21-12-11 / THE PETEBOX 'FUTURE LOOPS' ALBUM & VIDEOS LAUNCH

Here are the first in a series of promos I did for The Petebox. Starting today there will be a new promo every two weeks, one for every track off his debut album Future Loops. I must be mental...

20-12-11 / 'SOFT' ON NEW DVD COMPILATION

Following on from Soft's recent popularity on Vimeo (thanks to the Vimeo staff who featured it on the homepage), it has now been included on the new Wholpin DVD magazine. Mine arrived in the post this morning and it seems to be a right fancy little package, featuring an all-in-one gatefold DVD sleeve/booklet with eleven short films and interviews with the directors. I can't speak for any of the titles yet but I shall have to watch it over the festive period and report back with more reasons to buy one. In the meantime, Merry Christmas y'all.

12-12-11 / NEW AWARD FOR 'JAM TODAY' / CLERMONT-FERRAND / LEUVEN

Lots of good news at once, whoooop! Jam Today just won the Ron Holloway award at Tirana International Film Festival in Albania. It is an award in memory of the late critic and film historian who attended the festival a number of times, and the blurb is that the award is for a director who "continues shooting short films without falling into commercialism, always supporting innovation and originality". That is really quite lovely.

Jam has also just been selected for competition at Clermont-Ferrand in France, the biggest of the big and a huge honour. I could have fallen off my chair when I received the incoming email entitled Selection Result and said to myself "Oh yeah, here we go again...".

And I keep forgetting to mention that last month Soft screened in Baghdad, of all places. Iraq Short Film Festival, don't you know...

Leuven Short Film Festival in Belgium was great. What nice people, nice food, nice beer... It was a shame my attendance was only for two days and I got my screening date wrong, arriving one day after. It was the first time Jam Today had screened with new English subtitles, after many reports of the dialogue being difficult to understand for international audiences. I would have been interested to see if it made any notable difference, alas, perhaps another time. Apart from the Westmalle Tripel beer (and new discovery Orval), my main reason for attending was to catch Nicolas Provost's retrospective and finally see the missing titles I had previously only read about. Excellent.L

08-12-11 / 'CHOOSE A DIFFERENT ENDING' RELAUNCHED !?!

I'm not quite sure who the Metropolitan Police are trying to kid when the Choose a Different Ending campaign was so successful two years ago, but they have just relaunched it again with the bizarre claim that it is new.

24-11-11 / 'JAM TODAY' WINS AT ENCOUNTERS!

Late reporting this but Jam Today just won Best British Film at Encounters International Film Festival in Bristol on Saturday. So soon after the award in Brest, absolutely amazing. I got the call just as a massive German sausage was put down in front of me in Berlin, so as far as moments go, that was a pretty perfect one. Unfortunately I left Encounters for Germany the day before the awards, so I missed the celebrations.

The best thing ever happened in Bristol. One of my genuine heroes, John Kricfalusi (creator of The Ren & Stimpy Show), drew my caricature. It's a bit of a rude one though and probably not appropriate to put up here.

15-11-11 / 'JAM TODAY' WINS IN FRANCE / 'WHO KILLED DEON' WINS FIVE AWARDS

I am very proud to say that young Oliver Woollford scooped the Best Actor gong for his performance in Jam Today at Brest European Short Film Festival in France.

After the nightmare I had failing to make it to this particular festival last year (see the entry dated 11-11-10) I was determined to attend this time and I'm so glad I did. The first thing that really struck me was the sheer size of the theatre, not to mention how full it was, and then I noticed how young a lot of the audience were, which is really encouraging for short film in general. It's not just Hollywood for these teenagers. The audiences clapped along to the festival trailer and went wild when it ended on the festival logo, and all in all there was much enthusiasm and good cheer. I've never seen a jury having such a good laugh together. Here is a pic of me with festival programmer and super-nice-fella Massimiliano Nardulli (in the middle) and David Procter (Director of Photography on Jam Today).

Brest itself seems quite mad, with drunken punch-ups occuring nightly in the street, so when somebody told me that this is the part of Brittany on which Asterix was based it all made perfect sense. There were no jowly faces with oversized moustaches but there was plenty of Pif! Poff! T-chac! going on (the noises of a typical Asterix brawl). One small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the Romans... hehe.

Of the films I did see, favourites were Jeroen Annokkee's Sugar (Netherlands), Anca Miruna Lazarescu's Silent River (Romania - liked it even better this time around), Magnus Arnesen's Sing Me to Sleep (Poland), and for sheer nutsness - Sylvia Guillet's downright odd Le Vivier (France).

In different news, Who Killed Deon won five more awards, including the GRAND PRIX (wooop) at the 2011 BIMAS, plus two Golds and a Silver at the 2011 London International Awards.

27-10-11 / MORE AWARDS FOR 'WHO KILLED DEON'

Who Killed Deon won a gold and three silvers at the 2011 Campaign BIG Awards last night.

24-10-11 / AWARDS FOR 'WHO KILLED DEON'

Just found out that Who Killed Deon won two silvers at the Kinsale Sharks advertising awards in Ireland.

17-10-11 / NEW BINAURAL DOCUMENTARY

To mark today's release of Swimming's smashing new single Neutron Wireless Crystal, here is a second binaural film documenting the specially recorded version of it, which we shot in Easter. It also features the excellent Mining for Diamonds (the flip side of the new single) plus a host of other Swimming tracks. If you enjoyed the first binaural film then you should definitely check this out.

11-10-11 / RESPECT TO ANDY SESTON

Today we say goodbye to Andy Seston, the ever-cheeky make-up and special effects artist, and a giant amongst men. Cruelly stolen from us by cancer at the age of thirty-four, he is simply one of the most warm spirited human beings I have ever known. A truly calming presence with a big heart and an enviable sense of humour, it is with much regret that I shall never have the pleasure of working with him again. While it is always a cliche to speak in such terms when remembering the deceased, anyone who is lucky enough to have known Andy will know these words are far from empty. You won't be forgotten mate x

25-09-11 / ANOTHER PETEBOX SHOOT

Number eight of nine done and dusted. Well, far from dusted, but, err, done. Shot. Look, I'm tired, okay? The usual thanks go out to Graeme Crowley (for the camera), Graham Forde (for the loupe), Al Clark (for the gels), and John Sampson (for being the bat in the belfry). Oh and Peter, for a truly batnuts track.

My GoPro camera has been dispatched from the States and I'm champing at the bit. I can't wait to have a blast on it, it's like Christmas is coming.

21-09-11 / MILAN FILM FESTIVAL & OTHER STUFF

Well, it's HIGH time for an update. I've been working on a significant series of videos for The Petebox, which will be announced in due course, and also directing a new commercial.

I also just returned from Milano Film Festival, where Jam Today was in competition. It was my fourth visit to this festival, and judging by the amount of people flocking to the screenings it is really starting to outgrow itself, in a brilliant way. I stepped off the plane at 10pm into 27 degree loveliness and immediately felt like I was on holiday. The outdoor screen in the park (below) was bigger than ever and I was very much looking forward to screening there...

... but, as noted in my 22-09-09 entry, the festival has a habit of attracting thunderstorms as the boil of summer starts fighting with the promise of autumn. Unfortunately for me, the lightning started zapping two hours before my scheduled screening, the heavens opened and started weeing over everything, and the screening was cancelled. Bummer. Rain conspired against us during the film's production and it obviously still hasn't finished putting the boot in. As gutting as it was though, the festival had too good an atmosphere to dwell on the disappointment. As small consolation, the film did screen the following day in a fantastic indoor venue (below), albeit in the middle of a 'short film marathon' which saw me half-asleep and somewhat confused by the time I got up for the Q&A, two and a half hours in.

In other news, I'm all set on the concept for Hamburg Short Film Festival's 2012 trailer and will be going over there to shoot it very soon. It's a pretty exciting idea and I can't wait to get stuck in.

28-07-11 / ARCHIVING CONTINUES WITH 'CHOOSE A DIFFERENT ENDING'

As part of my ongoing and masochistic mission to remaster and archive my catalogue, just in case I fall into a big hole any time soon, I have finally cut my own version of a promo for Choose a Different Ending. Although it's only for showreel purposes I thought it worth putting up here. I'd wanted to do this a long time ago but the need to re-encode gazillions of files from Mac to PC format, plus working on new projects, prevented it from happening.

01-07-11 / A STORM AND SOME SNOW

A little film I made in 2006 called A Storm and Some Snow, which is quite mad, gets its online debut. Be sure to watch it in the dark though or you won't see much.

It was shot with a basic single-chip MiniDV camera, which was the only camera to hand at the time. A better camera probably would have been struck anyway.

The "HD" option is simply out of frustration with repeated SD uploads displaying even more ghastly compression in the sky, so depsite the low shooting resolution, please be sure to switch "HD" on (and avoid watching it in a bright room).

27-06-11 / AWARDS FOR 'WHO KILLED DEON'

Who Killed Deon just won a gold at the Clio awards and silver and bronze lions at Cannes.

16-06-11 / 'JAM TODAY' AT PALM SPRINGS / HAMBURG NEWS

Jam Today will receive its US premiere at the prestigious Palm Springs Shortfest on Friday 24th June at 13:30.

Hamburg Short Film Festival was brilliant as ever, and those who pulled out for fear of E.Coli really missed a treat. With sunshine and friends old and new, for me it was like a big birthday-holiday with the best people ever. I spent hours today fannying around trying to get a picture gallery to work but failed miserably. Jam Today enjoyed its first public screening (for me) and I came over all funny in the second Q&A. Of the other films, I have to mention Nicolas Provost's Stardust (Belgium). I'd been fortunate to see this prior to the festival but it was something else on the big screen. For my money he is one of the most interesting experimental filmmakers out there, doing something fresh in the company of impregnable, repetitive indulgences that seem incredibly dated these days and don't actually experiment much.

I'm honoured and somewhat terrified that the festival have asked me to make the trailer for next year's edition. Having attended for the last ten years I have seen many previous versions and, whether the audiences love or hate them, they always have an opinion because they are screened so many times each day. It's more unnerving than screening a film but I'll be damned if I'm going to bottle out. Unless I do of course, in which case I'll just come back and delete this paragraph and it'll be your word against mine. Trailer? What trailer? Nah, I think you're confusing me with someone else, pal.

06-06-11 / DEFINITIVE VERSION OF LAST YEAR'S BINAURAL DOCUMENTARY

I'm more than a little bit relieved that the definitive remaster of the scruffy little documentary I shot for Swimming four days before Christmas in 2009 is finally done, in its original 4:3 format. It has been a long time coming, for reasons too tediously technical to list. This was one of those films that just sort of happened and became something quite special, to some extent because of the ludicrous weather. It's fair to say that in such conditions I wouldn't have dared shoot some of the footage on a camera of higher quality, and the lo-fi DV aesthetic complements the snowed-off-and-stripped-down nature of the band's performance just nicely.

Swimming's description of the binaural process: "These recordings are about experiencing a one-off, live version of the music in a totally unique way… with binaural artist Dallas Simpson being the ‘vessel’ for bringing the music to your ears.

"Recorded using tiny microphones worn in Simpson’s ears to capture the sound exactly as he is hearing it, certain songs lend themselves to different spaces in order to be stripped right back for a rudimentary performance.

"When you listen back on headphones, then it’s you who hears the music in the same way, like you were actually there in the environment. The sound of the instruments, voices and the ambience of the location are all captured in 3D surround sound so you’re sonically transported to that time and place each time you listen to the track".

01-06-11 / 'JAM TODAY' AT RUSHES SOHO SHORTS

Jam Today will be screening at Rushes Soho Shorts in London on Friday 22nd and Wednesday 27th July, in the 'long form' competition, while today I'm having a second attempt at shooting a new Petebox vid which was rained off last week.

27-05-11 / PODCAST

Recorded a podcast about Jam Today for the CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival in Toronto, featured here.

24-05-11 / SWIMMING - 'MINING FOR DIAMONDS' BINAURAL RECORDING

And here's the first of the two performances (actually the second, and so NOT the one featured in the trailer - the first one will be next). The man kneeling in front of the band is Dallas Simpson, a binaural sound recordist who has a teeny-tiny microphone inserted into each ear. The idea is that when you listen through headphones you hear it exactly as he did, though there is such little movement in this one that you can enjoy it straight up, without having to wear cans.

16-05-11 / SWIMMING TRAILER

Here's a trailer for the Northumberland binaural shoot a few weeks ago. I left my Nikon shooting this while filming the main promo, simply relocating the tripod every half-hour or so. The beach performance will be available soon, as a partner piece to an additional, all-acoustic song in the sand dunes.

11-05-11 / 'JAM TODAY' WORLD PREMIERE

Jam Today will have its world premiere in Toronto at the Worldwide Short Film Festival on June 2nd and 4th, followed by its European premiere at Hamburg International Short Film Festival on June 8th and 11th. Big cheers to Graeme Crowley for the poster design.

26-04-11 / A NEW SWIMMING BINAURAL SHOOT

Spent the Easter weekend in Northumberland shooting a binaural recording session for Swimming's next single. A far cry from the deep snow of the Kielder session, this time we had brilliant sunshine to contend with on the beaches of Bamburgh Castle. Such weather is far and away my least favourite conditions for filming and so, from a shooting perspective, it was definitely more challenging than the last one. A battery crisis and the want of a simple reflector didn't help matters, but a great time was had by all.

19-04-11 / ANOTHER PETEBOX SHOOT

A good weekend shooting more promos for The Petebox. Big massive thanks to all who helped out on this one: Graeme Crowley for the camera, Karl Wilby for building me a bespoke shoulder rig, Graham Forde for the viewfinder, Mary Kearns at Spool for the lights, Owen at Broadway for the emergency bulb replacement, Matt Taylor, Tom Walsh and Henry Parkinson for assisting on set, and of course Pete Fletcher for the use of Nottingham's First Love studio. Good fellas, good vibes, lots of coffee, pot noodles, weird haslet sandwiches, and a big yellow moon which Henry noted looked like a big crisp. I liked that.

16-04-11 / 'SOFT' TRAILERS ?!?

A handful of unofficial trailers for Soft have popped up on YouTube and from what I can glean they are the result of some kind of media course assignment. I don't know how many are out there but I found one, two, three, four of them. Nuts.

02-04-11 / INCREDIBLE SATELLITE IMAGES OF JAPAN

In case you haven't seen these images already then I urge you to spend some time checking out this link. Drag the slider in the middle of each image to reveal (or hide) the effects of tsunami damage. These pictures really capture the scale of the devastation..

01-04-11 / BUB'S NEW CLOTHES / SHORT FILM COMPETITION / VIRAL NUTSNESS

So Bubtowers is taking its first tentative step towards a more streamlined experience, rocking some new clobber and finally including video content. Not a bad idea for a filmmaker. Films are slowly but surely appearing through their respective pages in the films section, and a preview of the new short Jam Today is on its brand spanking new page.

Anyone interested in making a short film and looking for some moolah should click on the image below. I am honoured to be involved in the selection process and hope to see entries pouring in, so get your creative juices on the hob and send send send...

In a matter of days, the Petebox video (below) has become an instant YouTube smash, clocking up 350,000 views at the time of writing. Its rapid viral spread has seen it featured on countless blogs and The Pixies have even posted it on their own website, so that's vindication alright.

27-03-11 / PETEBOX COVERS THE PIXIES

The first of The Petebox loop pedal sessions I filmed last month...

17-03-11 / FOUR MORE FOR 'WHO KILLED DEON'

Who Killed Deon won four silver arrows at last night's BTAA awards in the categories of Public Service Advertising, Cinema Advertising, Best Cinema Commercial over 90 seconds and Direct Response.

14-03-11 / BIG LOVE TO JAPAN

Still having trouble getting my head around what is occuring in Japan. It's some kind of relief that friends and their families I have there are okay. No less thumped by the devastation, and in anticipation of a positive reply from a couple of people who have yet to respond, here's hoping the worst is over. Love to you all.

08-03-11 / 'WHO KILLED DEON' WINS FOUR AWARDS

Who Killed Deon just bagged four silvers at this year's Creative Circle advertising awards in the categories of Best Direction, Best Editing, Best Cinema Commercial and Best Public Service Commercial.

18-02-11 / SWIMMING VIDEO NME EXCLUSIVE

My once-lost promo for Sun in the Island by Swimming is now online as an NME exclusive for a few days before going out everywhere else.

13-02-11 / THE P-P-P-P-P-P-P-PETEBOX AND SOME STRING

A satisfyingly productive weekend. My extremely talented beatboxing friend Peter Sampson, better known as The Petebox, boomed and clicked his way to bubtowers for a spot of long-overdue collaboration. We filmed some of his typically barmy/brilliant live loop-pedal performances and my equally long-overdue first use of Canon's game-changing 5D camera proved to be interesting. Nice one Simon, only took you three years. The camera (big cheers to Graeme Crowley for the loan!) had none of the optional accessories that make it easier to operate, like a separate screen, support rails, or follow focus. Shooting in long, unbroken takes was a must to give a flavour of the process behind such a multi-layered performance, and it's a shocker how heavy such a little camera can become after roaming with it for four minutes at a time, often at an extended arm's length.

Being limited to the on-board LCD screen, which obviously doesn't flip or move in any way, meant I could never move the camera very far from my face. I was also shooting at the most shallow depth of field I could muster, so having to manually ride the focus directly from the lens with a hand that should have been supporting the camera became something of a trial by fire. A cheeky length of string attached to a disconnected light fixture on the ceiling worked wonders when I started to think I wasn't going to pull it off. Made me feel right proud, that. So, to quote James Mason in Spring and port Wine, "You never know when you'll need a piece of string...". Peter will release the finished clips at monthly intervals, starting as soon I have found time to grade them.

03-02-11 / FINALLY, THE SWIMMING DOCUMENTARY FROM DECEMBER 2009

Here is a short documentary to accompany the upcoming release of Sun in the Island by Swimming. It was one of those occasions where I wished I'd taken a better camera, but we didn't expect quite so much snow and I probably wouldn't have been as trigger-happy with anything more than the old DV handycam I was carrying. In any case, the abandonment of technology is appropriate to the piece, as you will see. The official video to the very different rock/pop version of the song is almost done (for a second time, grrr) and even daytime Radio 1 have been playing it.

30-01-11 / NEW SHORT 'JAM TODAY' FINISHED

OK, so the most anxiety-riddled part of the post-production process, the sound mix, is over. Despite having the good fortune to work with excellent engineers, and this time was no exception, there is little anyone can do to alleviate the deep-rooted sense of dread I feel during a mix. The trouble is almost always the same. I do so much detailed design in my picture edit that the inevitable disruptions which occur when subsequently mixing/mastering the audio cause me to feel an immense loss of control. It is comparable to the days before desktop editing, struggling to keep hold of creativity, sprinting to the finish while the clock is ticking in a hired facility. It is also control freakery, as understandable as it is utterly unreasonable. My 'dog-hearing' doesn't help matters, being thrown so completely by a tiny click here or an unfamiliar rustle there.

The mix is also the moment of truth, when you are closing the chapter and putting the film out for the world to see (hear). On this particular film, mysterious, still-unexplained technical issues massively multiplied the work required by angels at 750MPH before dubbing mixer Ben G was even able to begin work. Given that these delays meant I only managed a total of nine hours attending personally (which included recording final snippets of ADR by the actors), I am lucky to have a mix at all. Ben G, a soldier who also mixed the knife crime campaigns, really hung in there when time was laughing at us and pulling faces. Massive hat-doffs also to Dave Ludlam, Matt Clarke and Andy McLintock over at Framestore, for a smashing job on the picture. By this time next week I will have submitted the film to its first handful of festivals. Whatever happens after that is anyone's guess.

25-01-11 / STUTTGART FILMWINTER, GERMANY

Just back from the Filmwinter Festival for Expanded Media in Stuttgart, on jury duty for the international competition. My last time there was ten years ago for the international premiere of Telling Lies and this time I screened my retrospective programme. There is something disquieting about your fellow jurors being able to see so much of your work, not to mention all of the directors in attendance whose films you are there to judge. As an added bonus, Hamburg's ever-excellent Wall is a Screen team were there and once again I got to participate, which is always an absolute pleasure. While the cold gnashed through my converse and into my aching toes, Bass Invaders was projected high onto a shop wall in the main street, craning the necks of a good crowd of unsuspecting shoppers. Brilliant.

It was also mint seeing Ruben Östlund's excellent Incident by a Bank again, also on a shop wall, with laughing children in the crowd. Speaking of which, an audience member told me in the festival bar that she took her four year-old daughter Franke to my retrospective, and when she asked her after several screenings what she had liked the most, she said "I like Simon Ellis!" haha :) So, my youngest fan. Go Franke! Still, I do hope she's not having nightmares about flying speakers, walking televisions or spade-wielding nutjobs. All in all, a great time with plenty going on. Lovely people, cheap beer/wine/jaegermeister/rum, and of course, currywurst. My hotel room's angry door handle attempted to electrocute me every time I used it, at one point emitting visible sparks. As for the films, some personal favourites in no particular order: Charles Fairbanks' Wrestling with my Father (USA), Pilvi Takala's Real Snow White (France/Netherlands), Jules Zingg's Les Voisins/Neighbours (France), Bartosz Kruhlik's Wycieczka/Trip (Poland), Anssi Kasitonni's Masa (Finland), and Roberto Perez's Los Gritones/The Screamers (Spain).

In other news, comments about Soft on Youtube are becoming very interesting debates (UPDATE FROM THE FUTURE - new link).

20-01-11 / KNIFE CRIME FILMS

A new version of the last knife crime campaign I directed has been edited, specifically for a limited cinema release. Though I am unhappy with the way the second campaign turned out, thus not mentioning it since the horrific shoot, this new version comes somewhere close to visualising the broad concept. I thought I should finally showcase it in honour of those who worked tirelessly on it, like editor Matt Swanepoel who also edited the first campaign (Choose a Different Ending) and flew back to the UK from South Africa especially for the second one (Who Killed Deon). I must doff my hat again to producer Jonas Blanchard, as always. Finally, kudos to the actors. I was lucky enough to find a great ensemble and would LOVE to work with them again on something of our own.

And the all-new cinema version of Who Killed Deon:

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