Son won best UK short film at Edinburgh at the weekend which is very exciting. Laura and I went up last week and spent a few days there which was really good. We met quite a few people there including some of the other filmmakers and had a really great time with them all. Daniel came up at the weekend to pick up the award from Sir Sean Connery, it was a shame to miss that, but here are some pictures of the event.
I realise it has been over a year since I last updated this site - oops. On the Rattling Stick front, Tom Vaughan went off in June to shoot his second feature film What Happens In Vegas… with Cameron Diaz & Ashton Kutcher and in fact they had their UK premiere the same night as The Pond so unfortunately I missed it. Johnnie, Chris and Lucy went from Rattling Stick though and really enjoyed it. The US premiere follows shortly this month and then Tom will be available for commercials again. In the meantime I produced a new form of advertsing campaign with Darren Bailes at Mother for PG. We produced a 10 minute infomercial to feature on free DVDs (outtakes & all) that will be available on packs of PG Tips in supermarkets, a 5 minute cinema version to go out before the main attraction in UK cinemas, and 30 & 40 sec trailers for use on internet. Mother and Rattling Stick teamed up as one to make production as cost effective as possible and the result is really good. At the end of 2007 Steve Cope joined Rattling Stick from Red Bee and I have been producing for him. His debut Rattling Stick commercial was for KIA cars through Mustoes and now we’re busy pitching…
We had The Pond premiere screening at BAFTA this week and it was a great success. The print looked fabulous up on the big screen, we had a great turnout and the film went down like a storm! It was amazing seeing all the kids who were in the film, unrecognisably grown up after two and a half years. The British Council have picked the film up and we are starting to enter it into festivals in earnest now. Unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures, except for two we grabbed as we were leaving…
We have spent the last few weeks searching for music for the short film and of course MySpace is an invaluable tool when it comes to music.
To search MySpace for interesting new talent you have to create you own MySpace account though, so I sat down with Apoa and Kiloh and they showed me how it works. They helped me choose backgrounds, create photo albums, pick a song etc… and build a MySpace page.
It turned out to be lots of fun but I am hoping I don’t get hooked. Alcohol, drugs, myspace….. Then again it’s another device that sets your life out there into the public domain, or whatever aspect of your life you choose to put out there. I guess everyone’s got different things they’re hoping to gain from it - for directors and musicians looking to get their work out there, single people trying to hook up or teenagers finding new fun ways to delve into the world and make their mark.
So I realise I haven’t written anything for a while, and thought it was time to remedy that! I just finished shooting SON yesterday evening. We shot Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday at an amazing location called SHUNT under London Bridge. It is my first Branded Content project - Sony provided DANIEL MULLOY with a bit of funding for his film in return for Sony Vaio product placement in the film, a Making Of Documentary and a bit of PR.
It was a very ambitious project considering the budget, and I am pleased that after all the stresses and efforts trying to pull it all together it will look amazing. Can’t say it’s been easy! But as usual on these short films, it seems to gather together passionate people who are an inspiration to work with and make the overall experience a rewarding one. ROBBIE RYAN lit the film with the help of his very reduced lighting crew. GEORGE TOMLINSON was the art director and the link with Shunt who are a collective of artists who inhabit this amazing cavernous space under the tube. There is a bar and a stage and lots of workshops all connected by endless vaulted corridors and doors leading to spaces dark and mysterious… It is musty & dark but full of athmosphere & history (not to mention rats…) When you first come in, you can smell the remnants of old wine casks in places. It feels like the old film studios in that everywhere you walk you are walking past bizarre props, constructions and sculptures.
It was wonderful looking at the bar area (our first set up on Saturday) lit by festooned lamps and candle light and seeing it filled up with our walk ons and extras - and thinking back to the weeks listening to CHARIS (her first ever job!!!) on the phone pleading the hundreds of people who responded to her emails to come be an extra on this short film. She couldn’t really pay them anything and they’d have to spend their entire weekend from 08:00 to 20:00 on set, but please please would they come. She was still on the phone at midnight on Friday night PLEASE COME… BRING ANY FRIENDS!!!! It’s an amazing and unbelievable achievement and I hope she is feeling very proud now that it’s all over and she can relax once again.
So we finally did it! We shot the underwater sequences for Sonja Phillip’s short film The Pond at Pinewood’s ‘U’ stage tank. One whole year after shooting the film in Lincolnshire.
Today Tom and I finished our first commercial for Rattling Stick. It’s a spot for Kelloggs with Ray Winstone that we shot for JWT London. The shoot was a great success and I hope the post will be too! The agency team were lovely Dave Shelton and Liz Whiston were the creatives and Katie Keith the producer. Ian Murray did a fantastic job lighting it and was a pleasure to work with, as were the whole crew. I am looking forward to the next one. Rattling Stick is a really exciting company to be working with, it is a pleasure to be here!