We had a busy December and were asked to make a series of films for the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement or NCCPE for short. They wanted us to make films about how different Universities engage with the public, as well as some tutorial videos for tips for people thinking of doing public engagement work. We visited both Cambridge University and Bristol University and met some really interesting researchers who shared their experiences of public engagement with us. We also made the tutorial videos with Malcolm Love and Piero Vitelli, two experts in teaching tips and skills.
We were really pleased with how the films came out, and think they’ll be an excellent and interesting resource when they are made available later in the year. The films are in their final stages of edit now and we’ll upload a couple as soon as they are ready.
We started Lucy & James in February 2011. The idea was to make some comedy about our situation we found ourselves in back in 2010 (both out of work on the same day). We had a couple of great actors and went for it with no budget and a crew of 2 and amazingly produced three 15 minute episodes.
We wrote each episode in a couple of days, filmed in a couple of days (using our flat as a location) and editing took a lot longer! We planned to make 6 but ran out of steam and time as we all had to go back to work! We set out to make a realistic comedy, with believable characters and a believable (yet incredible!) situation. I think we succeeded on all those counts! What do you think?
We’ve had great feedback from a lot of people, many favourable comparisons to other series out there. Everything from Spaced to Him and Her. And some people even saying it was funnier than the latter!
Episdoe 1 – Bloody Mondays is about a particularly bad start to the week, a bad journey to work, followed by a crap job and ending in no beer and being forced to watch Titanic, AGAIN!
Episode 2 – The Hangover. After having the worst Monday ever, Lucy & James decide that getting drunk will make everything better. It doesn’t.
Episode 3 – SKINT! The third and (currently) final episode of our sitcom mini series sees Lucy and James realise after 2 days of unemployment that they are utterly skint. The startling revalations of their appalling spending come to light when they have a visit from a less than friendly man carrying out a lifestyle survey.
Lucy & James was shot, written and directed by me Ewan Thomas. Starring James Alper and Lucy Leigh as the titular couple, and produced by Nell Garfath-Cox.
Our filming in Newcastle began with a trip to the Sembcorp Biomass Powerstation. Managed by Jane Atkinson, the powerstation is an enormous and awe-inspiring site. In case you don’t know (and I didn’t initially) biomass is anything renewable that can be burned to produce electricity. In the case of the Wilton Biomass Powerstation that is wood. Lots of wood. Tens of thousands of tonnes of it a year.
We took the Sony FS-100 with us on this trip for its 60fps slow motion function (at 1080) and used it extensively to capture the wonderfully visual industrial smörgåsbord on offer. Massive JCBS, massive HGVS, huge logs of wood, massive piles of wood chip. And it was a bright and sunny day (albeit cold!) to match. Read on »
Picnic have been commissioned by Newton.tv to produce 4 hours of content for their North-East science news service. We’ll be focussing on making films about big science industries in the North-East including, a film about a wood-burning power plant on the Wilton International site.
Blade Runner?
The Wilton International site is a sprawling industrial compound, the air filled with steam, and the roads surrounded by huge metal pipes. Locals believe that the inspiration for the aesthetic of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner can be found here. We’ll also be seeing how electric car batteries work, and how SCM-pharma are developing novel and dangerous drugs in the North-East.
Following on from their successful pitch video, Axon asked us to film a rather unusual corporate event in Waterloo. The brief was simple, produce a 3 minute video showing a corporate team building exercise. Graffitti! A group of Axon’s employees were given the opportunity to take part in an evening team-building exercise where they were given a wall (specifically designated for graffitti) and the excellent guidance of Andy Seize to spray paint their companies key values onto the wall. It was great to film something so visual, although we had our work cut out for us as they went at it at 100 miles an hour! Read on »
Picnic was commissioned to make a pitch video for Axon to help them explain to their future clients the approach they’d take to working with them. Sorry we can’t show you the film but here is one picture to give you an idea!
P.S. Axon won the new contract, congrats to Miranda Dini and her team
There is a little bit of a shortage of physics teachers in the UK which leads to a lack of physics graduates, and completing the vicious circle a greater lack of physics teachers in schools. To combat this problem the government, the awesome Gatsby foundation and the brain boxes at the IOP have been developing courses which allow clever clog teachers without physics specialisms to be retrained so they can confidently teach physics. These films show the two routes teachers can take – PEP – Physics Enhancement Programme, which allows teachers to learn a little more physics before they go to teacher training college, and SASP – Science Additional Specialism Programme, which takes lovely biologist and mathematicians and gives them physics lessons so they too can enjoy teaching lovely physics! I know its a lot of acronyms but once you’ve got your head around them, by watching our films, you’ll agree this is a great solution to the dirth of physics teachers in our schools! And we need physicists to work on lovely renewable energy solutions, design cool little gizmos that make our Ipads work, and on occasion reveal the mystery of the universe to us. Hope you like the films.
We were fairly busy the first weekend in April, having taken the challenge to complete a Sci-Fi film in just 48 hours. The basic rules were get a small team together, in our case 2 – Dave and me! Collect the elements for your film (a prop, a line of dialogue and a title) from the Apollo Cinema, Piccadilly and make a film. We had asked 3 wonderful actors to work with us James Alper, Liz Boag and Michael Quartey, and when we opened the title ‘All that Remains’ we knew we were going to make an end of the world story.
Lots of films are made about the world ending, but Dave and I are really interested in what would happen next, we have avidly watched series like Jericho, Survivors and a great doc. series called ‘Life after People’ (thanks History channel you are awesome!) and we have talked and talked about what would happen… and we reckon in the initial instance for any people left the world would be very quiet and very dangerous.. just think about all the things you don’t know and can’t do once the electricity has failed. Could you find clean water, warmth, would you fail to survive? In our film, the reason for the apocalypse is a virus spread by words/speech. Our survivors have survived because they have stopped talking after their daughter went missing. By mourning their missing child they severed links with society and sat in stony silence together and were spared by the virus. Our villain, Sy’s story is left to your imagination.
So, after the world ended what would remain? What are people like after the fall of civilisation? All that remains in our story is the chance to keep your humanity, watch it and let us know what you think?
It has been our pleasure to watch, and film the creation of a new business on our high street. See the film here –
For those of you who don’t know Brentford – we are just up the river from Chiswick, and across the water from Kew Gardens. In the Heathrow flight path, we are blessed with two beautiful stately homes, Syon Park and Osterley House, we’re on the Thames and have the River Brent and the Grand Union Canal. A little run-down, loads of lovely pubs, struggling in the shadow of the M4 but full of unexpected charms – I’ll show you around if you are interested! Read on »
In light of the recent events in Japan, this film seems more relevant than ever. The publicity over the potential fallout from the nuclear plants in Japan raises the question again as to whether or not people really do understand radiation and it’s potential effects on the human body.
