Below, I have a curated selection of my favourite pieces of work, stuff I thought turned out well, or that I am proud of, for various reasons.
These are organised into industry activity areas. Film, TV, Commercials etc.
ESSENTIAL VIEWING
SHOWREELS
Past Work Showreel
Speaks for itself really.
After Effects CC Showreel
Some work done using After Effects
Pitch Trailers - Film
Pitch Trailers
I have spent much of the last ten years working to develop and finance independent feature films and have come very close several times, that these have collapsed for reasons outside my control and not due to any creative shortcomings is a testament to how hard filming mankind is in the UK.
Several times I have made pitch trailers, which can be very useful as marketing tools, garnering the support of cast and crew around a script in order to make something that gives a sense of what the finished film might look like.
Below are a couple of examples.
Dark Glass
Horror – Feature Film
This is a pitch trailer for a feature film I am trying to get together at the moment. I completed the script early in 2014, since then I have attached John Hannah in the lead role, put together a business plan and gained approval for an EIS finance strategy from the HMRC, written a novel based on the script and early in December 14 we shot this trailer with the lovely Mr Hannah.
I am very pleased with how it turned out and reaction has been uniformly excellent. As a result we may be about to sign a financing partner and a sales agent and hopefully if the raise goes well, we will be shooting mid 2015.
It was shot over a day on location, on the Sony F55 at 4k, using Canon Cinema 35 prime lenses (oldies but goldies) and was lit largely by torchlight.
Tea Shop Asylum
Romantic Comedy – Feature Film
John Hannah, Joanna Lumley and Sarah Smart, star in this pitch trailer for Tea Shop Asylum, a fully commercial romantic black comedy based on the remarkable experiences of successful Yugoslavian actor Rad Lazar. This extremely funny story concerns Vlad, an ex soldier and asylum seeker from the Balkans, who is awaiting a new start with his family when his past catches up with him and leads to an escalating struggle to contain a bizarre and chaotic chain of events.
Co-written by myself and Rad Lazar, the script was supported by the UK Film Council Premiere Fund to the tune of a pilot and this trailer is derived from that material.
It was shot over three days on 16mm, on location in Hastings and the film itself came very close to completing financing in 2011, but sadly and as these things rather often do, it fell apart again and so is currently unproduced. I will give it another go though, perhaps after Dark Glass has been made.
TV
Rock n’Roll Cars
TV Documentary Series
Ten half hours with interviews with music names about the cars they loved.
Illustrated with dozens of classic and beautiful motors filmed on the track and in beauty surroundings.
Shot on Red at 8k.
I conceived, wrote, directed and then edited to 4k and HD delivery.
Streetlife
TV pilot
Something else here that never saw the light of day. This was a rather fantastic pilot for a series staring John Thomson and Jack Dee. I was instructed to throw away the rule book and I did, turning in a comedy cop pilot with a quite surreal edge. The initial reaction from the BBC was exceptional, with talk of a full series that everyone would be copying the style of. But legal wrangles over options ensued and it died a quiet death. Very sad as it is something I am terrifically proud of.
If you are interested you can see the full pilot here… the password is noel
The Giblet Boys
Children’s TV series – Best Drama Bafta Winner 2006
I was the lead director on two series of this wonderfully anarchic and surreal comedy for CiTV. I also wrote a couple of the episodes for series 2.
I love this series and adored making it. We filmed in Bristol over two glorious summers using every ounce of our imagination to make the budget go further and make the episodes ever bigger, bolder and more crazy and our efforts were justly rewarded with the Bafta win.
Sadly though, ITV cancelled the series and as I haven’t worked in TV since, the win marked the culmination of my TV career . Well at least I went out on a high.
See a complete episode here. Password is noel
COMMERCIALS
Home Cooking
Food Standards Campaign for COI
This commercial was one of a pair I made for the COI. They were an updating of a successful commercial they had made a few years previously where bacteria had been featured as a pink stain. It was a commercial that had stuck in my mind and I was very keen to see if we could improve on the idea.
Whereas in the original the bacteria had been added in post production, i wanted to do it in camera and so we set about going tests as to how this could be achieved. The end result was achieved by using powerful ultra violet lights and pink Day-Glo paint, that the actors transmit to everything they touch and which they even eat.
The result speaks for itself and is quite unsettling to watch.
Man in the Mirror
Identity theft campaign for COI
This ad had a lovely conceit that required a fair amount of planning to achieve. The assumption was that we would have to do the effect of someone seeing themselves as someone else in a mirror in post production, but much like the famous scene in ‘Duck Soup’, I wanted to do it in camera (which I usually do).
So we had to build two sets for two different shops, one chic and one dowdy and link them via an opening in the wall that became our mirror. The actors had to rehearse carefully and try to imitate each others actions as perfectly as possible and to a remarkable degree it really does work.
It was very satisfying and took one fairly long day to shoot.
Little Chef
5 a Day Campaign for COI
There were 4 ads in this campaign and three of them featured the same family, which included the young lad who is the star of this and who was uniformly fantastic! The others can be viewed on the commercials page.
They were all lovely original and fresh scripts, but it really was the performances that brought them to life and that is amply displayed in this lovely spot.
I was surprised to discover a few months later that nearly the entire campaign, three out of the four ads had been nominated for the Film 4 Directors Cut Awards and made up three of the eleven finalists. They didn’t win, but David Puttnam had some lovely things to say about the performances and direction.
Organics
Bound – Test ad
This one of five test ads I made to get myself going in commercials. It is also the one I love most, partly because it’s sexy, but mostly because it’s surprising and funny and finally because it stars the wonderful Ian Puleston Davis.
Scripts were all genuine, bottom drawer material from JWT, shot on Panasonic HD cameras with Paul Wheeler acting as DOP. We shot five ads over two days in four locations.
BRANDED
Como Shambhala Cookbook
Como Hotels
This was shot in about four hours during the launch party for a new cookbook celebrating the cuisine of the Como Shambhala Hotel.
Edit was three days. Turned out rather well, but didn’t have time to sample any of the amazing food.
Omnijoin
Groundbreak Productions
This was a rather challenging one. I had to come up with an idea to promote the online conferencing software by Brother. Once the script was approved, I drew up detailed storyboards and provided a highly detailed shot list to ensure we got everything exactly during the two day shoot. The screens were shot as blank with tracking markers and all characters appearing on them were then added by an SFX house in post. Shot on two Sony F55’s at 4K (to ensure as much latitude in image manipulation as possible) and using Steadicam.
Talisker – Stories of the Sea
RPM
To promote Talisker’s presence at Cowes week and following a one day shoot in Cowes, including shooting out at sea on a RIB, I set about editing a story for this film out of the material. Based around an online presence where people supplied their own real stories I built a structure that grows and features clips of stories reenacted by actors, complimented by screen-grabs of the Talisker website, interviews, dramatic music and that builds to a climax.
PROMO
Love – Chesham Place
London Capital Corporation
This film was produced to showcase and assist in the marketing of a 15 million pound property in Belgravia.
Using a poem and actress to create an underpinning mood, I filmed on the Canon 7D with Zeiss primes for one day and then edited together the film over a period of four days, making both full length and shorter versions.
Don’t Stop (Believing in Christmas)
Charity Pop Promo
Taking a week from conception to delivery of the final edit this is one of the most frantic things I’ve done. It started when an old friend told me about a show celebrating Glee she was putting on. I offered to shoot a little promotional material and overnight it blew up into a full promo for a single aimed squarely at the Christmas number one slot.
In the end we managed with a crew of ten. Which wasn’t really enough to organise 150 children, four snow machines, huskies, eleven cast and around a dozen locations. Still we did it and there is a real sense of satisfaction at achieving something by the skin of your teeth.
Shot mostly on a couple of Canon 7D’s using Zeiss primes, principally the 28mm and 85mm. I edited and graded on FCP.
Principia Mathematica
Post Human Wardrobe
PHW wanted an eclectic and challenging film that would not only showcase their collection, but would also promote the science based inspiration behind the designs. I pitched a concept to them based around a philosophical interpretation of Newton’s first law of motion and then wrote a script.
Filming took place in various locations in central London over one day using the extreme slow motion facility of the Sony FS700. I edited the film to completion on Premiere Pro and After Effects and personally recorded the voice over.