Category Archive for: ‘Something Nice’

And about time too. Click here.

Here’s a short film by some of the chaps that work at The Mill. Everything was done in 48hrs as part of the Sci-Fi london 48 hour film competitionr.

The film has been short listed in the top 20, so good luck to them!

This won’t be to everyone’s taste, but I thought I’d post this music video up because I think it’s really striking and powerful.

A lot of my childhood was spent in mid Wales, where the barren craggy landscapes and tumbledown slate ruins seem to hold a memory of generations of hardship. Where small Welsh mining communities once toiled, often there is now emptiness. A distant echo of long dead industry. A silence broken only by sheep, wind and small avalanches of scree.  Finding a mouldy sheep skull among nettles in a rocky pile that used to be someone’s fireplace, you wonder how people ever called this place home. How did they ever make ends meet, and huddle here against the cold?

Nothing happens in this video, yet still it stirs up all these thoughts and memories.

Or rather, a lot happens in this video, but all of it is played out on the face of a lone woman.

The music video is for a track by Keaton Henson, titled You Don’t Know How Lucky You Are.

That’s pretty mesmerising isn’t it?

I do really like the song, but I have to say I admire the director, David Wilson, for pulling off so much in a single shot. And I think Sophie Thompson gives an acting masterclass. She does so much with so little. Whatever you may think her character’s story is, you can’t deny how extremely moving she is to watch.

The video was filmed not in Wales, but in Dartmoor, where in the nineteenth century my ancestors would have been living. Yet still it speaks to me of life on those harsh Welsh mountainsides.

We don’t know how lucky we are, indeed.

I came across this superb campaign when it was first released back in 2007. It’s for a bone marrow charity. It had a superb website back then too, which had a fine selection of desktop wallpapers. Alas www.ilovemarrow.com is no longer, though it’s video lives on:

Long live the days of nice small well executed campaigns like this.

Here’s a topic for discussion. I truly believe that persistence is the most important quality when doing anything remotely creative. Skills and natural talent of course help an awful lot, but it’s persistence that makes our ideas see the light of day. Now meet The Treeman, a chap from Liverpool who can play the guitar and write songs. He’s become somewhat famous on YouTube because of the video below and is also a new hero of mine because if he embodies one thing, it’s persistence. If you’ve ever tried to do anything that is difficult, you will no doubt connect with this man.

I do warn you, the video is a little alarming to start with but oh god, is it funny too.

It’s to no surprise that he’s got a bit of a following because of that rather vibrant video. The more fantastic thing is that he’s actually finished recording an EP and is booking gigs off the back of this fame. Of course there are going to be a large amount of ironic fans out there, but i’d also like to think that the majority of the fans find something inspiring about him.  I’d hazard a guess that it isn’t his emotive lyrics or spine tingling chords, but more the fact that he’s actually battled with the creative process and come out of the other side with a finished article…and perhaps overcome a few of his own inabilities too. To be honest, i find it quite refreshing just to focus on that instead of whether the final output has any redeemable quality or not.

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Many are the times we’ve seen a mediocre production of a badly written script based on a lacklustre idea, and thought to ourselves, “it’s a crime that good money is being wasted on such arse.”

But sometimes on the other hand, you just have to hold your hands up and admit that some people are just better than you, and feel humbled by their mere existence. This was certainly how I felt when I came across the gem that is “Dalston Superstars.” Enjoy!

The past couple of months have been somewhat busy down in the Kent offices of The Bakery, and it takes an idle late evening to finally get round to some overdue admin work. Please find below some of the things that i’ve been working on recently. Everything you see has been designed and made by myself (with the exception of the odd bit of artwork here and there).