Happy New Year 2015
I’m wishing you a happy new year, as I recover from surgery to my foot. It hasn’t stopped me editing, but it has made shooting more challenging. Here’s an update on the last 12 months.
2014 roundup in films, videos and events
2014 was a busy year of film making, crowd funding, unusual events and laughter.
In the spring I ran our annual Trafalgar Square pillow-fight, and released a very fast turn around viral video to accompany it. This massive event launched Sound Asleep on Kickstarter. And thanks to 150 backers, we successfully crowd funded the short film, a comedy about insomnia. You can read more about the very unusual campaign, including quirky videos, more pillow fights, a sleep over and a bed time themed closing party on the Sound Asleep website. Later in the spring I made a film for the Daily Telegraph’s business club. And in April my Citibank commercials were runners-up for the 2014 Focal Award.
In the summer I ran laughter yoga workshops at several summer festivals, a sideline in feeling good I offer to businesses as team building, motivational and experiences. It’s also something I am developing into a documentary. In the late summer I edit produced a documentary series for Channel Five. I completed the BBC’s brilliant creativity training courses and I attended the Sheffield Documentary Festival, where I was asked by the BBC to develop a documentary about the community I grew up in.
In the autumn I began working on several series of corporate and educational films for TfL (Transport for London) and also for multinational law firm White and Case. The former saw me getting to grips with large scale engineering challenges, filming in rarely seen tube tunnels being dug under Victoria Station for example, while the latter saw me return to a role I first worked in for Freshfields, taking complex legal concepts and condensing them into tight short videos. I directed a series of wine promos for Aldi with On-Broadcast, and worked on concept development with Casual Films. Finally, I completed the third of four brilliant courses in the Directors Guild’s Advanced Tools of Directing series, which I highly recommend to all seasoned directors and DPs.
Injured but still shooting!
And then at the end of 2015 I had an operation on my foot! Hence the reason for the image above. I have been using the recovery time to plan lots of film and video projects. I wrote and shot a satire on the Queen’s Christmas Message. I’ve been working on a feature film script, developing a couple of documentaries, working on concepts for some corporate clients and preparing to shoot Sound Asleep.
I can’t wait to get shooting again! Hopefully by mid to late January.