SON goes live on YouTube screening room tonight for two weeks. We will set up a facility for people to buy a download version, so watch this space... In the meantime, if you're interested, contact sisterfilms.info@googlemail.com.
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...
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.
Well finished is a strong word, but yesterday (Friday 25th August) we watched a completed married answer print of FINKLE'S ODYSSEY and it looks and sounds amazing.
In fact after all the ups and downs with keeping this project going, it was fitting that our much anticipated moment was stalled by a persistent little American man who stood fast in front of the viewing theatre in the name of BOND. He mistakenly thought he had booked the theatre at the same time as we had, and nothing would move him out of our way, as he had Barabara Broccoli to contend with and all the BOND posse - which was far more important in his mind than anything else in the world. So we tussled and we argued, but in the end we sat at the bar swigging champagne prematurely while the little man stood by waiting for his mob to arrive to watch his 2 minute and a half trailer.
An hour and a half later, we were finally allowed into the screening room and all the anxiety I had been feeling about our print - would it be in synch? Would the sound be distorted? Would the titles be all wrong?..... - was diffused and in fact I sat there not knowing what to feel anymore.
Thankfully our experience was the reverse of the Bond man's, whose crowd had left his 2 minute and a half screening, one hour and a half later in dismay and disgust. Instead I was relieved and chuffed to find that the film (print and all) was a marvel.
FINKLE'S ODYSSEY is the short film written & directed by Barney Clay that I have been working on since February, when Claire's little twin boys were prematurely born. I had been hearing about it and intrigued about it for ages, ever since Barney joined Exposure well over a year ago and told me the bizarre storyline that I couldn't quite picture. Its subject matter is most unusual, but it sits well in its perfectly crafted and ultimately very professional looking film.
Next step is getting it onto Digi and onto DVDs to send it out to festivals. So Finkle's Odyssey in a way is just about to begin. I can't wait to see it out there and I wish it (and Barney) oodles of well deserved success.
How exciting Antonio's Breakfast won the BAFTA after all!!! All I saw on the TV was a 2 second glimpse of Amber on stage clutching the mask. Where was Daniel? Surely he was there? Either way it is great news and I am sure he will benefit from it no end.
Tomorrow I am off to Sydney to shoot a few FOSTERS commercials with Director PAUL MIDDLEDITCH. 21 hours in the air is sounding very appealing to me just now. Catch up on a few movies. Catch up on some sleep. No phone calls....
And back on the 9th of March, missing my precious Apoa's 13th birthday and my no less precious Kiloh's secondary school acceptance letters. The suspense is terrible...
I got back from CF last night and relaxed in front of all the favourite missed episodes of easy watching TV. The IT Crowd was a new discovery and great fun (and apparently just as popular for the pre-teens of the house as the adults). Desperate Housewives, Shameless, Invasion... It was really quite hard though getting up at 06:30am this morning, but now back at my familiar desk and laptop screen - all seems well with Red Organ Serpent Sound pop promo busy being built in post with Barney Clay & Grant over at Condor and Fosters brewing away thanks to Paul Middleditch with castings and location searches out in Sydney Australia, I sit back and reflect on the week in France....
I went to Clermont Ferrand short film festival with Daniel Mulloy who had two of his films in the International competition there, SISTER which I produced and ANTONIO'S BREAKFAST which Amber produced. I met Daniel at Heathrow, catching him on his way back from Sundance, where AB had also been shortlisted for an award, and we made our way over there together.
It was a bit like being back at college, first day in and trying to make sense of which clubs to sign up to, which lectures to get to and trying to work out how to get it together to stop showing up at the wrong place at the wrong time and missing all the important events!!! It didn't take long to work out, but I couldn't help feeling that had I done a bit more research before heading out there, I might have got there a bit sooner. I kept bumping into Nathalie Algazi, a friendly French producer interested in UK co-productions and her boy-friend Fabien (sound mixer), who were very organised and kept helping me by pointing me in the right direction. Before you knew it, it felt like 'home'. Once the pieces fell together, it was easy to enjoy. It was great getting a chance to see all these films and meet the filmmakers, sometimes listen to them talking about their films. Meet the festival people and all the TV Buyers etc... Kevin Franklin from the British Council, Laurent Crouzeix, one of the CF festival organisers and Ingo Grell from the Hamburg Film Festival were great to meet and Rajinder Kochar from Future Shorts was inexhaustably fantastic.
Most importantly I met some really lovely and talented people. On the first night there, Daniel and I went to the British Council's party where, amongst others, I met filmmakers Katerina Athanasopoulou and Dushka Zagorac, both with films in competition at the festival. Turns out not only is Katerina a lovely and very talented artist, but she also lives in North London! I was sad not to see more of Kartik Singh (Director/Translator) and Paul Barbeau, Quebecois producer from Montreal of short film LE ROUGE AU SOL.
There was a great buzz about Daniel and his two films and although he did not win the top prize, ANTONIO'S BREAKFAST did win a 'Youth Jury Mention' which is great. It is also still on the shortlist for the BAFTA award (we will hear what happens with that next week).
It was also fun being interviewed by Annique for LIBERATION and to see the article come out in the paper on Saturday! Not sure what I make of her digest of my commentary on the state of short films in Britain today, however...
I met Jacques Thelemaque who made TRANSACTION (winner of Labo competition) and his producer Toni-Ann, Gustavo Taretto who made MEDIANERAS (winner of grand prix), Andy Gordon producer of HIBERNATION (winner of Audience prize), Andy and Donna McCrum producers of THE LAST CHIP (winner of Special Jury Prize), Hisham Zaman who made BAWKE (winner of Youth Jury Prize), Wael Noureddine who made CE SERA BEAU (winner of Labo special jury mention) and many many more interesting people.
Having produced commercials and promos for many years and after working as Head of Commercials Production at Exposure Films (now known as HSI London) from January 2005 to January 2006 , I have more recently decided to try to link my strengths within that industry with my enthusiasm for the longer format.
I have been collaborating with Director Daniel Mulloy on his film projects whilst completing final post on his latest short film DAD which is scheduled to premiere at Edinburgh this summer 06 as part of the UK Film Council / Maya completion fund. I have also produced a short film called SISTER with Daniel which was funded by the Arts Council of Wales and opened the Cardiff Film Festival in November 2004. It won a Welsh BAFTA for best short and the Arte Prize at HAMBURG 2005. It is coming to the end of its festival circuit and has won many other awards including best cinematography at Bucharest.
Through Exposure Films, I have been co-producing THE POND, a short film written and directed by Sonja Phillips. We still need to shoot a day of underwater photography to complete the project, but funds are now in place for this, so we hope to finish the film by the end of summer. I have also been working as post production supervisor on Barney Clay's short film FINKLE'S ODYSSEY which is also very near to completion now, after over a year's worth of fantastic and surprising VFX work.
I am now based at Rattling Stick (award winning Directors Danny Kleinman and Ringan Ledwidge's new company) producing commercials for Tom Vaughan who recently joined from his previous company HLA after completing his first feature film STARTER FOR TEN with James McAvoy. Here I am also able to look after my independent film projects whilst promoting and producing for Tom.....
We shoot our first commercial next week (last week of August - barely a month after joining) with JWT & starring Ray Winstone. Should be fun!
I am currently producing for Tom Vaughan at Rattling Stick.
Having completed a BA in filmmaking and creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College in New York, USA, I came back to London to work on a feature film called HALF MOON STREET Directed by Bob Swaim. After that, I moved into commercials work, starting as PA in 1986 then Production Manager from 1988 and then Producing in 1998 at many Production Companies (including BFCS, THE PRODUCERS, MIGHTY, COWBOY, TIGER ASPECT, BRAVE, BLINK, HLA, @RADICAL MEDIA, SID ROBERSON FILMS and EXPOSURE FILMS / HSI LONDON) and now at RATTLING STICK.
I have worked in the British Advertising Industry for over 20 years now!! I have produced short films, promos and many many commercials for Directors including Simon Levene, Nick Lewin, Peter Richardson, Lucy Blakstad, Stuart Rideout, Marc Charach, JJ Keith, Rob Sanders, Tom Vaughan, Adam Johnson, Paul Goldman, Sid Roberson, Jake & Jim, Jonas Akerland, Daniel Mulloy, Barney Clay, Sonja Phillips, Paul Middleditch, Michael Keillor, Thomas Napper and Joseph Kahn.
Filmography:
ohna@falby.demon.co.uk
07768 512 689