About
A Gloucester production company that films, edits and coaches for television news teams.
A newsroom habit of mind, in a small production company
pulsecra was founded in Gloucester in 2013 by Helen Marsden, who had spent a decade producing regional television news. She started the company to offer broadcasters what she had often wished for as a producer: reliable crews and editors who understand the pressure of a running story.
Helen's years in regional news taught her where stories are won and lost. Pictures arrive late, scripts wait for sign-off, files turn up in the wrong format. None of these problems is dramatic, yet together they decide whether a package makes the bulletin. pulsecra was set up to work on exactly those points.
From the start the company combined filming with editing under one roof. A crew that also cuts the material knows what the edit needs: the cutaway that was missed, the interview angle that was too tight, the ambient sound that would have covered a join. That knowledge now shapes how we brief our own operators.
Over time the work widened beyond field crews. Newsrooms asked how to light a presenter so that skin looks natural, how to train new shooters quickly and how to stop approvals piling up. Studio lighting, camera training and workflow design grew out of those requests.
Today the team is four people with distinct jobs: Helen oversees commissions and editorial standards, Daniel Okafor leads camera work, Priya Chauhan reviews newsroom processes and Tom Pritchard runs editing and delivery. Each commission has a named person responsible for it.
We keep the company deliberately compact. Clients speak to the people who film, cut and advise, not to an account layer between them. That keeps answers quick, makes accountability plain and lets us tell a producer honestly when a job is not right for us.
What guides the work
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Speed
News loses value with every lost minute. We plan crews, edit suites and file transfers so material reaches you quickly, and we say plainly when a deadline cannot be met rather than letting it slip.
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Accuracy
A fast package that gets a name or a place wrong is worse than a late one. We check captions, spellings and facts against your editor's brief before files leave the edit suite.
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Craft
Steady handheld shots, clean sound and honest lighting are skills built through practice. We care about them on every job and teach them to newsroom teams who want to improve their own shooting.
How the way we work took shape over thirteen years
Nobody planned pulsecra's range of services in advance. Each part of the way we work came from a problem that a broadcaster brought to us, and from what our crews and editors learned while solving it for them.
Founded2013
pulsecraToday2026
Starting with the field crew
The first work was breaking-story filming for regional broadcasters. Helen insisted that crews should cut as well as shoot, because that habit gave producers material that could be used quickly and with few changes.
Adding the edit and delivery desk
Clients wanted packages ready for air, not just footage. We built a dedicated edit and delivery routine covering captions, formats and archive copies, now run by Tom Pritchard, so a file arrives in a state the gallery can use.
Lighting the studio properly
Newsrooms asked why their presenters looked tired or flat under studio lamps. We began designing portrait lighting for presenter and interviewee set-ups, working with the cameras and rooms our clients already had.
Teaching and redesigning processes
Seeing the same delays in many buildings led to camera technique days and workflow reviews. Daniel Okafor leads the training, Priya Chauhan the reviews, and both draw on what we see on live commissions.
What producers say about working with us
We needed a crew at a developing story within the hour and pulsecra delivered a captioned package in the format our gallery uses. The editor was in touch throughout, and the check on names and locations saved us a correction later.
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Marcus Delaney · News editor at a regional broadcasterThe camera technique day was practical and focused. Our newer shooters came back steadier on handheld work and noticeably more careful with sound.
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Sophie Kendrick · Programme editor at a regional newsroomPriya found three hand-offs in our approval chain that we had stopped noticing. Fixing them took out a real chunk of waiting on every story.
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Alan Prewett · Studio manager at a local television stationOur presenter set looks far more natural since the lighting was redesigned. The advice worked with the cameras and ceiling we already had.
Plain facts about the company behind the work
pulsecra has been trading from Gloucester since 2013, so this is its thirteenth year. The team is four people: a founder and executive producer, a lead camera operator, a workflow consultant and a senior editor. Our clients are television news editors, producers and regional broadcasters across the UK.
- Founded
- 2013
- Service areas
- 5
- Team profiles
- 4
- Based in
- Gloucester
Tell us about your story or your newsroom
Send an enquiry through the contact page describing the filming, lighting, workflow review, training or edit work you have in mind, and we will reply with a written scope.
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