to the newly expanded and refreshed gallery.