Pearson wanted to illustrate to people who speak English as a second language the difficulties that bad grammar can get you in to. They approached Casual with a light-hearted idea centred around a police interrogation with a twist. The perp has a rather loose grasp of the English language and the copper has a strong affinity for the correct use of grammar. Needless to say the two aren’t exactly a match made in heaven…

Top-notch performances from Tim Parker (the cop) and John Doughty (the criminal) as well as good old-fashioned hard work from all the crew really brings the script alive. The shooting location had a consistent room temperature of about minus 500 degrees so it’s a wonder we didn’t all end up with hypothermia!

We’re really pleased with the finished piece and, more importantly, Pearson gave glowing feedback. We even recently found out that since February the video has had almost 15,000 views on the YouTube. We have many happiness!

Paulo Nutini once sang ‘Jenny don’t be hasty’. I can’t really remember the rest of the song so the context is a little hazy, but as far as memory serves I think that Jenny was a post production professional working in the not too distant future.

Sounds about right.

And in composing such a niche song, it seems that Mr Nutini was actually offering a sage nugget of prophecy to editors around the world – especially ones named Jenny. If only we’d, or indeed anyone, had been listening back then, we may have thought twice last summer before dismissing Apple’s latest release, FCP X, out of hand.

Like everyone else in the world, we at Casual Towers were dumbstruck by just how bad this new piece of software was, and were left questioning Apple’s motives behind releasing a child’s play thing instead of a professional editing platform.

But like any good child’s toy, it’s only a matter of time before the adults secretly have a go themselves. And so imagine my surprise at the end of my first run out in FCP X that instead of a punctured space hopper, I was left with plenty to think about.

Yes, at first glance it has something of the iMovie/Windows Movie Maker about it, and you can see why ‘professionals’ scoffed. But people are always scared of change, and in FCP X you’ve got that by the bucket load. Nothing works as it’s ‘meant’ to and trying to apply traditional editing techniques leaves the user frustrated.

This is because Apple have slightly reinvented the editing wheel. They have switched from a track based timeline to a magnetic one, which does take a bit of getting your head round. But once you do, it starts to make a lot of sense. I won’t go into detail of how it all works, but let’s just say that manipulating your clips in this way is actually very efficient and intuitive, with trimming, rippling, rolling all fewer clicks away than ever before.

But Apple didn’t stop there. They have re jigged media organisation with ‘smart groups’ and keywords that make logging and binning footage a lot easier. You can access whatever clips you are looking for at the click of a button, or if you’re feeling lazy, FCP X will also automatically identify, and group, different types of shots without you doing anything at all! Combine this with a vastly improved keyframe interface, a powerful 64-bit engine and background rendering and you have plenty of food for thought.

In fact FCP X makes enough elements of editing so much easier that it almost feels like cheating, which I think is part of the problem. All its ‘one click’ solutions fuel an amateurish perception, like taking photos with Instgram. Yet just because these features are easy to use, doesn’t mean they can’t be effective. If the user can match colour between shots just by clicking a box, or sync and edit mutli clips with minimum fuss, then why the hell not.

I’ve always been a firm believer that your editing software only plays a very small part in the overall editing process. As long you understand what makes a good edit it doesn’t really matter how you arrive at it – be that FCP, AVID, Premiere, or indeed your iphone. The software should be as transparent as possible to facilitate your storytelling. And what FCP X has done, especially for the ‘prosumer’, is taken a lot of technical worries out of the equation by making the journey from ingest to finished product a lot simpler.

As a result I believe we’ll start to see higher quality films, from a wider base of ‘editors’ who might have struggled to achieve the effects they were looking for with more traditional platforms. So like it or not the ‘old school’ may need to move with the times to stay ahead – combining this new usability with their existing editing knowledge in order to maintain the distinction between professional film making and home movies.

However, and it is a big however, FCP X in it’s current state still lacks some vital ‘pro’ options that would need to be remedied before it became a truly viable option. Yet with announcements of RED support at this years NAB, it seems that we might not be too far away.

So only time will tell how far Apple take FCP X, and how widely it is eventually embraced by the editing community. But I’ve got a sneaky feeling that if you check back in 12 months time your may find Casual Films’ team of editors sitting around eating their words.

So, as the keen reader of this blog that I’m sure you are, you’ll be aware of some big changes here at Casual Films. The most noticeable change being a physical one – after years of working in our office petite and – what’s the word estate agents use for horrifically cramped and confined? Oh yes – cosy, we moved all the way across the hall to the huge studio next door and set about turning it into the sort of super cool and awesome ‘New York loft’ style venue that we’d always dreamed of. Once it was complete it was so good that we all became 10% cooler just because we work here – the design and décor is that good.

However, as anyone who’s actually cool will tell you, there’s no point being cool unless people can see that you’re cool. You see? Cool.

And so we invited our excellent photographer friend Jake Curtis in to the office to capture just what it is we love so much about our new work space – and thanks to him and some nice styling by Lucy at Lula Blue we can now show you. So, allow me to shut up and please have a look around…

According to a study by Dr Mark Pereira, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It can reduce the risk of diabetes and heart disease as well as stave off obesity (the study unfortunately doesn’t take into account the traditional British fry-up)… Armed with this nugget of nutritional information we decided to see to the welfare of our brothers and sisters in corporate video production by hosting a management breakfast in association with the IVCA.

The breakfast was held at London’s Hospital Club with an aim to foster more of a community within the industry. Although we’re competitors all the breakfasters agreed that by sharing problems and solutions we could help each other to improve.

Marco Forgione, Managing Director of the IVCA, kicked off the session. We discussed freelancers, pay, cash flow and perceptions of value amongst clients. Patrick Russell from the BFI was also on hand to tell us about archiving our work for future generations.

For the uninitiated, Future Cinema put on events every once in a while that combine theatre and film to enhance the viewing experience of silver screen classics. The audience get all dressed up in suitable attire, in this instance flapper dresses for the ladies and trilby hats for the men, and step into a secret location that transports them into the movie’s world. For this Bugsy screening the east end’s Troxy Theatre had been transformed into a replica of Fat Sam’s.

We headed down to Limehouse after work on Friday and were ushered through the Troxy’s back alley entrance. We were led into a room blocked off by a large bookcase and, after discreetly passing a book through the shelves, were granted entrance to the venue. True to its reference material there was a boxing match already in progress in the middle of the speakeasy and all the front tables were filled with punters eagerly awaiting Tallulah’s show.

While we waited at the bar for a cocktail and a bowl of spaghetti Dandy Dan’s gang raided the place. We ducked under a table and watched as they proceeded to splurge gun Fat Sam’s clientele. This was going to be a messy evening…

When the coast was clear, we ran up to the balcony for safety and found a candle lit table tucked away in a corner. As the lights begun to dim, a waitress made the rounds selling bags of fresh hot popcorn. We shuffled down in our seats and made ourselves comfortable ready for the film to begin.

Throughout the film live action extensions of the events on screen were taking place all over the venue. Whilst the credits rolled Dandy Dan’s gang returned for a splurge gun and shoot-out with Fat Sam’s boys. Grabbing hold of our own custardy weapons we all left our tables and ran downstairs for a chaotic fight with the gangsters.

As Bugsy and his gal Blousey made their escape for Hollywood we stayed on for an evening of dancing with Casual’s very own MD and DJ Barnaby Cook. Barnaby ensured that despite its custardy coating the dance floor stayed packed all night.

ANYBODY WHO IS ANYBODY, WILL SOON WALK THROUGH THAT DOOR, AT FAAAAAT SAM’S GRAAAAAAND SLAM SPEAKEAAAAAAAASY! I don’t think that song is ever going to leave my head…

With the New York arm of Casual gaining momentum by the day we thought it appropriate to see how our work would compete on the global awards circuit. We’ve been lucky enough to have quite a bit of success here in the UK but when entering the New York Festivals International Television & Film Awards we felt a bit like the new kid at school. We soon got news that we’d made the finalist list but with entries from 40 countries and thousands of competing films we were grateful just to receive this recognition.

However, we are extremely proud and touched to announce that we have been accepted by the other children and have been given a few shiny (and unexpected) medals. We received a Finalist Certificate in Best Internal Comms for our health and safety animation: Working Safely with Luvata for global metals firm Luvata. Nick was awarded a rather grandly entitled Bronze World Medal for his directing work on “What Do You Want To Be?” for Tribal Resourcing and Thames Valley Police. Best of all we walked away with a ‘one, two’ in the Public Relations category; the Gold World Medal for “Chemistry: All Around You” for the EPCA / UNESCO and Silver World Medal for “What Do You Want To Be?”

We are beaming over here at the Casual office and want to send out a big thank you to everyone who works their backsides off on all our work and to our clients for having faith in our concepts and filmmaking skills! Thanks also to the judges – the cheques are in the post.

Matthew Diffee, cartoonist for the New Yorker magazine gave a talk at SXSW last month on ‘How to become an Idea Factory’. He’s a man who week in and week out must pitch 10 cartoon ideas to the New Yorker, knowing 9 of which will get rejected. The career he has built himself depends on his ability to pour out ideas, lest everything he has worked to build come crashing down. So here, as promised, are the tips and tricks he kindly dispensed on how you too could become an idea factory.

There are three things that affect your ability to be creative – you, your environment and your process. Get all three right and the ideas will come flowing like a broken tap.

Firstly, he deals with ‘You’. To be able to come up with creative ideas, it is essential that you are open to both appreciate and value creativity. The people that hold crucial creative attributes are curious and non-judgmental. They are open and perhaps most interestingly they hold a strong belief that they can create. In addition to this they need to be thick skinned, brave and persistent.

“The worst enemy to creation is self-doubt” – Sylvia Plath

Next on the agenda, he discussed ‘Your environment’. In order to be creative, you need to be in the right place at the right time. It is vastly important that you identify where you do your best work. If ideas always hit you in bed, well then curl up under that duvet and start dreaming. If the shower holds the key to your moments of epiphany, grab yourself a waterproof pen and white board, get that water running and jump in. You must unplug yourself from the world, and this can’t be stressed enough, turn off your phone and don’t check your emails. Though if you get that itching feeling and simply must visit the Casual Films blog we aren’t going to stop you… Once you’ve built an environment in which you can concentrate, you’re almost ready to create.

However, before you begin Matthew suggests that you do something you don’t like doing. For him, washing dishes is a version of hell. After an hour of washing-up the task of sitting down to come up with ideas seems like a blessing. Once your chores are complete you will be perfectly primed for creative work!

This leads to the next step, ‘Your process’. When you’re generating ideas, don’t shut any down and always look for a way to expand on them. Always approach an idea and then ask ‘Yes, and…?’ Instead of shutting down a thought, add things, subtract things, flip them on their heads or try mashing them up. Try imagining you have a giant funnel above your head, fill it up with all your creative and zany solutions. When it’s feeling full it’s time to ‘Flip the Funnel’ down onto the page. At this point you need to tunnel your focus into honing an idea into one that will actually work.

Now this isn’t a concrete formula for turning metal into gold, so what do you do when it still doesn’t work? You try something different. You change your format. If you have been using paper to write on, try using a computer. Look for new prompts that you haven’t thought of yet. Try imposing more constraints onto the idea, ‘this one must include…’. Invite someone else in who you can to bounce ideas off.

So finally, what advice does Matthew Diffee offer for dealing with your ideas being rejected? He has only one piece of advice.

“Work harder.”

And so we return, battered, bruised and feeling a little sorry for ourselves. SXSW 2012 has come to a close and with it ends our week in Austin, Texas.

Arriving late on the festival’s first night, we took it easy like the responsible adults that we all should be… Unfortunately this behavior was not indicative of the week that followed.

The days were filled with seminars too good to miss and the nights with parties too good to leave. The resulting mental state of the attending Casual crewmembers could only be described as… fragile. The melodramatic cries of “You weren’t there man! You just weren’t there!” seem to echo the sentiments of a stereotypical ‘Nam veteran.

This year’s Interactive festival seemed to have upped the ante on the seminar, workshop and panel fronts with something worthy of attending every hour. Keep your eyes peeled for a couple of blogs on some of the most notable talks…

On the film side of things music documentaries seemed to be a trend this year. Highlights included “Grandma Lo-Fi” a film about cult Icelandic musician Sigrídur Níelsdóttir who at the age of 70 started composing and released 59 albums in 7 short years, and “Marley” a brilliant (but lengthy) biopic on the life and music of the one and only Mr. Bob Marley.

But as the Artic Monkeys quite rightly identified “they say it changes when the sun goes down”. The nighttime sections of the trip were slightly less, well… cultured.

Without going into details the shenanigans involved party crashing, kitchen smuggling, cowboy boots, bed swapping, night swimming, a San Antonio hen party, indecent proposals, Jagerbombs, Barnaby playing ‘All I Want For Christmas’ while DJing at the SAGIndie party and one spectacular brush-off that actually used the line “sorry I can’t come I’ve been admitted to hospital with a serious fever”. The penny dropped that this statement may not have been true when the hapless Casual member turned up at a closed hospital with flowers and grapes in hand. Were I to mention more I’d probably lose my job…

It’s a good thing that the team called it quits early and decided to claw back some humanity by finishing the expedition with a visit to the Alamo otherwise we may have been a few staff members short for the next couple of weeks!

Last week we dusted off our finest suits, polished our smartest shoes and attempted to look all respectable ready for the most glamorous of occasions in any production company’s diary, the awards ceremony.

And so, on Friday evening we headed to the annual IVCA awards at the rather swanky Grosvenor Hotel. We limbered up for a nail-biting battle of filmmaking prowess. After taking home a total of 7 awards last year we had a lot to live up to. The high quality of our competition and the fact that this year the number of categories had been reduced from 35 to only 24 wasn’t going to make a similar showing easy.

We took our seats, straightened our bowties and put on our most nonchalant faces as the ceremony began…

The night’s entertainment was a bit surreal and somewhat reminiscent of a Butlin’s resort nightclub. Impromptu drumming, fake hotel staff singing opera and a Motown band dressed as ice cream sundaes. We didn’t really have a clue what was going on but sat through the performances with the stoic focus of a group of Buddhist Warrior Monks. We had awards to win and no amount of glitter, ABBA or aerial dancing would get in our way!

By the end of the evening we had received five shiny new trophies and a collection of Highly Commended awards to add to our collection. These included Golds for “Chemistry: All Around You” for EPCA/UNESCO and the Laurus Award (best film under £15k) for “Online Community Animation” for Macmillan Cancer Support.

Some of the youngest members of the Casual crew, Dan, James and Tom, also participated in the first ever IVCA Creative Breakthrough Awards. Although they didn’t win top prize they came a close second to an entry from one of Ogilvy’s talented young employees. Despite this they received much positive feedback and many pats on the back including one from the ceremony’s host, the BBC’s lovely Kate Silverton.

The boys made a cracking little video for a charity called CP Sport. CP Sport put on sporting events for children and young people with cerebral palsy to combat feelings of isolation and low self-esteem. Dermot Dolan from the charity was thrilled with the finished video describing it as “an absolutely incredible and beautiful film”. He excitedly told us how much of a difference the video would make to fundraising, finding volunteers and getting more kids involved. So that makes up for not quite sealing the award…

Needless to say there was plenty of fist pumping, whooping and general joviality throughout the night. Suitably glitzed out it’s time to don an oversized hoody, pull on my slippers and chow down on last night’s take away Chinese.

Our Awards were as follows:

Gold Award – Laurus Award: Macmillan Cancer Support – “Online Community Animation”

Gold Award – Best Editing: Adam Ruddick – “Chemistry: All Around You” for The European Petrochemical Association and UNESCO

Silver Award – Best B2C Promotion and Information – “Chemistry: All Around You” for The European Petrochemical Association and UNESCO

Silver Award – Best Photography – Adam Etherington – “ENOVIA: Your World In Formation” for TheFrameworks & Dassault Systèmes

Bronze Award – Laurus Award: Regions for ThirtyThree & TeachFirst

Highly Commended – Best Brand Communications: “Creative Journeys” for TMP & Jaguar Land Rover

Highly Commended – Best Animation, Graphics & Special Effects: Tim Francis, Martin Cook & Adam Ruddick – “Chemistry: All Around You” for The European Petrochemical Association and UNESCO

Highly Commended – Creative Breakthrough Award: Tom Bryan, James Chamberlain & Dan Hollis – “More Than Football” for CP Sport

Highly Commended – Industry Award for Communication Effectiveness: Rich Media Project for Macmillan Cancer Support

Finalist – Best Regular Communications: Rich Media Project for Macmillan Cancer Support

Finalist – Best Editing: Matthew Bradley – Creative Journeys for TMP & Jaguar Land Rover

After sailing treacherous seas for years on end and having a series of unfortunate run-ins with Sirens, a six-headed monster and a rather irate Cyclops, we hit the shores of the cinematic haven known as Everyman Cinemas. Turns out it was all pretty pointless as there’s a branch about 10 minutes away from the office but someone could probably turn the adventure into a good book one day…

We dusted ourselves off, sank into comfy leather sofas and got waited on by the friendly bar staff. Popcorn and coke? Why no thank you sir, I’ll go for the wasabi peas and a bottle of Merlot!

Everyman cinemas are dotted in and around London. Each of the nine branches have their own unique charm. Screen on the Green in Islington is an intimate space with a retro neon façade and hosts regular Q&A sessions with some of the biggest film stars and moviemakers around. Belsize Park has a large 3D screen and electronically reclining chairs for you to play with. The Hampstead branch is a converted theatre lined on either side with large two-man sofas; it even has a concierge station!

So guess what? We were working away enjoying a nice sunny Thursday afternoon when the latest copy of Televisual Magazine landed on our doorstep with a dramatic thud.

We’ve been eagerly awaiting the magazine’s arrival as this month it’s the much-coveted Corporate 50 issue. In previous years we’ve let out a sigh of disappointment as we’ve leafed through the featured production companies and not found Casual’s name anywhere. Still, each time we tore open the packaging with wide-eyes and trembling hands much like Charlie Bucket with a tasty new Wonka bar.

Barnaby cautiously approached the magazine as if it were some kind of ominous-looking alien life form. The office fell silent as he scooped the publication up off the floor and carefully removed the plastic cover.

With a furrowed brow Barnaby scanned the pages. 50 – no sign of Casual… 40 – still nothing… 30 – not a sausage… 20 – getting worried now… 18… Barnaby screws up his eyes and presses his nose to the page… 18… 18!!! We’re only the motherflipping 18th best corporate video production company in the UK!

Not bad for the first time a publication has placed us alongside the corporate video bigwigs! But wait what’s this? Corporate production companies most admired by their peers? 11th place, quoted as being a “team of emerging talents” and “ones to watch for the future”.

We’re pretty chuffed and really appreciate the recognition both from the guys at Televisual and our fellow film makers!

Right we’re off for celebratory burritos…

The point is that if you consider yourself to be pretty good at something then the biggest compliment you can pay a fellow practitioner is that you wish you’d created their work. Well, we reckon we’re pretty good at making films, and we have a message to BBH and The Guardian – we wish we’d made your Three Little Pigs film.

If you haven’t seen it yet then have a watch…

Good isn’t it? What we liked about it was, well, pretty much everything. The narrative is an intriguing spin on a very familiar tale and manages to encompass not only The Guardian’s ethos of fair reporting and ‘comment is free’, but also doffs its metaphorical hat to the changing nature of modern news gathering. All this with a rather nice nod to the ongoing financial crisis. Very swish. It’s not just about the narrative though, as a film it’s a little belter! The production design, photography, effects and editing are all expertly crafted, and together to create a visually stunning piece that – although undoubtedly not cheap – looks like it cost far more than it did (no matter how much that was, unless it was loads, which it probably wasn’t). Finally there’s the ‘event’ nature of its Channel 4 debut. Not many ads get a build up quite so intriguing – the last I can recall was Honda’s live sky dive – but by showing very little of the ad, and with no mention in the build up of who it was for or what it was about the strategists did a grand job of whetting the appetite and nudging one’s curiosity to life.

Okay, so it’s no Sistine Chapel, but how many newspapers did Micheangelo sell? More’s the point how many Cannes Lions did he win? Because come gong time we reckon BBH might be picking a couple up. Bravo.

The name’s Films, Casual Films. Yes, we’ve gone for a James Bond type intro to this blog because, quite frankly, we’re all feeling a little bit like super sexy secret agents. Sounds a little bit far fetched I know, but bear with me on this because it’ll all make sense in the end.

So what are the key elements to being James Bond?

1. International Travel

Yes, any secret agent worth his salt criss-crosses the globe on practically a daily basis – all in the line of work of course – and we’ve been doing just that. In the past two months we’ve visited Hong Kong, Nairobi, Kuala Lumpur, Seoul, Zurich, Sao Paolo, New York, Montreal, Delhi, Dubai, Mexico City, South Africa and practically every major European capital. Now that’s the sort of itinerary the Mission Impossible team are used to.

1. Shooting People

Of course 007 and friends don’t travel all that way just to visit the art galleries and museums – they go there to shoot people – and so did we. We shot all sorts of people with exotic sounding names in their impressive lairs (well buildings at any rate) and without exception they all worked for multi-national ‘organisations’.

1. Action

You can’t claim to be a sexy spy if you’re not prepared to mix things up a bit stunt wise, and whilst we might not have leapt any rivers on motorbikes (notice ‘might not’), we did hurl ourselves down mountains wearing nothing but skis (and full skiing equipment) and fly around the joint in a helicopter. Pretty hot action I think you’ll agree.

1. Secrecy

A spy who can’t keep a secret is, quite clearly, pretty useless, and here is where the parallel is at it’s strongest. Our worldwide travels were in aid of a few different (and equally wonderful) films for some pretty damn impressive companies – and that’s quite literally all we can say about the matter. Quiz us, grill us, tie us to a chair and torture us with pointy things and we won’t utter a word – because we take secrets very seriously indeed.

1. Sexy Sex

Yes, all secret agents get in to all sorts of steamy clinches with gorgeous and sexy members of the opposite sex – some who have been sent to kill them, some who just happened to get in the way.

Well, four out of five isn’t bad.

It’s that time of year again, the time when we dig out our smartest finery, get our hair cut nice and neat and practice our most polite ‘No seriously, you really deserved it – I’m happy for you’ smiles and head to a function room at a central London hotel. Yes, it’s awards time again and, more specifically RAD Awards time.

This has fast become one of our favourite nights out of the year, because for the past four years we’ve been fortunate enough to have been involved in a number of winners – see previous entries for full details – and in fact we’re yet to leave empty handed. This year’s splendid do was, thankfully, no different and we picked up another gong – otherwise this could have been quite a depressing blog. The 2012 award for Best Audio Visual/Broadcast went to Creative Journeys by TMP Worldwide for Jaguar Land Rover – a beautiful film that was as much art as it was advertising and was directed, filmed and edited entirely by our immensely talented team here at Casual Films.

As ever we feel incredibly privileged to be involved with excellent projects like these, lucky to have such brilliant staff and proud to have our contribution recognized. So, in a brief respite from patting ourselves heartily on the back, we doff our caps to all involved and say bravo to them and thank you to RAD for choosing our work.

We’ve also managed to land nominations in 4 different categories at the fast approaching New York Festivals’ TV & Film Awards, which is a rather nice welcome to our new second home.

They discuss how it’s getting increasingly harder to encourage employees to log onto an intranet system for information updates and that frequent in-person meetings, hand-outs and emails are a waste of time and resources.

Even social media platforms that facilitate a two-way dialogue between communicators and their audience are struggling to make a connection, as employees simply feel too busy.

The Melcrum guys did a spot of research on the most effective ways to get an employee’s attention. As you’d expect from the article’s title they found that the use of video delivered the best results. Their research showed that “93% of internal comms teams see video as an important tool, with two-thirds of respondents planning to increase budgets for video in the coming months”. More importantly, “more than 54% of internal comms professionals said their employees now expect to see video used for communication inside the organisation”.

These findings aren’t that surprising as they reflect trends in both the consumer and employment markets (have a look at our Graduate Recruiter article for more on this). A video is much easier to digest than a chunk of heavy text and will take a much smaller slice of time from the audience’s frantic schedule.

But perhaps I don’t need to convince you that video’s the way to go. You’re already here so there’s a good chance you’ve at least been considering video as an option or you’ve tried making a video and it’s not got the reception you expected.

Choosing video as a communication tool is only the first step. The second is finding an interesting and engaging format in which to package your information. Why not have a browse through a small selection of our corporate comms videos for a few examples of the many ways you can reach your employees…

Imagine what it’s like to be a surgeon going for surgery. On the plus side you know exactly what’s about to happen to you and you understand the necessity of it. On the downside you know all too well the risks inherent in the procedure, you may well have had people die on your own operating table during that self same operation and it’s more than likely that you know the individual standing over you waving a scalpel about and grinning like a lunatic.

The main point is that when you’re an expert in any specific field, becoming the customer is a bit of a double-edged sword. This is why so many dentists have bad teeth and most hairdressers look like they’ve fallen victim to a rogue lawnmower. As an expert you know the good and the bad, so when it comes to selecting someone to do it for you you’re only going to select the best. Which is why we were delighted to get a call from global ‘boutique’ PR Agency SLAM PR.

In just five years Slam have carved an awesome niche in the hugely competitive PR market. They’ve landed some big brand names already – and made a big name for themselves along the way – by putting a focus on turning customers in to ‘Brand Fans’, that is they encourage a two way dialogue between brand and consumer. They’ve found that doing this helps to create genuine loyalty – and that’s something that brands are fans of, so everyone’s a winner!

So yes, they’re brilliant and award winning and very successful, and when they wanted a film to tell everyone just how brilliant and award winning and successful they are they came to Casual Films. Read into that what you will…

…it means we’re ace (in case you read something else in to it).

Thanks to Amo Jones for his excellent animation skills.

Casual Films and the agency The Frameworks created the launch film for Dassault Systemes’ Las Vegas customer conference. Excitement and scale were the watchwords.

What was the brief?

They wanted it to be exciting and on a large scale. Dassault makes software that’s used to design anything from airlines to shampoo bottles so they wanted a film that illustrated the 11 different industries they operate in. The graphic they’d come up with was a globe with lots of elements poking out. So we thought why not go on a journey through a solar system where you see lots planets an they all come together in a big crunch at the end and leave that graphic on the screen.

Were you always going to go down a 3d animation route?

We toyed with the idea of doing it 2d, but we had the opportunity to do something a little bit special so we thought ‘Why don’t we build the planets in 3d and then animate them in After Effects in a two and a half d space?’ The two 3d designers started off with simple designs but one of them would do a planet and the other would look at it an then go and make his a little better so he quality of the planets as we went through all 11 got better and better.

How did the setting that the film would be seen in affect your thinking?

It was to be shown in a big conference hall and we wanted to give them something that made them take notice of the potency of video and of The Frameworks and us. We knew they were going to have a big sound system so we worked on the sound design to make it feel really immersive. We had a composer in he US who was going to score it but then we found a track on Audio Network, which was played by the Royal Philharmonic, and when we put that music on it we thought ‘wow.’

What’s happened since?

We’re soon off to South Africa to shoot a TV commercial for them.”

Download the full article here

Splitting the atom is one of the most incredible endeavours mankind has ever achieved, the accomplishment came as a result of some of the finest minds in history coming together and risking their lives – and the results could save our race. As recently as the 80’s the whole world believed that this nuclear stuff would bring about the end of the world via a big old-fashioned war (see WarGames, Mad Max or When the Wind Blows (bring a hanky for that one)), but now – as we approach a world without fossil fuels – it seems clear that nuclear power is, in fact, the future.

All of which makes it a little bit disturbing that the man synonymous with nuclear power in the 21st Century isn’t a genius physicist or mathematician but an obese, academically challenged heavy drinker with a tendency to lose focus and behave recklessly. I am, of course, referring to Mr Homer Simpson, a hilarious delight, no doubt, but not the man you want with his finger near any button that might do anything important.

Thankfully there’s a whole new breed vying to take his crown (no, not Lenny and Karl) and they learn the nuts and bolts of their trade at the EDF Nuclear Engineering Apprenticeship course in Gosport. This two year course is dedicated solely to providing the next generation of nuclear power providers – and as it takes several thousand people to safely run and maintain a nuclear power plant it’s a good job the course is popular!

The course itself is run much like any college course, with a variety of subjects to study, accommodation in the form of halls and plenty of social activities to establish social bonds – and you come out of the other end with a job for life! Sounds pretty good to us, and so when they asked us to make a film to let the young people of the UK (and their parents of course) know it was out there it was easy finding apprentices to volunteer to feature – they genuinely love it, and that came out in the film.

Oh, and in the canteen? Fission chips… I thank you

Talking Pictures

Barnaby Cook, Managing Director of Casual Films, which specialises in online video production and corporate film, explains how online video is a powerful tool – if handled correctly…

“Casual Films was set up during the rise of YouTube, Facebook and the social media revolution. A new era of online communication was beginning to dawn and video was at the forefront. Since those early days, the digital social environment has changed dramatically. It’s become so closely integrated with our everyday lives that for many people it’s difficult to imagine a life without tweets, pokes and the solemn nod of approval bestowed by the ‘Like’ button. However, as these changes have been taking place it’s become apparent that very few people fully understand the world of social media. This is particularly prominent when discussing that Holy Grail of online video, the viral.

Progressively more and more clients ask us to produce a ‘viral’ video. Viral’s become the buzzword of the decade for online video content. Yet most clients that ask for it fail to connect with what actually constitutes a viral video.

Let’s look at some YouTube stats so we can begin to understand what we’re competing with. Nearly eight years of content is uploaded to YouTube everyday, over three billion videos are viewed a day on YouTube, nearly seventeen million people have connected their YouTube account to at least one social service (Facebook, Twitter, Orkut, Buzz, etc.), one hundred million people take social action on YouTube (likes, shares, comments, etc.) every week and there are more than five hundred tweets per minute containing a YouTube link…”

Download the full article here

In the 80’s movie 48 Hours Nick Nolte played a hard nosed cop who had to spend the eponymous time period protecting Eddie Murphy’s wise cracking felon turned witness. As you can imagine (or as you know if you’ve watched the film, which you should have, it’s good. Not the sequel though, no certainly not Another 48 Hours) in those two full days they got up to no end of dangerous scrapes and hilarious japes, resulting in a very entertaining flick and a sizeable return on the studios investment (hence the sequel, God it’s awful.)

All of which beggars the question: What exactly can you do in 48 hours, and the answer is a bit vague – depends really. You can travel to the other side of the world but not to the moon. You can (probably) build a decent size garden shed but not a garage (I assume) and you could write a reasonable dissertation on sequels (believe me, you can) but you may be told it’s “The least academic piece of work I have ever read.” So it’s swings and roundabouts.

Any way, one thing you certainly can do is make a damn fine short film – as recently proven by most of the Casual Films gang for the Smoke and Mirrors 48 Hour Film Competition. The challenge is simple – you turn up with your crew, cast and kit, they give you the theme – this years was ‘Lost’ – and in the next two days you have to; conceptualise, write, film and edit the piece. Exactly 48 hours later you have to deliver a film, finished or not – obviously finished is better, and we managed that.

Our piece ‘LAMIA’ came from the twisted brain of Development Manager James via no less a source than Greek mythology don’t you know! And an incredible and valiant team effort saw it completed with quite literally more than a minute to spare.

It might not have won, but we’re very proud of every aspect of our little film and we’d love to hear what you think of it.

And no, there won’t be a sequel.

Probably.

Movie buffs will know that that quote comes from James Cagney in White Heat (Spoiler Alert – moments later he blows up the gas container he’s stood on, killing himself. Bruce Willis was dead from the beginning of The Sixth Sense and Tyler Durden is just Ed Norton’s split personality in Fight Club) but we’re not here just to ruin films with somewhat unexpected endings. No, we’re here to tell you about our work.

You see, if the BBC are to be believed – and more often than not they are – then Samsung just became the world’s biggest supplier of smartphones. Quite the achievement in a crowded and competitive marketplace I’m sure you’ll agree. But why, I hear you ask, are we bragging about the achievements of an electronics giant? Well, firstly because reflected glory is better than no glory at all, but mainly because of the major role we’ve (possibly) played in establishing Samsung as top dogs.

A big part of the reason Samsung smartphones might sell so well is that they’ve probably established an amazing reputation for clear, easy to follow and beautifully written and filmed ‘How To…’ videos that make using your phone so much simpler. It’s fair to presume that maybe at least half the people choosing a smart phone might factor in the relative quality of online video based instructional snippets before coming to their decision and so, as producers of these vital sales and support tools, it’s only fair that we bask in our share of this headline grabbing glory.

We don’t do it for the glory of course, we do it to help.

And for the money.

In the multi-Oscar winning hit film from 1994, Tom Hanks played a lovable idiot who strode through recent history, inventing Elvis Presley, inadvertently landing Richard Nixon in the poop and constantly (and annoyingly) calling table tennis ‘ping pong’ – it’s a romp and if you haven’t seen it then I suggest that you do so forthwith. I know what you’re thinking, and no, we’re not working with Tom Hanks, Gary Sinise or Sally Field, we haven’t found a way of re-animating Elvis and none of us are especially proficient at any sport, so why mention the film at all? Well, another thing that lovable idiot Forrest does is get up one morning and run across America, right across it, coast to coast and back again, and we’ve got our own lovable idiot who did a similar thing.

Step forward Mr Barnaby Cook.

Barnaby recently ran the inaugural Liberian marathon and, in a move echoing educationally challenged Forrest’s behaviour, decided that he was the one person on the planet not to need to train for a 26 mile run. He also seemed oblivious to the fact that Liberia and the equator are very closely acquainted, so it was likely to get a bit warm, and thanks to the time of year there was also a good chance of very heavy rain. Thankfully the organisers (including good friend of Casual Peter Harrington) were aware of all these things and so the race began in darkness at 6am so that no-one would roast to death in the 40 degree midday sun.

It all went according to plan. It rained heavily and it got very hot, but no-one died and, despite his startling lack of preparation Barnaby Gump finished the marathon in a respectable 5 and a half hours just 3 and a bit hours behind the winner. So well done Barnaby and all involved in Liberia.

Now, let me tell you how life is like a box of chocolates. In life, much like in chocolates, you are given a card that explains what everything is…

Unless it’s forced upon you – either through an accident or the need to disguise yourself because you’ve double-crossed the Triads again, then it’s reasonable to say that the root cause of any change is from within. We all want to look our best, of course we do, but whether you try to achieve that by starving yourself thin, tanning yourself orange or paying through the nose for a haircut you don’t like, the net result is usually the same. You look much as you did before, possibly a little worse, you have less money and you feel much the same inside.

Of course the extreme version of this is cosmetic surgery, and there are plenty of tragic celebrity examples out there of what can happen when you’ll avoid ageing gracefully at all costs. If you can bare to look at Pete Burns for more than a few seconds you’ll see that where once stood a fairly good looking, if undeniably peculiar, young man, there now stands a orangu-man: Half simian, half cross dressing former pop-star who’s long since lost touch with reality.

Whilst it might seem like I’m advocating a ‘no change for anyone ever’ policy, I’m not. It’s dramatic change I’m rallying against, because if you want to make a dramatic change on the outside it’s generally because there’s something wrong on the inside – and if you don’t like who you are then no amount of spray tan or eye-lid implants is going to change that.

Which brings me to the whole point of this blog. We here at Casual Films weren’t happy with what was on the inside – of the website that is – so we made a few changes. We’ve tinkered with some of the code and fiddled with some of the ports and what not and, as a result, it’s now a beautiful beast. Sure, this improvement has come with a few minor cosmetic changes (check out the new HD video player) and you might say that we’re prettier than ever before, but because we focused on what’s really important – the inside stuff – we don’t need to make massive changes and the website won’t end up looking like a big orange monkey.

For every cool, confident and unflappable orator like Churchill, Martin Luther King or Hannah Montana there’s a dozen gibbering wrecks, fearful of every word, desperately trying to ignore the audience or imagine them in their underwear – but not the most attractive ones, that would be off putting, as would the least attractive ones, though for vastly different reasons – so basically the vast majority of people who are put in this situation do not feel comfortable, try to cope by visualising select members of the audience (those constituting the median level of attractiveness at the gathering) semi-naked and by cracking crap jokes like the one at the beginning.

All of which is appropriate to mention at this juncture because, thankfully, Barnaby falls in to the confident Churchillian category and it’s just as well because this week he’s going to be talking to an assembly of super clever media bods at the Media Pro Expo. Media Pro is one of the very biggest and best annual gatherings of media and marketing people, and thanks to the sterling work we’ve done for Samsung, Casual have been invited along to talk to the assembled masses about all the wonderful things that can be achieved in the world of online video. It’s a great honour and a rather flattering invite as some of the attendees are very big fish indeed and they’ve paid a lot of money to be there, so we’ll be making doubly sure Barnaby’s combed his hair, brushed his teeth and done up his fly before he takes the stand.

I’d suggest starting with a joke, how about “We tried marketing on twitter but most of the people on there are dull and boring. There’s only 140 characters.”

1) The ‘S’ in Cannes is, however many times you try otherwise, silent.
2) It is possible to pay over £8 for a bottle of water.
3) Gravity always wins.

The backdrop for such onerous realisations was the Cannes Corporate Film and TV Awards, which took place on Thursday evening. Like its bigger brothers the Cannes Lions and Film Festival proper, the corporate awards bring together the biggest and best from around the globe, mixes in the prestige and glamour of the French Riviera, and gets everyone thoroughly drunk along the way. Although only in it’s second year, representatives from eleven countries flocked to the Palm Beach Hotel and Casino all eager to get their hands on a coveted Cannes Dolphin.

Casual Films, buoyant from multiple award successes earlier in the year, were duly nominated in a couple of categories, which meant someone had to go down there, check it out, and bring the awards home. Simple.

Simple, that is, until Adam steps up with a nomination for best editing. Unfortunately our Head of Post’s propensity for clumsiness has gone down in Casual Films folklore, regularly displaying staggering levels of recklessness with the most delicate of objects (most notably and spectacularly destroying 3TB of hard drives in one week). Sensing disaster, he was quickly paired with Matthew Bradley- a name that is no stranger to the suffix ‘safe pair of hands’ – before jetting off to the south of France.

Burdened with an hour time difference and chronic jet lag, the guys wisely spent the afternoon recuperating on the beach, before suiting up and heading off to the awards where they were met with a champagne reception, enjoyed a Cannes sunset, and dazzled a mostly continental crowd of fellow award goers with their linguistic capabilities.

And so the awards began, accompanied by a five-course meal and a seemingly endless bass guitar solo. Not long into the starter (tuna and salmon tartar if you’re interested) Casual were called to the stage to pick up their first award, Best Music for EPCA. Beaming proudly Adam and Matthew took to the stage, shook hands with the awards director and were handed a handsome Black Dolphin trophy, which, weighing in at over 5kg, caught them entirely off guard. Hanging on for dear life, they smiled through the photographs and staggered back to their seats. No sooner had they taken a fortifying sip of wine, they were back on stage again to pick up Best Editing for TVP, fortunately this time fully prepared for the heavy lifting required.

Two awards from the first three categories was pretty good going, so Casual sat back to enjoy the rest of the evening, mingle with the global representatives of corporate film, and to shuffle enough foie gras around their plates to make it look like they’d eaten at least some of it.

After an awkward jig around the dance floor, the awards came to a close, the guys said their goodbyes, remembered to go back to the table to pick up the awards (anyone that has been to similar ceremonies will tell you this is never easy) and left for the hotel.

Mission accomplished. Two awards in hand. Casual Films on the map. Large red wine stain on dress shirt.

At this point Matthew called Nick to let him know that despite not finding a taxi and now having to walk home, the evening had been a run away success. Yet disaster was but a heartbeat away.

A few metres later, all of Newton’s laws conspired against the woefully thin bag being used to transport one of the hefty dolphins, and with an almighty rip, the poor poise hit the French tarmac. For a moment the Cannes waterfront looked like Taiji Cove, a desperate scene of dolphin cruelty. To compound matters, the other bag containing the second dolphin followed suit and suddenly there were two battered and bruised dolphins strewn across the pavement.

The full magnitude of the situation wasn’t realised until the next morning when Nice Airport Security pulled Adam and Matthew to one side to enquire why they had two large hunks of heavy, jagged metal in their hand luggage. Upon removing the offending items from their bags, the cold light of morning revealed the full extent of last nights damage. It was a devastating blow to an otherwise fantastic evening. Thankfully security took pity on the guy’s panic stricken faces and allowed the infirm dolphins on the plane.

And so now they now sit in the office serving as a solemn reminder that not only can Casual Films produce award winning corporate film at the very highest level, but also that Adam is a f***ing idiot and should never be allowed out the office again.

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Ten years ago if you asked one hundred people what a codec was it’s a fair bet that the most common answer would have been “Some kind of lizard.” They were happier times. Normal people were normal, they knew enough about computers to turn them on, open an email, download a naughty picture and write an essay about how easy it is to get a virus by downloading naughty pictures – and that was all they needed to know. On the other side of the fence were the geeks, they knew all about RAM, drivers and processor speeds – and far more that is beyond the grasp of ordinary folk. The universe had balance and all was well.

Then it all changed. We had the technological revolution and suddenly everyone started to use words like ‘gigahertz’, ‘usb’ and ‘ip address’, normal people even started dressing like geeks – excusing it by calling it ‘Geek Chic’. We didn’t know it at the time, but slowly and stealthily we were all being made geeks – and it’s now come to a point where pretty much everyone can build a website, upload videos or hack the Pentagon and start a WarGames type apocalypse.

We do, however, still need the proper geeks – those that know that little bit more than strictly necessary – to make sure that everything keeps running smoothly. To use an obvious example, online video, our stock in trade, is a veritable minefield what with a dozen different formats, half a dozen different players and upload methods to choose from and all those flipping codec’s (which aren’t lizards at all, but very task specific little bits of software that make magical things happen). We might understand it a lot more, but it can still be a mite confusing!

Well we like to spread the joy, so we freed our resident geek from his cage for a couple of hours and got him to produce a handy little guide explaining all the terminology common in online video, and how to get the very best results. You can find it here – but be careful, this can be a gateway into far more hardcore geekery. You have been warned!

First off we had the seemingly simple task of getting a train to Brussels where we were hosting a small conference for trade organisations like the International Margarine Organisation (who were just as nice as their butter counterparts but only half as fat…) and we shared with them a little of our expertise on sharing your message online. All sounds easy enough, and it was, until one of our party (who shall remain nameless provided sufficient payment is made) reacted with shock to the request to show their passport. Yes, passports might have been in use for the last century, but it seems nobody mentioned it to our colleague – who had to join us in the Belgian capital after a mad dash across ours in a taxi to retrieve their ID from a ‘safe place’.

All turned out well in the end of course, as it did for Jerome who was heading further afield to the ERE Conference in Miami. It really was a bit of jet-setting, there and back in three days with a lot of schmoozing and business talk in the middle – but that’s what Jerome’s best at…providing he gets there. All was well, as far as we knew, until we received this email…

So a quick update on my progress if anyone’s interested.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Obviously he did make it, and obviously he did sterling work whilst he was over there, but the point is that we didn’t encounter these sorts of difficulties when the furthest we were traveling was Watford! Success brings it’s own problems…

You may have heard we do a fair bit of work for Macmillan, if you haven’t it’s probably because we were being uncharacteristically modest. It’s never cool to brag about how much work you do for charity. So, no matter how much we love our trumpets over here in the Casual office, they remain almost completely unblown where Macmillan is concerned (we just high-five each other when no one’s looking). Anyway, I digress. We’ve made an awesome new film for this excellent charity – it was certainly more demanding than your standard fare and is arguably one of our best.

You know when you write a postcard or fill out some lengthy form and you get to the end only to find that you’ve not got quite enough space left so you end up having to write the last few words in tiny writing at a funny angle or in the margin? Well given that we’ve all experienced that horror, then you have to ask yourself why we decided to pitch the idea of basically doing that on a huge scale for our latest work with Macmillan.

The reason is that we’re both ambitious and very stubborn. So when Nick had the idea for a time-lapse-mural-art-animation piece he certainly wasn’t about to let a little thing like it being difficult to achieve get in the way. Thankfully we found a design that really worked and an artist who nailed it – making for an absolutely brilliant film and an incredibly smug Nick who ‘knew it would be brilliant. What did I tell you?’

So well done all, and especially Nick. His postcards must look great.

So after a long drive avoiding tulips, windmills and women of the night, Nick and Adam found their way to the colossal RAI Conference Centre to begin a two-day drool fest amid thirteen halls of cutting edge tech.

What follows is quite geeky in parts – we apologise to any normal readers for this, we just couldn’t help ourselves. However, if you are intrigued and would like to talk about or have any of this explained please feel free to email: nick or adam@casualfilms.com

Adam’s picks:
1) DaVinci Resolve
2) Sony Trimaster OLED Monitor
3) Eddie Hamilton/Avid

Nick’s picks:
1) Sony F3 Zoom Lens
2) Canon 5Dmk3 / 3D
3) Super High Vision Video
4) Steadi-Seg
5) 3D/Stereoscopic

Adam:

Having never been to the IBC before I was initially blown away by the scale of the place. There were thousands of exhibitors from all around the world showing off their latest creations; from the biggest and best-known names in the industry to eccentric one-man operations. Without fail, they all had something new, exciting and desirable to demonstrate and it was our mission to get round to see them all.

Nick, as an IBC veteran, led the charge into a hall that contained all the camera manufacturers, and I watched him pinball from stall to stall, occasionally stepping in to peel him off new releases from RED, Arri and Phantom before security had to be called. There was some truly impressive stuff and we spent a good morning talking all things cameras with those in the know.

There is however only so much comparing of chip sizes an editor like me can take, so after F-stopping off for some lunch (bam!), we headed over to post production. As I descended into the darkness of Hall Seven I could see a host of pale faces shuffling in a pool of social awkwardness. I knew I was in the right place. Here’s my top picks from post:
 
1) DaVinci Resolve.

This awesomely powerful grading tool really stole the show. Packed full of great features including a stablisation tool that could stop an earthquake and the fastest and most accurate 3D tracking capability I’ve ever come across, this software is a real step up from our own current Apple Color software.

Operating in 32 bit float YRGB, Resolve node-based image processing gives you what seemed like infinite possibilities for your grade, combined with a powerful engine that rips through 2 and 4k raw footage in real time. It also round trips easily with FCP and Premiere using XML or EDL, with smart conforming abilities meaning that editors can (not that we ever do) constantly change their mind without losing grades.

This can also be combined with either DaVincis own Control Surface, or a number of third party consoles which instantly makes you look and feel like a grading legend. And the best part is it’s cheap. You can go all in for the software and a Tangent Wave for £1500. We will be, and I strongly recommend you check it out and do the same.
 
2) Sony Trimaster OLED Monitor

After the elation at the Resolve stand, my mood was dampened somewhat when I realised that your grading software is only as good as the monitor you’re looking at it on. And here at Casual, we’ve historically gone for quantity, not quality. Thankfully the good people at Sony were on hand with a solution. Even after spilling my coffee on their pristine white stand, they were kind enough to show me their latest Trimaster monitors.

While Nick gawped at an F3, I watched a series of testimonials from colourists all over the world who sang the praises of trimaster technology. They even went as far as saying they would consider replacing/upgrading their precious CRT’s with the Sony kit. This is a big shout, so naturally wanted to see what all the fuss was about. However, if I’d known this meant being ushered into a tiny black room with eight other men I might have reconsidered. But when the presentation started I was glad I endured the dubious hygine of my fellow audience members as the monitor was truly stunning. Sony had lined up an LCD, CRT and Trimaster screen next to each other, and we all stood and watched in amazement as the Trimaster matched the CRT punch for punch. The blacks were as black as they come, the saturation was perfectly balanced in both light and dark and the colour temperature and picture quality were incredible.

Traditionally to get hold of a monitor for high end grading, you would need to re-mortgage your house and sell a few organs. What Sony have done is introduce an affordable digital alternative that sacrifices none of the performance and quality. Bravo! (or should that be Bravia?).

 
3) Eddie Hamilton/Avid

One of the great things about IBC that separates it from other conferences is that it’s not just a large showroom of tech porn. For those who care to look there is a load of forums, talks, seminars and tutorials given by industry leaders who keenly share their insights (albeit against a backdrop of tech porn). One such example was Eddie Hamilton who was talking over at the Avid stand. Eddie is the editor responsible for films like Kick Ass and X-Men and was explaining his techniques and workflows. What I found interesting wasn’t so much Avid itself (although having never used it, it was good to see what the Avid Suite was capable of) but rather how Eddie used it while editing.

As films become more and more complex in terms of VFX, I’ve often wondered how the work is shared around post-production professionals to get a coherent end result. In Eddie’s case, he hogged the lot. Showing us his timelines from Kick Ass he demonstrated how he created the edit, the sound design, and the VFX all at once in Avid Media Composer. He explained that to get a real sense of how the edit will turn out, it’s vital to be able to do all this as you cut the rushes. This means it’s possible to show the director and producers full scenes with no caveats or excuses, before handing them over to a VFX team who simply recreate exactly what has already been done.

This was really interesting to see, and reassuring for the multi skilled post team we have at Casual who have been adopting this DIY attitude for years!

Nick:

Having worked on the door as an usher at IBC a couple of times in my student days I had a rough idea of the treats we had in store. That said, having been using the kit every day for the last five years did add a couple of extra layers of interest to the show. As Adam said, the scale is fairly overwhelming – anything and everything to do with the production and delivery of moving images and audio was there.

Here is a quick list of the things that caught my eye:
 
1) Sony F3 Zoom Lens

Following the success of the Canon DSLRs and the democratization of filmic imagery with their large sensors other brands have been quick to produce models which offer this in a slightly more usable platform.

Sony’s offering is the F3 with it’s super-35 size chip and XDCAM camera usability. Since we do a lot of work with the EX1 and the EX3, nice little touches like being able to use the same batteries and SxS memory cards was a big draw and with the price falling at around £10k + VAT for the body, it doesn’t seem an unattainable purchase. The image quality, when teamed up with lenses like the Zeiss Compact Primes, looks great even if you have to use an external recorder to take full advantage of the potential 4:4:4 uncompressed output. This colour latitude is a major plus over 8-bit DLSR footage which doesn’t hold up to much in the grade. Beautiful shallow depth of field shots with over-ramped hazy colours have become far too familiar – roll on lower end in camera 10-bit recording!

Anyway, one of the first things you noticed with the F3 was the zoom rocker – when it was first released it there were only primes available for it. On the Sony stand we found none other than a compatible zoom.

This 18mm-252mm T3.9 lens is aimed mainly at those looking to use the camera for ‘run and gun’ type filming. It is out later in the year and is going to retail for £7.5k + VAT. This will make the camera into an accessible self-contained recording package. We look forward to working with one in the near future.
 
2) Canon 5Dmk3 / 3D

This is more of a report on something we didn’t see rather than something we did. After working extensively with the 5 and 7D and more recently with their video focused camera, the 50mbps XF305 we were really hoping that Canon were going to announce a combination of the two at IBC. The ability to use our lovely Canon L-series EF mount lenses on the XF body, with a large chip, XLR microphone inputs, built in ND filters, peaking filters and all the other benefits of a proper video camera is an exciting prospect. Not this time though – maybe at NAB next year.
 
3) Super High Vision Video

On display in the ‘Future Zone’ section of the show was Super High Vision a system pioneered by the NHK, the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation working with our very own BBC.

Despite the slightly strange name, this camera system delivers a stunning 8K image – effectively 7680 × 4320 pixel video. That’s 16x the resolution of normal High-Definition. To put it into perspective we were treated to a demonstration, complete with a 22.2 surround sound system, of some coverage of the Copa América football. The resolution was so high we could identify individuals in the crowd on the other side of the stadium. Very impressive. To think that the arrival of HD put some actresses’ futures in question.

Apparently the BBC are going to be broadcasting the Olympics next year to three separate screens in London in SHV. That should slightly make up for the farce that was the (mis)allocation of tickets.
 
4) Steadi-Seg

A steadicam mounted on a Segway. It looked like something out of Batman with a dash of Robocop. Seriously cool, seriously above our budget. Filmmaking toys don’t come much better.

 
5) 3D/Stereoscopic

3D was pretty much everywhere at the show.

We were lucky enough to go to an evening presentation on 3D featuring none other than the world’s most bankable filmmaker, Mr. James Cameron. We’ve never been massive fans of 3D here at Casual Films but this evening tried its best to change our minds.

To start we were shown some sequences from the 3D version of Titanic, which is being worked on at the minute and by happy, savvy, coincidence will be ready just in time to cash in on the centenary of the sinking of the eponymous ship. This was all fine, but I didn’t feel that the 3D really added that much to the experience. That said the sequence just after they have spotted the iceberg and are trying to stop/turn/avoid it is inspiringly superb and well worth another look, 3D or no.

We then saw Circe de Soleil 3D, a project that James Cameron’s Cameron Pace Group have been working on. This was where 3D really came into it’s own. Seeing the circus performers skipping on rapidly spinning wheels on wheels 60 feet above the ground with no safety ropes in 3D was nerve racking and we were just watching video. In this application the depth and scale that was illustrated by the stereoscopic cameras was incredibly effective, significantly adding to the experience.

The last part of the evening was taken up with a showing of Atlantic Productions’’ ‘Flying Monsters 3D’ with David Attenborough. This had just won the IBC International Honour for Excellence and was a master class in thoughtful, creative filmmaking. The stereoscopic element really added to the production with the flying dinosaurs brought to life above the perfectly rendered prehistoric landscapes. A personal favorite moment was when an 80 million year old fossil popped out of its slab and walked around on the table in front of Sir David and a paleontologist. It then flew across the lab onto one of their jackets knocking over a bin in the process. We’d seriously recommend watching it if you get a chance.

In general we found the show extremely inspiring and are now itching to put all the skills and toys we saw to work for us and our clients. We’ve only touched on a few things here. Also worth a mention are:

Phantom slow motion camera which can shoot 2000 frames per second. Allowing for 2K or HD video to be slowed down 80x. Great for filming close-up face slaps.

The radio control helicopter with a seven gyro mounted camera to ensure perfectly stable shots.

The Arri Alexa camera with loads of latitude, usability and awesome image quality. To be used very shortly.

Robert Howard, CEO from Cooke Lenses who chatted at length about their production process and his hopes for the future. We’re now saving up for a set of their beautiful Panchro lenses.

The whole trip would not have been possible without the kindness of Andy and Ady. We used to work with them at Work Communications and they have now relocated to work for Amsterdam based agency, Iris. They put us up in their spare room and then were working too hard for us to buy them a beer to say thank you. Next time gentlemen.

They say that those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach. Who first said this, or who ‘they’ see fit to repeat it are I can’t tell you, but I can guarantee that if they’ve ever said that to a teacher they’ll have regretted it.

Like most of us, teachers are actually quite proud of the work they do – and how hard they have to work to get results – and as it’s an absolutely essential role to the whole of society, it’s actually a bit of a peculiar thing that they’ve been singled out for slating in the form of a proverb.

There is one bunch out there that recognised the potential value of teaching experience and figured out a way to weave it into the fabric of big business. They’re a group called TeachFirst, and what they do is take recent graduates and put them in challenged schools, often in deprived areas, all over the country for a stint of two years. Over that time they’ll not only work their backsides off, but they’ll gain two very valuable things: a proper teaching qualification through the GTP on the job training programme; and the sort of real world life experience that you generally can’t find in University.

At the end of the two years the candidates can choose to stick with teaching (as many do) or they can take their now much more impressive CV to one of the many city businesses who support Teach First with a big smug grin on their faces and try to get a job. Whichever route they choose they can be sure that they’ve given something back – and so have we! Agency ThirtyThree sent Teach First to us because they wanted a short film to quell the fears of potential candidates who didn’t particularly fancy leaving the ahem ‘safety’ of the riot torn streets of London – and we did so by going up and down the country and hearing tales from candidates in Burnley, Leeds and Birmingham, and a damn fine job we did too.

So it would seem that those who can do, those who can often teach, and those who can’t teach make films about them.

Here at Casual Films we’re a pretty realistic bunch. We know that what we do, whilst we’re good at it (arguably the very best in fact, call in for more information on how wonderful and brilliant we are), is not the most important job in the world. Film making is important socially and culturally, and can be very important personally but in the great big scheme of things it’s in amongst a great big pile of jobs that could disappear and the world would keep on turning. The most important job in the world is that of the blog writer. No, obviously it’s not, that’s just a needless piece of self-promotion, it’s only ninth or tenth on the list.
Still, the point is that whilst we know all this, that doesn’t mean that we won’t occasionally get a bit self-important and carried away with it all, forgetting that there are people out there who do make a real difference… and there’s nothing to bring a soaring ego crashing back down to earth quite like meeting some of those people. We did that recently when we made our latest batch of films for Macmillan Cancer Support. These films (which were beautifully shot, well done James Bedford) feature some of the staff and volunteers from Macmillan’s helpline and online support facilities as well as some of the cancer sufferers who benefit from their assistance.
All involved spoke with such clarity and passion that it was impossible not to be both moved by their work and humbled by their attitude. I’ve said it before, but we really are very proud of our association with Macmillan and we hope that through our films we’re helping them to make an even bigger difference.
Please watch the films here and support Macmillan Cancer Support.

One of the best – and certainly most impressive – shows on TV at the minute is an American production called “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”. Now the British people reading this who have yet to experience the joy will probably be imagining a show where Lawrence Lewellyn-Bowen comes into a house, buys a few scatter cushions does some stencilling and awaits the applause. You couldn’t be more wrong. This is America, and when they say extreme they mean it.

A typical show goes like this: we get introduced to a very lovely and worthy family whose house is falling down around them. They get sent to Disneyland. Their house gets demolished (yes, really), and rebuilt in 7 days. Every single aspect of the house is specifically tailored to the family and their requirements and to top it off they get a new car/college grants/magic money tree to help them improve their lives. It’s moving and brilliant and I insist you watch it right now.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that that has little to do with Casual, but you’d be wrong. You see recently we were set our very own ‘build something brilliant from scratch in a week’ project – and it was for a company who’ve been voted Social Landlord’s of the year two years running – Riverside Homes. Yes, relevant on several counts isn’t it?

So, Work Communications came to us on a Monday morning with the project – a piece of motion typography for internal use that covers the (great many) achievements of the group over the last three years, thanks the staff for their efforts, seven or eight minutes long, finished by Friday please.

We pulled strings, favours and out all the stops and, thanks to the incredible efforts of two of our top-notch animators we delivered the piece you see above. Not too shabby eh?

But do we get a TV show? No, no we don’t.

It’s a confusing state of affairs, an ambiguity of the English language that has been exploited by airlines and film studios alike to placate the rampaging egos of junior pilots and reasonable actors who probably couldn’t hope to carry a film by themselves but have delusions of grandeur and must be pandered to. I want this charade stopped. In future let’s have a pilot and his reserve, and let’s have a star and ‘other actors’ – in short, let’s have honesty.

All of which has almost nothing to do with one of our recent projects – on the careers website of international estate agency CoStar. What relevance there is lies in the accurate use of co-, because here is a company that can do all the hard work in getting you the commercial property you need, wherever in the world you need it – and presuming that the property is the star then it’s only fair to give those who enable you to purchase it equal billing. Isn’t it?

Regardless, Bayard came to us seeking our co-operation (drop it now) in a co-production (seriously…) on the video content and design of the careers section of the CoStar website and, naturally, we obliged.  We’re very happy, so co-ngratulations all round (right that doesn’t even work, this blog’s finished).

Most people who work in the media have met more than a few celebrities, and what you learn very quickly is that they are indeed just normal people with fancy jobs. Like any other bunch of normal people there are some who are lovely and some who are awful, some interesting and some dull, some much more attractive than you’d think and some, well let’s just say that photoshop’s a wonderful tool. One result of this exposure to those touched by the fickle finger of fame is that you tend not to get star-struck when meeting someone famous. You’ve got a job to do and you just get on with it.
There are, however, occasions where it all takes you a bit by surprise and you find yourself with butterflies and giggling like a schoolgirl. This is precisely what happened to us at our recent shoot to promote the upcoming (and brand spanking new) Liberian Marathon. Don’t ask me how, but we managed to wangle five minutes with former PM Tony Blair and we expected it to be like any other shoot. Then, as we waited, we heard his voice coming through the wall and the butterflies flooded in, it was all very unexpected. He came in, delivered his lines with great efficiency and was very accommodating and polite throughout, but it was impossible not to be struck by his charisma. Who knew?
As for the cause? Well it’s an excellent one. You might only have heard of Liberia through the songs of Michael Jackson, but the West African country is one of the poorest in the world and, until 2005, was torn apart by decades of civil war. Since then the country and its people have made great strides towards becoming a proper part of the international community. Big sporting events are an essential part of this process and a marathon featuring an international field could make a huge difference.
The marathon, organised by friend of Casual, Peter Harrington of The Africa Governance Initiative takes place on the 28th August and there’s also a 10km run if you’re not tough enough!

What do you use facebook for? (Or, in the interests of fairness, MySpace – remember that?) If you’re at all like me you’ll spend half your day making hilarious and occasionally cruel comments on friends wall posts and photographs. New born babies are a particularly easy target: they invariably look like old men and first-time parents never tire of hearing jokes about the fact. Others use it to arrange their impressive social lives, get or promote work and show off about their latest overpriced phone/car/baby.
Whatever you use it for there’s absolutely no doubt that social networks are an intrinsic part of people’s lives these days, and now there’s a new one. Sort of.

Actually ENOVIA has been around for a while in its guise as a powerful piece of software for designers and engineers to manage the data they’re working on and collaborate on bringing new products to market. But with the latest version of the software ENOVIA has moved on a stage with simplified web-based access and enhanced collaboration tools that work in an increasingly social way.
ENOVIA is a hub for (amongst others) designers, scientists, engineers and industry experts to come together and truly work together to resolve design issues, ask for help and advice and ultimately develop products that are better for business and better for the planet. This last theme is at the heart of ENOVIA’s latest campaign – “Your world in formation” – and it’s a theme we’ve brought to life in a new ENOVIA promotional film developed in partnership with ENOVIA’s strategic marketing agency, TheFrameworks.
Nick took the helm on this, which meant jetting out to Kenya. Again. However, once again he returned with some truly beautiful footage and, thanks to some heroic efforts by the whole post-production team we’ve knocked out a great little film. Have a watch here and tell all your friends who do proper jobs (medical, scientific, blog writers etc) that social networking has finally got a social conscience.

Yes, Editor/Operator/Director (perhaps that should just read all-rounder??) Tom was just a friend of office stalwart Adam who hung around the place like a cat at a fishmongers, but then, one day, he started invoicing us. We figured that if we were going to be paying him it’d be wise to put him to work – maybe we could prove him incapable and start to charge him rent.

His claims to be a graphic designer were somewhat undermined by his equally vehement protestations of colour blindness, but somehow he did that very well, so we were stuck with him on that front. Never content to just let someone do what they’re good at we set him to editing – that’ll be his undoing we secretly cackled to ourselves before contemplating why on earth we’d indulge in such acts of self-sabotage. Of course he excelled at that too. It seemed like a lost cause. We had Tom, and he was good so he was here to stay. Then we had the idea of putting him behind the camera as a director, that ought to scupper him. It didn’t. He performed wonderfully. Bugger.

Alas Tom is, thankfully, excellent at all his jobs and here to stay – which is a bonus as we’re kind of obliged to pay him any way, but the main thing he brings to us is the gift of song. If you ever visit the office and hear a sweet soulful voice singing along to whatever happens to be on the radio or engaged in a frantic (and frankly not wonderful) rap battle (yes, really) with Adam, you don’t need to search the cupboards for McFly, it’s not the kids from Fame – it’s Tom.

If you find Tom hanging around your office and start to get that comfy ‘getting used to him’ feeling then please return him to us, his rightful owners.

A trip to the cinema these days can be a bit of a nightmare. Firstly you’ve got to battle the automated booking robots who are determined to defeat you by making you go see a film you have no interest in at a time you’re unable to attend, then you’ve got to sell your first born in order to pay for the tickets and a thimbleful of mediocre popcorn. If you make it into your screen without suffering convulsions from the multitude of garish nonsense and arcade games in the lobby then you’re invariably faced with a nightmarish treasure hunt, the only prize being two seats together, one of which is behind a tall man wearing a hat. Upon completion of this hunt, and only then, can your enjoyment of the film be properly ruined by the inconsiderate morons who, for some reason, think an expensive cinema is the best time to talk to their imbecilic friends about their unbelievably dull lives in between checking their text messages and eating what I can only assume by the noise is a bag of dried leaves.

You shouldn’t go to the cinema to relax any more, you should only go if you need to get angry.

Thankfully some people appreciate the magic of cinema and want to make it not only an enjoyable way to spend an evening, but an actual experience. The best example of this, and it’s pretty damn close to perfection if you ask me, is The Rex in Berkhamstead (Hertfordshire).

Owner/proprietor James Hannaway has restored this 1930’s picturehouse to all of it’s original splendour, and it looks absolutely stunning. Seriously, you don’t even need a film, you could just sit and look at the place for two hours and leave happy. He hasn’t stopped there though, the Art Deco décor is just the supporting act. The circle is filled with tables where you can sit and indulge in a glass of wine from the bar whilst you enjoy the pre-film musical performance on stage.

I know what you’re thinking – this must cost a fortune – but think again, because even the most expensive circle seats come in at well under a tenner, making it comfortably cheaper than most of the soulless multiplexes that seem to be built wherever there’s a large enough car park. I know what you’re thinking now too: that’s all well and good, but they won’t have any new films on. Well you’ve gone and made yourself look a bit daft there, because not only do they show many of the very latest blockbusters, but they’re complimented by excellent little films that you’ll struggle to find elsewhere.

I’ve wittered on quite long enough and still got nowhere near doing the place justice – and that’s because I can’t. Words simply aren’t enough for this place. I implore you to go, it’s wonderful. Just book in advance, or you’ll just be admiring it from the outside. Which is still a pretty good experience.

If you’ve seen The Social Network then you’ll know that Justin Timberlake put in a very decent performance as Napster founder Sean Parker. If you’re anything like me then you’ll have found that very irritating indeed. Not because he’s a prat, no, by all accounts he’s a lovely chap, rather because he’s already a handsome multi-millionaire pop star with his own clothing line and a dating history that includes Britney Spears and Cameron Diaz. That level of success in life should not all go to one person, it should be spread around liberally. Timberlake can be a pop star if he likes, that’s fine, some other chap can be the actor and I’ll go out with Cameron Diaz (if I must) – do this and, hey presto, the universe gets a little bit fairer.

As we all know though, the universe hates being fair and really likes to rub your nose in it. I know this, because recently it all got a little bit closer to home. For some people co-owning and running a successful, nay, prize-winning film company like Casual Films would be enough. I think I speak for the vast majority of people when I say it should be enough – stop hunting for more, you’ve achieved. Well done. Not for Barnaby though, oh no.

Our erstwhile Commander in Chief isn’t happy just running Casual, he wants to be David ‘Kid’ Jenson as well, and his most recent DJ gig suggests that he might well be managing it. A far cry from his roots spinning the wheels of steel at weddings and the like, DJ Barnaby (and his entourage!) were recently whisked all the way over to the Big Apple (that’s New York) to bang out some tunes for a huge corporate event. Kitt Proudfoot (Casual’s Social Media advisor by day, presenter and international DJ by night) flew in direct from a gig in Ibiza. Our very own super-editor Francis Morgan-Giles was on VJ duty.

It was the summer party for a BIG company (that must remain nameless) and during the day Kitt had over 12,000 punters kicking back to mellow tunes, whilst in the evening more than three thousand tipsy business types raved the night away whilst the DJ platform rose impressively into the sky and fire-breathing dancers on stilts impressed and terrified in equal measure.

It really was awesome – in the truest sense of the word – and maybe, just maybe Barnaby can settle for just running a successful business and being a globe trotting DJ. The swine.

Being mentioned in the same breath as them shouldn’t be mistaken for being as large as them – part of what has brought Casual their success is being small, streamlined and versatile – however they can legitimately be mentioned in the same breath as they are all sponsors of the BritishAmerican Business program. BAB helped Casual Films cut through all the red tape associated with setting up an office in America, and ever since we’ve been regular attendees to their seminars and networking events.

The Annual Conference was a perfect match for Casual and they leapt at the chance of sponsoring the program. In return for their name taking pride of place we supplied BAB with this excellent piece of motion typography created by Casual animator Amo Jones that explains just what it is they do.

Paul Brown, Director of Events and Marketing said, “It’s very fitting that this film was made by a small company who we’ve helped to become successful in the USA, and hopefully not only the film, but the story of Casual Films, will help to inspire other companies to make that leap with the help of BritishAmerican Business.”

We have recently made a film for super duper brand consultancy firm Evviva. They come to your company and tell you how to make your brand stronger, what you’re doing right and where you could be doing better. Because they really know their stuff, Evviva can help you make these adjustments – and make your brand really stand out – without taking a chainsaw to your existing plans or bankrupting you in the process. Which is nice. They really are the business and we wholeheartedly suggest you check them out.

Any way, I promised secrets! Well, Evviva’s film is a (spectacular and brilliant, natch) combination of a live presenter and animation, and playing the role of a young, blonde and, quite frankly male, Ferne Britton is our very own Head of Post, Adam Ruddick! In fairness to Adam we think that for a presenter he did a great job in the edit, we just hope we can keep hold of him when ITV come around jangling their golden handcuffs.

So there you have it. Now, should you ever find yourself watching this film with others, you can turn to your colleagues – all cocky and smug – and say “That idiot works for Casual Films, not Evviva.”

Why am I saying this? Well it’s because one of Casual’s most recent bits of work is a rather spiffing little film about the brand new Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. The film demonstrates all the flashy little bells and whistles of this smashing bit of kit and it’s all rather smooth and fancy and represents a very impressive job by Amo Jones and all in our graphics department. Soon you’ll be seeing it displayed on all Tabs in shops all around the country. Which makes sense, that’s its job. So where does the common sense bit come in?

Well I have been making and writing films of varying lengths, quality and subject matter for more than ten years now, and in all that time it had never crossed my mind that these ‘what this product can do’ films have to be made by someone. For some reason, despite my relatively detailed knowledge of the filmmaking process I was under the impression that these films just came with the kit, as if appearing by magic. Thinking about it now that is monumentally stupid, but like I say, it’s just a glitch in the common sense part of my brain and it’s not funny. So leave me alone.

As the more attentive/related/stalkerish amongst you will no doubt be aware, Casual Films is no stranger to the musical arts. When Adam, Charlie, Matthew and Adam aren’t busy working (when are they ever busy working? Ed) they can be found laying down tracks as Only You Can Save Mankind, a band labelled “the next Beatles”, though that was by Adam so it’s probably best ignored. Elsewhere the brothers Cook (Barnaby and Jerome not Thomas and Captain) both spin the wheels of steel on occasion (that’s DJ-ing to the uninitiated) and Tom barely stops singing long enough to have a conversation.

We, as a group, like music. I think that’s the salient point.

Sour musicality means that when something new comes along that shakes the music scene up a bit we can get a bit excited about it. We got excited about MP3’s, we got excited by Spotify, and now we’re getting excited about Puresolo.

Puresolo is, to all intents and purposes, an online recording studio. Alright, so there’s no surly sound engineer, but there’s also no £150/hour fee so that kind of evens itself up. What there is, is a catalogue of over 24,000 songs that you can choose to sing and/or play along to (yes, play along, practically any instrument too, including a large library of guitar backing tracks and record the result.

Yes, it’s karaoke – after a fashion – but Karoke, without the drunkenness or public humiliation. It’s also karaoke that gives you a high quality digital copy of your performance (at a bargain cost) that you can save as an MP3, share through social media, or send as an email. You even get to re-record if you don’t think you did your best. In short, it’s ace.

It’s one of those ideas that’s so obvious that you question why you didn’t think of it yourself, then you go on the website and realise you’d never have executed it so well if you had, so in a way you’re glad you didn’t. You’d still like the money though.

I’m going to use it to record a version of Rhianna’s ‘Umbrella’ and then send it to everyone who has wronged me – I have a bad voice, I don’t like the song and I’m mean. You, however, could use it for good rather than evil. Either way, I seriously suggest that you use it.

Set up by Islington designer Woody Morley, Collect London has been building a reputation for his designer t-shirts for the last few years, and he’s just launched his summer collection. Having initially featured guest designers on his work, this latest collection is all his own, and like all of Collect’s range they’re strictly limited.

Yes, each and every t-shirt is on a strictly limited 100 print run, meaning that you’re not just buying a cool piece of clothing, but a rare piece of art too. Not only does this make the range more interesting, but it seriously limits the likelihood of you bumping into someone in the same get-up on a night out (unless you’re in Shoreditch where it’s pretty much a certainty…) which improves your street-cred no end.

We think Woody is incredibly creative and he’s on to a winner, so why not online his online shop and get yourself something few others will get the chance to own.

So, in order to make your life easier, we’ve made this little film about us – the people behind the award winning films that spew out of Casual Films like a celluloid geyser. See our face, hear our voices, marvel at our opinions and rank us according to our attractiveness. So, here’s the film, and below it a little list of who’s who and what they do:

Cast (in order of appearance)
Barnaby – Head of Production, Co-Founder of Casual Films, a tall fellow.
Adam – Head of Post Production, tuba player, Crème Egg connoisseur
Matthew - Senior Editor, drummist, bad boy beat boxer
Tom - Editor/Operator, keen eater, songstress
Jerome - Business Development Manager, computer geek, a taller fellow
Claudia - Production Manager, baked goods provider, foreign type
Tim - Head of Digital Integration, day trader, exaggerator
Charlie - Book-keeper, lead singer, a quiet man
Teilo - Camera Operator, father, owner of most mis-pronounced name in the UK
Corrina - Production Assistant, dance prodigy, office baby
Nick - Creative Director, Co-Founder of Casual, Andrew Strauss look-a-likey
Rob - Writer/Creative, undiscovered genius, undoubtedly a handsome chap
Kristof - Editor, beard wearer, more obscure foreign type
Guy - Head of Sound, billion dollar box office extra, office punchbag
Francis - Editor, perfectionist, New Age Hippy type
A.M.O. - Graphics Whizz, philosopher, fan of acronyms

Now if you could just send us your photos before calling that would be lovely…

If you add all of Casual Films’ box office receipts together they come to over $1Billion. That’s actually quite impressive when you think about it – a billion dollars – it kind of makes you wonder why we’re still in an office in North London and not living it up in the Hollywood hills.

Well wonder no more, because the sad truth of the matter is that 99.98% (give or take) of those box office receipts are thanks to Casual Films sound guru Guy Hixon and his sterling work as an extra. Yes, Tom Hanks, Robert Downey Jr. and Jack Black are just three of the stars that Guy hasn’t met whilst on the set of hit films like The Da Vinci Code and Sherlock Holmes, but he assures us that the world of the extra is a long way from the world of Ricky Gervais’s hit sitcom.

“I assure you it’s a long way from the world of Ricky Gervais’ hit sitcom Extra’s!” laughed Guy as he inadvertently repeated words I was yet to write.

Because unlike in Extra’s, Guy had no dizzy female sidekick, no witty exchanges with Kate Winslet and very few angry encounters with Ben Stiller – instead having to make do with talking to other ‘background artists’ and the odd costume designer providing him with an ill fitting beard.

He might never be a star, but extra work is something Guy still enjoys doing.

“I still enjoy doing extra work.’ Guy confirmed.

Casual Films is no film set, but Guy continues to be an ‘extra’ around the office, operating solely as a ‘background artist’, making the place look busy and helping the stars of the show – editors, directors, writers etc. – to look good.

Of course that’s not true, but it’s precisely this sort of banter that ties the office together, so as well as providing exceptional music and sound design (and our abiding big screen presence) his role as an office unifier is absolutely invaluable. We love him and genuinely couldn’t get by without him, but don’t tell him that. Tell him he’s rubbish.

All life on earth began in the sea, a couple of billion years ago. Over those hundreds of millions of years the multitude of creatures that occupy water, land and air have evolved from those first beasties and successfully filled every niche on the planet. Some are seemingly there just to be cute, like little otters, pandas or chinchillas, some are there to be fierce and control the population of other animals – like lions, tigers and solicitors. For others their place is equally clear, and it’s not good news for them. I am, of course, referring to the delicious creatures. Those beasts whose position in the grand scheme of life is best described as ‘next to some chips’.

We have surprisingly few of these on land, beyond pig, cow, chicken and fluffy kittens it becomes a real struggle to name any. The sea, however, is teeming with organisms who have evolved to a state of such tastiness that they only have themselves to blame when they get eaten by the bucketload.

It’s thanks to this surfeit of delicious stock that restaurants such as the excellent Fishy Fishy in both Brighton and Poole (co-owned by Casual’s favourite light entertainment presenter and all round nice guy Dermot O’Leary) can not only survive, but thrive. Obviously with a thriving restaurant comes a cook book, also entitled Fishy Fishy, and an app called Interesting Things to do with Seafood. Only joking, it’s also called Fishy Fishy.

New Holland, the publishers of this watery tome, called on Casual to produce some ‘how-to’ videos to go on the app and compliment the cook book. To aide us in our mission we had the establishment’s immensely talented head chef Loz Talent (who as well as having an awesome surname looks a bit like Phillip Schofield) and pushing the whole thing along was Dermot O’Lovely. Gutting a fish isn’t a pleasant thing to do, but somehow with this pair instructing you it seems like the best thing ever. It must be down to the filming…

Pre-order your cookbook here

Okay, presuming that you did actually have a look and you’re not just saying you did to humour me, you’ll probably have noticed (amongst other things) paint/wallpaper on the walls, lighting descending from the ceiling – and indeed ascending from the floor – and bits of furniture dotted around the place, filling the space up a bit and serving purposes like giving you somewhere to sit or a support system for your book collection. That we can all have all of these things isn’t testament to how well we’ve all done and our increased spending power, it’s thanks to manufacturers ability to produce goods at a cost-effective and affordable level.

One of the main providers of such paraphernalia is the Home Retail Group, a mammoth organisation that owns Argos and Homebase, turns over billions of pounds every year and provides, on average, fifteen different items for each and every home in the UK. It’s an amazing statistic. It’s also entirely fabricated.

What isn’t a fabrication is that Home Retail Group came to us (via design and communications agency SAS) to create a short film for staff, stockholders and customers alike explaining just what they’ve been up to for the past year and how frightfully well they’ve been doing it. SAS came up with the great concept of the ever-changing room and provided us with an awesome set and props to work with, but bringing it all to life was a Casual Films crew helmed by Director Tom Silverstone.

The end result is a film that crams a hell of a lot of information into it’s 3’30” runtime without ever feeling like a squeeze. It’s a bit like flat-pack furniture, but on screen.

It’s a truth that if you say the same thing loud enough and for long enough that it becomes accepted as fact, how true the initial statement was has little bearing on how it becomes perceived. Joseph Goebbels famously argued that the bigger the lie you tell, the more people will believe it – and whilst it’s universally accepted that the Nazi propaganda chief was a total git, you can’t dispute that he knew a thing or two about selling a lie. It’s a principal that has, more recently, allowed Bush and Blair to go to war with Iraq, enabled Piers Morgan to be labelled a ‘personality’ and put the Lady firmly at the front of Lady Gaga.

Did I have a point? Well, as a matter of fact, yes I did!

For over a year now I’ve been writing in this blog and telling anyone who cares to read through the waffle and the dirge that Nick and Barnaby, co-founders of Casual Films, are geniuses; brilliantly successful men who deserve all the recognition they can get. Well, finally people have started to buy it! Barnaby has been interviewed by interweb recruitment Bible Ri5 about our swollen trophy cabinet and what it takes to be rather successful. Not to be outdone Nick got a visit from one of the crew at City University’s magazine. The mag is celebrating it’s anniversary by featuring a particularly successful graduate from each of it’s twenty five years in print and it would seem that Nick (Post Graduate Diploma in TV Journalism) was the stand out candidate from the class of 2006!

Ok, so it’s not The Guardian Media supplement, or Campaign – not yet at any rate – but it’s other people singing their praises, people who aren’t paid or threatened to make them do so, and that can only be a good thing. It’s time to up the ante, make the lie bigger and this time next year we could be talking about Barnaby Cook: Nobel Prize Winner -Previous Winners include Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa, The Dalai Lama, or Nick Francis – Time Magazine’s Man of the Year – Previous Winners include Kruschev, Stalin and Adolf Hitler – and we’re back to how effective massive lies can be!

Check out the Ri5 article here.

The Railway Children is a story of a simpler time, a time when your dad being sent to prison meant you had to move to Yorkshire, and a time when railway tracks were seen as an acceptable playground for children. It’s been a best selling book, a successful play and a popular film and now it’s a play… again – but with a difference…

The theatre is Waterloo station.

In a stunning piece of stagecraft, Mike Kenny and Damien Cruden have transformed the old Eurostar Terminal into a 1,000 seat auditorium and brought the play to life like never before. It’s like you can actually feel the steam, well it’s like that because you can – stealing the show is the 66 tonne engine Stirling Single which trundles onto set as and when required bringing the whole production vividly to life.

It’s a remarkably fresh and innovative take on a story that’s been around for over 100 years and we were delighted to be asked to film the performance. When dealing with any live performance you’ve got to tread carefully, throw a working steam train into the mix and that only becomes more true.

We’re really pleased with the resulting promo, and can heartily recommend going to see the production – it’s like train spotting, but with a plot, and actors, and just one train, and an interval, and…(that’s quite enough!)

It’s a truth self-evident that certain types of jobs attract certain types of people. Firemen, for example, are by and large a masculine and manly bunch – the sorts that in olden times would have been rescuing dusky maidens from the clutches of evil counts during thunderstorms. Media jobs tend to bring in a more arty set, the sort who wear scarves during the summer and garish jumpers – in the past we’d have been either cannon fodder or, more likely, village idiots. Then you’ve got estate agents – a profession that, in central London at least, seems to attract money hungry yuppie types – all hair gel and Hugo Boss. They’d have been debt collectors, or evil Sheriff’s Deputies who extorted money from all the villagers. Or lepers.

Why so down on estate agents? Well it’s personal and I really shouldn’t be involving work, but then work involved me by saying that owing to our expanding business (hooray for us) we’d have to move somewhere bigger. My heart sank. I envisaged day after grinding day spent listening to their half truths, exaggerations and barely disguised lies about everything from the state of the neighbourhood to whether the place was haunted or not. The mere thought kept me up all night. Then our current landlord told us of a much larger unit next door to ours, so we just took that.

We’ve been able to plan exactly what we want and even as I type the builders are hammering away, constructing the super cool office we’ve always dreamed of. It’s got a floating desk, a separate HD viewing room and even a bottomless pit for when estate agents come round.

We’ve moved in and we’re ready to show people round, so come join us at the grand unveiling/office warming party on the 12th May – it’ll be a blast.

Just don’t bring any estate agents. I’m joking (I’m really not joking).

Get your tickets here

Remember when the East End was all jellied eels, chimney sweeps and regional stereotypes? Well no, you probably don’t, because the only time that’s been the case has been in musical theatre, namely Oliver and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Me Old Bamboo is truly legendary), and now the East End of London is the home of next years Olympics, half of London’s creative industry and, most importantly of all, the 10th Annual East End Film Festival.

It is, of course, a showcase for all the exciting new film making talent that’s out there both locally, nationally and around the world, but more than that the EEFF provides a platform for a celebration of all the arts and for practitioners to not only display their expertise but to share it with others at seminars, master classes and special events. It really is a very exciting business, and it’s already started, so if you’re looking to avoid the Royal Wedding hubbub or you just want to get your culture on then check out the website EEFF and get yourself Eastwards.

One location you might recognize is the Casual Office, because on Monday we’re playing host to a festival within the festival – the London Kurdish Film Festival. The Kurdish are a hardy nation of millions who have no country, and many of them have made London their home. Want to know what a Kurdish film looks like? Well come visit us on Bank Holiday Monday as we’ll be screening a bucket load of their shorts (films, not trousers) as part of Movie May Day – it beats just going down the pub and singing Roll Out The Barrel round the old Joanna…

Right, before we go on let’s deal with all the standard nonsense that comes with any discussion about an iPad.

Yes, I do realise that iPad 3 will probably be out in a year and will be far superior.

No, I’m not one of those Apple obsessives’ that wants Steve Jobs to be made King of the Universe.

Yes, I do realise that the iPad doesn’t do anything that my laptop doesn’t already do better.

No, iPad will not bring about the end of the publishing business. Stop talking nonsense.

Okay, so now that’s out of the way, Barnaby’s gone and got himself a shiny new iPad 2 (and several days before the UK release as well!), and he really likes it – the question is though, will this be another Play-Doh Mop Top Hair Shop debacle?

Yes, back in the 80’s when Barnaby was merely a nipper (though his hair was strangely similar) he pestered and protested, whined and complained, jibbered and jabbered until his parents gave in and finally bought him his very own Hair Shop – the girly salon (it was a masculine barbers – Barnaby) where your Play-Doh folk grew their hair and you chopped it off. He loved it – for all of a fortnight and then it was put in the cupboard never to be played with again.

When pressed as to whether the iPad2 was likely to suffer the same ignominious fate Barnaby was non-committal, but defended himself with the following:

“I’m not one of these pretentious types who’s bought it just to read Andy McNabb on the tube and look cool – it’s for business. Now can you go away, I’ve nearly finished this level on Angry Birds.”

And the thing is, he’s right. In this business the iPad is a truly wonderful tool.

Not only do you have constant access to your emails and what not – a very important facet – and not only does it give Barnaby films, music, books and games to keep him occupied on his ever increasing raft of long journeys for work, both domestic and overseas, but the biggest and best thing is the business angle. With the iPad2 in tow Barnaby always has every piece of work Casual Films has ever produced on hand and ready to display on a crystal clear, handheld HD screen. Pitch meetings will never be the same again.

We’re not naive enough to think that Apple haven’t aimed this product squarely at the Apple-aholics and those who want the latest gadget precisely for the cool factor, but in the process they’ve also created the best pitching aide since Larry Extendastick invented the extending pointy tool thingy.

They’re great. Play with one soon…and an iPad 2 as well, though they’re far more expensive.

You said Poirot didn’t you? So you were half right. Yes, he is Belgian, but he’s also fictional and played almost exclusively by English actors. The point is that it’s probably fair to say that Belgium has a little bit of an image problem – Antwerp’s famous for it’s diamond trade, Brussels is the HQ of the EU though more commonly associated with stupid requirements for the curvature of bananas than real social change, and that’s pretty much it. Waffles and beer aside no-one seems to be aware what Belgium has to offer.

Casual Films, trendsetters that we are, do.  Belgium, and Brussels in particular, is fast becoming the hub of European trade. With that in mind we recently invited the great and the good of Europe’s Trade Associations (of which there are over 400 including such beauties as the Committee of European Starch Potato Producers’ Union, the Permanent International Vinegar Committee and brilliantly the Federation of European & International Associations Established in Belgium – an association for associations) to a seminar we ran at Brussels’ Le Meridien Hotel.

The subject? What we know best: online video and social media.

The speakers? A hearty bunch including our very own Nick Francis and Kitt Proudfoot and brilliant guests like Cathy Demeestere (Secretary General, EPCA), Justin Roux (Senior VP of metal giants Luvata) and Rovani Sigamoney (Programme Specialist, UNESCO) – an impressive bunch I think you’ll agree.

We got great feedback from all who attended, and have maybe opened up new avenues to organisations that had not previously considered online or social media as worthwhile for them. On a personal level we had a great time meeting new people and learning all about their varied organisations. In fact it all went so well that we’ve decided we’re definitely going to do it again.

Fear not Belgium, we’ll be the Arthur Hastings to your Poirot, we’ll be your friend. We will save you!

The 6.20am Eurostar

The Casual Crew outside Le Meridien

Nick, Justin and Kitt answering questions

A post-seminar drink in the square

Maria from EPCA and Rovani from Unesco. And Kitt on the social media.

One of the holy grails of the advertising world is landing a car account. The money that gets poured into promoting the latest 4×4 or sporty little coupe is enough to make independent film makers throw an authentic full blown hissy fit. It’s not unheard of for car ad budgets to exceed £10 million – admittedly that’s for an entire campaign, but whichever way you look at it that’s a whole lot of scratch. We even heard a whisper that one company was so keen to land the account for an executive car manufacturer that they spent £1 million of their own money (yes, their own money) on a sample ad to win them over.

I think I’ve made my point, car ads are big business.

And we’ve made one.

Well, sort of.

Jaguar Land Rover, through advertising agency TMP Worldwide asked us to make a film for their recruitment site. They wanted all the scope, style and beauty of a Top Gear segment and provided us with a brand new Range Rover, a Land Rover Discovery and a sexy little Jaguar XK – little being the operative word.

Working with the incredibly talented artist Ian Cook and the creative team at TMP, we filmed as he directed these expensive* vehicles around a skid pan of paint with awesome results. The images captured were so beautiful – and the creation of Ian so impressive – that Adam found the edit a relative doddle. Which all kind of makes you wonder where the millions of pounds go.

Still, we won’t know that until we’re allowed to play with the real cars will we. Enjoy.

*RRP £39.99

Watch the film on the website here.

There are several interesting things that you should know about Jerome Cook, Casual Films’ Account Manager and younger brother of co-founder Barnaby, and the first of these is that he’s not riding on his brothers’ coat tails.

“I’m here on merit,  – I helped make this company what it is today, if anyone’s getting a free ride it’s Barnaby the little mummy’s boy.”

He might have said if he wanted to start a fight, but he doesn’t and he didn’t.

Totally fabricated quotes aside, there really are some bits and bobs we’d like to share with you. So, for no obvious reason, we’ve assembled all the facts and made an arbitrary top 5 out of them. Hold on to your hats pop pickers, it’s the Jerome Cook countdown:

5) Starting simple, at five is Jerome’s fascinating full name: Jerome Edward Phineas Cook. Yeah, Phineas, no, not like the bloke out of 80 Days Around The World – that’s Philleas.

4) Fantastic fact number four – despite being called ‘Jerome Edward’, no-one has yet referred to Jerome as ‘Jedward’. Whilst this wouldn’t be welcomed by Jerome, it is something we encourage you all to indulge in.

3) Straight in at three is Jerome’s tremendous height. Coming in at a staggering eight feet* Jedward’s height prevented him from following his childhood dream of becoming a commercial airline pilot.

2) New at two and, despite being a giant, Jedward has tried – and failed – to become part of the World of Warcraft community. This is despite counting ‘making computers’ as his most thrilling hobby.

1) And sitting pretty in the top spot we have Jerome’s, sorry Jedward’s unique approach to workplace etiquette. Basically the rules are thus: If Jerome is busy then please, be quiet and respectful, if Jerome is not busy then prepare to suffer as he becomes as noisy and disruptive as he sees fit. Rock and roll.

*Jerome’s height has not been certified at eight feet, in fact all known measurements appear to show him as 6’4”

Sorry, don’t mean to be a pain, but we’re just a little hungover you see, because to paraphrase Jerry Maguire, on Friday, our company had a very big day. A very big day – and it caused us to keep drinking bubbly all weekend (well, Cava at any rate).

On Friday night we spent all our pocket money, got dressed nice and smart and headed for the Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane, the site of the 2011 IVCA Awards. For those of you who don’t know the IVCA, it’s the International Visual Communications Association, and their awards are kind of a big deal.

We were up against some fairly major players in all of our nominated categories so we thought we might manage a couple. Maybe the stars were in alignment, maybe it was the giant moon, maybe we’re just good – I don’t know, but by the end of the night our films had won 8 medals and we could be seen in the corner doing jolly little jigs.

These are the films that brought us our Micahel Phelps-esque haul of semi-precious medallions:

Thames Valley Police

Gold – Best Direction – for which we give hearty back slaps to Nick
Silver – Recruitment Film – muted applause for the whole team
Bronze – Editing, Original Music – grudging acknowledgement of the valuable contributions made by Adam and Guy

Retrofit for the Future

Silver – B2C Promotion and Information – gentle cuddle to Rob for all his efforts

And a weary hats off to the whole team for their sterling work on the other winners:

ASDA

Silver – Web TV
Bronze – External Interactive Media

Credit Suisse

Highly Commended – Photography

Alas there was no medal for this bloggers favourite film, the Luvata safety film (could that be because you wrote it? Ed.) but many a masterpiece went unappreciated in it’s time so never mind. Please have a watch of the films and let us know what you think, and in the meantime have you seen the Alka-Seltzer?

Yes, extreme drawing is real. Renoir would have midgets throw knives at him as he put his thoughts to canvas, Picasso would work straddling train tracks – only moving at the very last second as a locomotive hurtled toward him – and today there is the ‘Hourly Comic Day’ challenge. I know what you’re thinking, that sounds too crazy to comprehend, producing a comic strip every hour – without ropes or a safety net – for a whole day? “Why that sort of madness can only lead to some sort of horrific pencil related injury, perhaps leading to scarring or at the very least a sore finger.” You’re almost certainly screaming at your computer right now – and I agree.

Despite my pleas that he reconsider, Casual Films maverick resident cartoon whizz, tea lover and all round daredevil Rob “Colt Seavers” Cureton took the job on and, fortunately for us, he survived unscathed.

Take a look at Rob’s cartoon pieces for the day, featuring many a friendly soul from the Casual office.

http://www.orfulcomics.co.uk/2011/02/03/hourly-comic-day-2011/

I’m sure you’ll agree that, if nothing else, he really did very little of the work we pay him for.

When you reach the level of being synonymous with something you really want it to be for something good, because once you reach that level of association there’s no going back. A good example is Devon Loch, a decent horse from the Queen Mothers stable, won a few races here and there but will forever be known for jumping an invisible fence and blowing an invincible lead in the 1956 Grand National – 55 years later and people still refer to ‘doing a Devon Loch’ when they mean blowing a sure thing. Likewise, the ship building marvel of it’s day isn’t synonymous with swift transatlantic crossings but with unmitigated disaster, fast sinking and Celine Dion. There’s a very good reason why you don’t hear the name Judas any more! Basically time doesn’t heal, not even millennia, and if you become synonymous with something for the wrong reasons you should pack up and go home. You’re done.

Fortunately for them, but not for all that pre-amble that I’m now going to ask you to please ignore, our latest clients Macmillan Davies Hodes (part of the humongous Bernard Hodes Group) are synonymous with excellent recruitment services and HR provision. Ok, so that might not be quite as catchy or blockbuster worthy as the Titanic, but being catchy really isn’t the point –White Star Lines would have been much happier if it had been synonymous with luxury and opulence rather than foolhardy boasts and frozen corpses. MDH are the Titanic that didn’t sink: every bit the biggest and best in the fleet, they excel at what they do and within this highly competitive multi-billion dollar business they are synonymous with recruitment expertise and our job was to illustrate that.

I proposed a six month £50 million campaign set in the North Atlantic – they didn’t go for it.

To find out more visit Macmillan Davies Hodes at www.mdh.co.uk

Had a slip, trip or fall that wasn’t your fault? Of course you haven’t, since you started school the very least that could be expected of you is that you can walk in a straight line without suffering serious injury, take some responsibility and stop suing everyone! There’s no such thing as the ‘wrong kind of ladder’ and ‘the floors were wet with no warning sign’ is merely an admission that you can’t tell the difference between wet and dry. Accidents do happen, no doubt about it, but that’s what they are – accidents, not opportunities to pay off your credit card, not a blessing in disguise, they’re planet earth attempting to restrict the population. So, I reiterate, stop suing everyone.

Rant aside, the main point here is that accidents DO happen, and it’s imperative for every company to do their utmost to prevent any from happening on their premises. This becomes all the more important in ‘heavy’ industry where dropping something or not looking where you’re going can result in a trip to the undertakers rather than the doctors. Luvata is one such ‘heavy industry’ company, dealing as they do in metal manufacture and fabrication, and they approached us with the aim of procuring a health and safety film. So far so dull? Not a chance, Luvata know the importance of safety, so they wanted their film to be so entertaining that the staff would actually enjoy watching it. So we pulled out all the stops, grabbing huge chunks of animation a great big lump of sound, mixing it together with a big wedge of comedy and then lobbing it at the Luvata big wigs. They loved it. We love it. If you don’t love it you could well be heading for a slip, trip or fall…

Sick of a life of cow fondling in Bavaria (as a teenager her Saturday job was killing things with a vet), Claudia –like so many other young Germans – fled to England to record footsteps for the film and television industry. But it wasn’t long before Claudia was once again fleeing – to the sound of expertly dubbed footsteps and right into the warm welcoming arms of Casual Films.

In the times BC (Before Claudia) the office could be, well, a little disorganised. Now? It’s as efficient and organised as Boris Becker’s paternity tests, and to soften the blow of all this sensibleness she’s even added the continental touch of Monday morning croissants!

It’s all, quite frankly, a bit more than we bargained for when we took her on – we like a bit of a mess and a touch of disorder – but we daren’t tell her to stop. I mean this is a woman who walked across Wales in a day (a f*%king day!) to prove a point and anyone that’s seen this video of her walking the frankly terrifying El Chorro will know that she’s not scared of anything.

So, until we can find someone far tougher than us it would seem that we’re stuck with an efficient and smooth running office, all thanks to a bit of German discipline.

Vorsprung durch Technik as they’ve never said in Germany (other than during an English language Audi commercial that is, for some reason, showing in Germany, possibly at a military base?).

Yes, in a thoroughly heartening show of faith from recently made friends – US Agency Bayard – the taller of our two founders was flown half way around the world to make a film celebrating the 67th birthday of Jerry Moyes. Who’s Jerry Moyes? Why he’s the founder of Swift Transportation. And who are Swift Transportation? Well they’re only the biggest haulage and logistics (AKA trucking) company in the whole of the US of ruddy A, with 19,000 trucks and, one would assume, at least 19,001 employees. That’s ten times the size of Eddie Stobart, and that’s impressive in anyone’s eyes.

Not being one to take advantage of a situation like this, Barnaby flew into the dullest local city he could find at short notice – Las Vegas, Sin City, the Blackpool of the Americas. Having spent his per diems on ‘research’ at Caesars Palace, he rented what he swears was “…the cheapest and most sensible car…” he could find for the near 300 mile drive to Phoenix – a flame red Ford Mustang convertible.

Whilst we suspect that Barnaby may also have taken in a Celine Dion concert in Vegas, a truly heinous act for which he will forever be derided, we must applaud him for the work he did in Phoenix, a city with no catchy nicknames. Heartfelt and moving interviews and some hilarious tales mix with great footage of trucks on the go and a lovely bit of crane work that would bring a tear to the eye of even the toughest haulier.

Don’t take my word for it though, watch the film yourself, imagine you’re America’s number one truck man and it’s your birthday – can you imagine a better present? Well yes, the Smokey and the Bandit box set, but after that this is pretty damn close to perfect.

I’m sure that you read with great interest a recent blog entry about Nick’s trip to Kenya to film a segment of our brilliant film for the EPCA, explaining that if it wasn’t for the petro-chemical industry we’d be pretty jiggered. Well, obviously having read that and been truly captivated by my words you’ll have been waiting for the film to appear on here as eagerly as a generation of Star Wars fans awaited Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace, well this time your fevered anticipation won’t lead to horrendous and crushing disappointment, because we’ve finished it, it’s bloody good, and there’s no Ja Ja Binks!

So how are we so brilliant that we can, yet again, produce a film that’s simultaneously creatively pleasing, educational and technologically at the top of it’s game… I hear you ask? Well, firstly how very flattering of you to say, and secondly, well it was a lot of hard work from a lot of talented people. With shoots utilising our most talented staff and freelancers taking place across four continents and the combined brainpower of three of our geekiest techno-whizzes performing miracles on the graphics front, this film really is an internet promotional equivalent of Avatar, just without the 3D, Smurfs or stolen plotlines. What I mean is that we have, once again, moved the goalposts on what we can achieve for our clients, and unlike Messrs Lucas and Cameron, all done on a budget smaller than the NHS!

It’s awards season again, and we at Casual are starting to understand how the likes of Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep feel because we’ve gone and won several RAD Awards. Again.

Yes, the annual Recruitment Advertising Awards took place last night at London’s sparkly Grosvenor House and, with awards won in 2009 and 2010 we were looking for the fabled ‘three-peat’ – a feat so awesome we dare not speak of it before the event. So, with two bits of work in the nominations – our Thames Valley Police film with Tribal and the interactive ASDA website we created for Work Communications – amongst the nominations we took our expensive seats and practised not looking too smug. In previous years we’d practised not swearing when we lost, but success breeds smugness – and it’s not a flattering colour on us! Anyway, where was I, oh yes, we took to our expensive seats (seriously, I’ve had cheaper holidays) and awaited the opening of the golden envelopes.

BISH – Thames Valley Police takes the gong for Audio Visual/Broadcast
BASH – ASDA takes the gold in the Employer Website category
BOSH – The biggy, Work of the Year, goes to our awesome Thames Valley Police film.

With the work we entered we literally could not have done better and – whilst trying desperately to remain humble – we are incredibly proud and perhaps even a little cocky thanks to this success. What of the three-peat I hear you ask, well yes, it’s true that we have achieved what many believed to be impossible (well, not many, but some. Probably) and entered the realms of legend, albeit within the very specific confines of recruitment advertising.

Showing off aside, we would genuinely like to thank all of our incredibly talented staff, the freelancers who never let us down and the agencies that continue to show faith in our abilities. You’ve all earned this award and deserve all the credit.

I’m keeping the trophy though.

It used to be the case that if you wanted groceries you’d pop down the road to Arkwright’s Store (or local equivalent not starring Ronnie Barker) and get what you needed, anything they didn’t have you didn’t get. Alternatively you could wait until market day and peruse the local produce, believe it or not, some still do! Then came the supermarket, like a normal market with a cape and special discounting powers! These behemoths came in and changed the face of British shopping forever. No longer would innocent yet busty district nurses have to deal with the sexual advances of stuttering shopkeeps, no longer would any customer need to yearn for pine nuts, butternut squash or Bulgaria’s finest wines – supermarkets had it all, a one stop shop where you could get anything you wanted and dozens of things no-one had ever wanted before.

For all their produce though, supermarkets lacked the personal touch, coming across as distant, cold and aloof – much like the not-so-merry widow Mrs Featherstone (enough with the Open All Hours references please). Not missing a trick, the big wigs recognised that these shops needed an identity – and that identity had to be uniform (not a uniform necessarily, but uniform across the stores). In the early days this was done by memo’s and David Brent types moving from store to store spreading the gospel, but now? Well in the modern age it’s got to be video, and Asda had the rather bright idea of asking us to make theirs! So, switch on, have a listen, and learn what it’s like to be part of a huge family with a single goal!

No problem, we replied without hesitation. A moments’ hesitation might have allowed us to think that Mandarin is an incredibly complex language that no one in the office speaks a word of – not so much a problem for the recording, there are plenty of Mandarin speakers in London we can turn to for that – more tricky however when Guy came to do the edit. Solid editor he most certainly is and an excellent ear for sound he most certainly has, but even after hearing it spoken he was insistent that mandarin was a fruit and fruit only. Linguist he most certainly is not.

Anyway, somewhat predictably we managed to sort it all out in the end and Grant Thornton were very happy, but that, whilst making up the main body of this post, is not the main point! That honour lies with the incredible new iPhone app ‘Word Lens’. If you haven’t seen this in action then I suggest you endeavour to do so forthwith, because what this amazing bit of kit does is real-time translation. Not that impressed? Prepare to have your gob well and truly smacked, because this isn’t another Babel Fish, you don’t type in your text (though you can) you simply point your iPhone camera at whatever you need to read and there, on your screen is not some foreign mumbo jumbo, but English overlayed on the top. At the minute it’s only sorted for specific fonts and can only handle English and Spanish, but it’s an incredible glimpse into the future. A future that might see an end to Guy shouting very slowly at waiters.

Podemos solamente sueno.

Brace yourselves, because you’re in for something of a rarity – an entirely serious and sincere blog entry – you have been warned.

The reason for all this straight-faced stoicism is that we’ve recently embarked on a lengthy relationship with the rather heroic bunch at Macmillan Cancer Support. We’re both proud and humbled to be playing a small part in their relentless battle to provide support, information and assistance to all those suffering from or affected by cancer.

As you might expect with an illness that will affect one in three of us at some point in our lifetimes, there’s a huge variation of problems encountered and Macmillan provide a swathe of information to help those who can’t necessarily get access to their people via phone, publications and of course the internet – that’s where we come in.

We’ve teamed up with the bods at Macmillan’s vast and detailed website (over 700 pages at last count) with the aim of providing informative videos that make the often challenging details easy to understand and accessible to all. We’ve already produced twenty of the short films – featuring doctors talking about how they fight cancer, patients talking about their experiences and Macmillan staff explaining just what they can do to help – and there are plenty more to go.

It’s one of the biggest jobs we’ve ever undertaken and certainly one of the most worthwhile, and it’s a rare thing to know that your films are making a real difference in people’s lives.

If you’re looking for a charity to support, please think of Macmillan Cancer Support – they do truly amazing work.

The word ‘legend’ is one with a multitude, nay plethora of uses. Most common is in association with ‘myths and…’ to denote a far-fetched story, historical in nature and, in truth, highly unlikely to have actually happened (see Jason and the Argonauts, Gawain and the Green Knight, The Bible). Then there’s the practical use – when using a map or chart (the paper kind if you remember them, not the type on your portable telephonic device) the legend tells you what all the little symbols mean. And, more recently, it’s entered youth vernacular to thank someone for doing you even the slightest favour:

Youth A – Can you hold my drink while I loosen my trousers enough for them to hang indecently low?

Youth B – Of course.

Youth A – Legend.

Occasionally, however, you get to use it in conjunction with the word ‘living’ and that is surely it’s optimum use.

Casual got to meet one such bona fide ‘living legend’ on a recent shoot for Phaidon to celebrate the release of a book of poetry by world renowned pianist Alfred Brendel. It was an education just to be in the same room as this great and incredibly talented man – something you hopefully get a feel for watching the piece – and as a bit of a classical music geek it was a real personal treat too.

The best bit (for me at least) is when he refers to his method of writing poetry – “…the poems just write themselves…” which is pretty much how this blog makes it online.

Does that mean I’m on my way to being a legend?

You know how in The Matrix Larry Fishcakes explains to Canoe Reed that there are two worlds – the one we can see and the one that exists beneath it? Well, he was right, sort of. We’re not all human Duracell’s existing in a dreamlike state to power some bizarre robot colony that, for some reason cares about the happiness of their power supply, but the two world theory holds firm.

The world we spend most of our lives in is nice and clean and filled with coffee shops and hairdressers and jumpers and iPods and shops that make all those things accessible. It’s the goods and services world, and it’s lovely thank you very much. The ‘other’ world is the one that does all the dirty work, providing all the raw materials and energy that manufacturers, shops and party planners need – it’s the world of heavy industry, and a big player in that world is the petrochemical industry.

The point I’m trying to make, albeit as ham-fistedly as new pig-based superhero Gammon Boy, is that without the petrochemical industry not only would millions of people be out of work, but your iPod would fall apart into your Americano (extra foam) because it’d have no lid and you’d have struggled to pay for either of them because you’d have no ATM or credit cards. Petrochemicals make the world go round, and the European Petro Chemical Association (EPCA) really wants to remind people of that – so they commissioned us to make this film for their members.  The film will feature as part of the UNESCO International Year of Chemistry (2011) and will be distributed around the world.

Demonstrating just how big an influence the EPCA members have on daily life is quite the challenge, but fortunately we like a challenge, so we gave Nick and Adam a packed lunch and sent them off to Kenya to film the last bits we needed for this piece.

Merry Christmas Everybody!

Those of us of a certain age can remember a time before Bob the Builder – it was a time when builders were merely men: scary men with tattoos and a predatory instinct towards passing lady folk, but men all the same. That’s not to say that these men didn’t do great things – not only did they build some incredible structures, but they established the platform of low slung trouser wearing so popular amongst today’s youths – without the builders of yesteryear, Tiny Rascal and Dizzee Stryder would be dressed sensibly.

Then Bob – voiced by marriage ruining badly behaved man Neil Morrissey – arrived on the scene and changed everything. Here was a builder that was not only not sexist, but was intelligent, caring and pleasant. The world of construction was changed forever -and for the better.

Which brings me on to our animation for PRP Architects. They’re currently involved in a very worthy project to modernise old houses, making them all energy efficient and what not and they wanted us to create a piece that would explain the whole process simply and clearly. Before Bob this simply wouldn’t have been possible, the builders would have been too menacing and the content too adult but now…

We handed the project over to our animation guru’s Rob and Doug who plugged into after effects and set about creating simple but charming characters who, although they’re literally squares with eyes, tell the whole story in a simple, entertaining and engaging way. Bravo lads.

Lesley Ash was not touched in any way during the production

“I bloody love tea.”  He told onlookers.

When he discovered that rather than being an actual tea party – featuring ladyfingers, French Fancies and possibly scones – this was actually an ultra conservative and really quite right wing political party he was quick to distance himself from it.

“I bloody love tea – the drink.” He confirmed.

Because contrary to what you might have been told about the internet film industry it doesn’t actually run on cocaine and bubbly – instead it’s fuelled by the humble cup of tea. Rob is one of tea’s greatest advocates, and if you’re ever in the office for more than five minutes it’s likely that he’ll either offer you one or demand you make him one – and if it’s the latter you’d better be quick because when it comes to hot liquid refreshment, Rob lacks patience.

“I give people a ten minute window – which I think is fair – and if my mug’s still empty at the end of that ten minutes I’ll beat them around the head with it. If the mug breaks before their head does, they get to live.” He told me menacingly as I stared at the kettle waiting for it to boil (which it eventually did – Blog 1 vs 0 Proverbs).

So, as my quivering hand spilt hot tea all over my trousers, I asked Rob if there was anything that mattered to him as much as tea. After a prolonged and, quite frankly terrifying, silence I got the answer I had expected:

“No! But quality animation comes close.”  Which I suspect was an afterthought to prevent this presenting him as a PG Tips obsessed psychotic. “Now be a good lad and stick the kettle on.”

He takes it white. And swiftly.

Check out Rob’s hand drawn comic strips here.

In our personal lives the Casual Films gang tend to do much the same as everyone else where charity is concerned:

We give generously when there’s a big event like Children in Need, Comic Relief or the tsunami, we buy the odd copy of The Big Issue, and when we’re harassed by “chuggers” (charity muggers) on the street we pretend to be on the phone or late for a meeting.

All pretty standard fair I’m sure you’ll agree – we’re not quite in the Warren Buffet league when it comes to giving, but we’re not a bunch of tight wads either.

So with those half-hearted and lukewarm credentials in mind, it was no surprise when AIDS charity Dance4Life approached us to partner up with them.

Their aim is to defeat the killer virus, their weapons? Dance and music! Yes, on first hearing this we baulked a little too, but upon closer inspection it really holds water – our best weapon against this horrible blight is awareness, and one of the best ways to increase awareness amongst young people is through the use of dance and music – ipso facto!

So, charged with a belief in both the cause and their methods we sat around a table and came up with a rather natty idea to spread the word using as many celebrities as we could get our grubby mitts on and utilising their very best dance moves.

The resulting film went online in time for World AIDS Day, and we think it’s pretty funky.

I insist that you not only watch it, but make everyone you know watch it so that Dance4Life can really spread the word!

Take, for example, this piece “The Lightline of Gotham” by a small family run Japanese company called Honda. They’ve sponsored a company called Seeper that’s working wonders with lighting and projection to create an effect called ‘Light Lining’. It has been done before, but not quite like this.  I’m not even going to attempt to describe it, but the visuals are like nothing else you’ve ever seen. It’s astounding.

Outside of the realm of super-rich global companies, the major innovators remain in the music video business. As always Ok Go are never far away when you’re talking about this sort of thing, and whilst White Knuckles might not be as groundbreaking as some of their previous efforts it’s still a mightily impressive video. And it features a goat.

But, what’s this? Pretenders to OK Go’s crown? Well yes, as it happens, there are. Firstly in the shape of Canadian prog-rock outfit Arcade Fire and the video to their song We Used to Wait that utilises Google maps in a way we’ve never seen before. Oh, and believe it when they warn that it’s ‘processor intensive’…

Finally, and most impressively, is the collaboration between “didn’t even go to uni” Professor Green and “not made out of potato” crisp manufacturer Dorito’s. The video for his (apparently ‘sick’) track Coming To Get Me is a completely interactive 360 degree experience. While I’m too old and set in my ways to understand the music, I do know a great leap forward when I see one – and that’s exactly what this is.

So, while you watch and enjoy we’re going to beaver away and figure out how to trump the lot of them!

In an episode dedicated to seeing whether technology would enable the presenters to topple experts in their respective fields, Adam and Will were selected as, and I quote here, “(some of)…the best young filmmakers in the country…”. You can watch their segment here:

If you’re too slammed (busy) busting a nut (working hard) for the man (your boss or, to a greater extent, the state and/or government as a whole) to watch the video then I can tell you that Will and Adam emerged from the challenge triumphant (they won).

We’re delighted that the guys are getting this sort of national recognition and we’re proud to be associated with them. Amongst their impressive body of work are a few of Casual’s best bits including our recent work with Credit Suisse and our rather cinematic European Copper Institute piece.

But this isn’t about us, this is about our homey’s (friends), so Will and Adam, nuff spec (enough respect, or ‘well done’) we outy (I’m finished).

However, anyone who watched the most recent episode of BBC1’s ‘The Apprentice’ will appreciate that it’s impossible to let it pass without comment. Because this episode featured sweet sweet Sugar’s favourite task – advertising – and that’s a subject rather close to our hearts.

Mad Men this was not, in fact it was closer to an episode of Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em as two collections of intellectually challenged Amstrad wannabe’s competed to see who could make the worst cleaning product ad. It was a close run thing, as first Team Misogyny pretended that the last fifty years never happened with an ad best described as both bewildering and offensive. They were closely followed by Team Massive Marketplace Misjudgement, whose efforts were as clumsy as a blind thumbless carpenter trying to fit a door on a badly listing ship – it wasn’t good.

In fact it was far worse than that.  I, and I suspect anyone else involved in advertising, film-making or television watching, spent almost the entire episode hiding behind a cushion, fearful that I might cringe so hard my ears would fall off. It was an episode so painful it’s a wonder he didn’t fire everyone, but on the plus side it made us feel a hell of a lot better about our output!

If you were similarly affected by this episode of ‘The Apprentice’ then maybe you can seek some comfort in this nice little piece by the ever-brilliant Cassette Boy. Are you sitting comfortably Lord Sugar? I doubt it.

“I’ll get those t-shirts shifted in a minute.” She said after the recent delivery of some Casual Films polo shirts.

Whilst Casual Films might be Corrina’s first venture in to the world of paid work, she’s no stranger to the graft involved in film production. Many of you will remember her stellar appearance on CITV when, at just 14 years old, she interviewed the cast of The Worst Witch, it was an experience that left her hungry for more… “ I’m heading to Byker Grove to interview them bastards,” she may have thought at the time.

But she had to wait until attending Loughborough University before she could satiate her desires, putting aside the traditional tea dances and wine tasting of typical student life to play a vital role in the production team of the Student Union TV Channel – one of the top student lead TV channels in the whole of the Leicester area. That extra-curricular activity helped propel her to a BSc Hons (2:1) in Communication and Media Studies and subsequently into our office and our hearts.

Outside of work musical-theatre-lover Corrina loves musical theatre and has seen French Revolution love triangle epic Les Miserables more than 3 times – and she’s not averse to seeing it more than 4 times…if the right offer comes along…

“ I’m looking for a man at the minute, pretty much anyone will do as long as they’re clean and enjoy Countdown,” I took her admission of singledom to mean.

So if you fancy an evening of dancing (Corrina passed her Dance GCSE (yes, Dance GCSE!) in Year 9!), songs about French people and the possibility that she might tell you the story about the time she ate cat food then drop us a line. You’ll have to pay though, we don’t pay her enough to have a social life.

Jennifer Aniston, she’s sexy, beautiful, talented, funny and sexy (worth mentioning twice) and it’s fair to say that I’d walk five hundred miles, and possibly five hundred more just to stroke her hair and make her cups of tea. I’ve never met her, but I love her. That said, you do get the feeling that she’s maybe a little bit clingy, a bit needy – I mean there’s got to be something wrong or she’d still be with Brad Pitt. However he jumped ship to be with the rather tasty though mentally suspect Angelina Jolie. The point is that even when something seems perfect you can find faults if you look hard enough, and there’s always a way to upgrade.

For Jennifer Aniston read the Canon 5D MkII. Universally lauded, adored and admired, it came on the scene as a digital SLR that could shoot full HD video and instantly changed the game. Everybody – and I mean everybody – loved the quality, the style and the price and it’s been at the top of the game for two years now. But what’s that coming on the horizon? Why it’s the beautiful Panasonic AG-AF101, or Angelina Jolie, and do you know what? It’s turning my head.

As wonderful as the Jennifer may once have seemed, this compact little minx will do things she simply won’t. Sorry, not Jennifer, the 5D MkII. This analogy has got out of hand. Yes, Panasonic had a look at the 5D and said righty ho, it’s great and all that, but what’s with the 4GB file limit? How come the sound recording’s so naff? Why no ND filter? Where’s the viewfinder? When at least half their market is buying as a video camera why are Canon insisting on keeping it as a stills camera that shoots video… all are questions they may have quite reasonably asked, and once you’ve seen the 5D in that light it suddenly doesn’t seem as marvellous as it once was. Once you’ve seen her on the loo without her make-up on it can’t be unseen. There’s no way back.

Panasonic’s master stroke is to keep all the good stuff, the stuff that made the 5D such a hit – the compact SLR style body, the huge SLR sensor that allows you to capture beautiful and rich images, the true HD – and garnished it with a load of filming essentials on to make a digital SLR that’s specifically for film. The industry buzz is that this is going to change the game again, and that the AF101 is going to be THE camera for the independent film industry – and it could go bigger than that. The House season finale was videoed on a Canon 5D MkII and we’ve established that it’s now just an ugly, smelly and predictable in bed version of our exciting new love, so the sky really is the limit.

We’ll be doing our damndest to get one when they’re released in December (that’s a hint Santa) and give you a user report then, but in the meantime go to the Panasonic website here to get the full measurements of the saucy little beast and start distancing yourself from your 5D – it’s for the best.

I’m walking here, God bless America, hand over your wallet and nobody gets hurt – these are just a few of the phrases you might hear on the streets of New York, The Big Apple, the city that never sleeps (it can’t, it’s a city, stop anthropomorphising) a place so good they named it twice (they didn’t – songwriters really take some liberties don’t they?) and a place that truly is the world in a city.

Any way, in a nutshell New York’s ace and because of that it’s now next in line in Casual’s long term plan for world domination. Watch out Beastie Boys, Liza Minelli, the cast of Friends, hot dog vendors, Moby, Tony Soprano and everyone else – we’re setting up an office stateside.

Well, that’s the plan, and a plan that’s a lot closer to coming to fruition thanks to the brilliant scheme set up by Chinwag (a top website for digital jobs) and UK Trade and Investment (one of the survivors of the bonfire of the quangos). Digital Mission to New York is taking Casual and 18 other top UK digital firms across the pond to help us understand how to set up and run our business in America – and it’s a bit of a victory just to be invited.

The competition for places on the Mission is fierce so it’s a testament to the whole team that we’re going to be spending five days eating Hero sandwiches atop the Empire State building whilst cheering on the Knicks against the Giants at Yankee Stadium and then getting the subway back to Times Square to relax in Central Park. Sorry, I’m over excited.

It’s early days, but watch out America, we’re coming to get y’all!

Stills from a recent Casual Films production for Credit Suisse

Phaidon Press, if you haven’t heard of them that tells me two very important things about you:

1)   You haven’t been reading the blog properly because they’re mentioned here.

2)   You’re not the hip and happening on the money dude I gave you credit for.

The reason I make point two is also two fold:

1)   I like to use out of date terms and expressions, it makes me feel warm and fuzzy

2)   Phaidon Press are THE guys when it comes to print and online journalism about the very best when it comes to all things cultural.

And when they wanted a film company to make short pieces that would bring their articles to life they called on Casual Films. This therefore means that, by the transit of property, Casual Films are hip, happening and on the money.

Thanks to this amazing new partnership we’re getting great access to some of the worlds foremost artisans to talk about their current work, recent awards and impending exhibitions.

In the last month alone we’ve interviewed legendary photojournalist Steve McCurry, internationally renowned architect John Pawson and the 2010 winner of The Royal Photographic Society’s Centenary Medal Albert Watson. In short we’re mixing with a far better class of people now so I won’t be able to meet you for a pint at the Harvester any more.

Albert Watson, Leslie Navjas, Miami, Florida, 1989

Sequels, now there’s a topic that takes me back. Way back when I was a mere soap dodging student I managed to write a 10,000 word dissertation on this very subject – concocting a convoluted and unnecessarily complex equation to determine the likely success or otherwise of a sequel to any given film.

It worked too – I successfully predicted the critical and box office performance of many films then not yet released! You’d think that Hollywood would be knocking on my door – but it was not to be, perhaps they were influenced by my tutors stinging remarks that…

“…though an entertaining read, this is possibly the least academic piece of work I have ever read.”

So, although ignored, what’s my point? Well it’s that sequels are often little more than pale imitations of a successful original, often even going so far as using exactly the same story with just a few minor adjustments.

Casual Films are proud to have jumped on to that bandwagon with the sequel to our motion typography hit of March – the catchily titled PriceWaterhouseCoopers Graduate Recruitment Film – we haven’t even stuck a two on the end, we’ve given it exactly the same name.

Like with any good sequel, little has changed, a font here and a colour scheme there to match PwC’s new branding but we have added a new ‘surprise’ ending.

It’s not original, but we’ve given the audience (the client) exactly what they wanted, and that’s what it’s all about in the end.

Expect the 3D version Late 2011.

Neil Armstrong, Sir Edmund Hilary, Roger Bannister – history is awash with the names of men (and the odd woman thrown in for good measure) who were the first to make ground breaking achievements. We’re proud to say that you can now add Casual Films to that illustrious list

We didn’t do anything quite so simple as running quite far rather quickly, or climbing what is, to all intents and purposes, just a big version of Primrose Hill though. No, much like young Mr Armstrong we took on a technical challenge of monumental proportions and, sufficed to say, what was a small step for Casual Films, was a giant leap for the advertising industry.

In partnership with Nexus/H and JCDecaux (they of the big billboards) we completed the first ever live broadcast to digital billboards at several major rail stations across the capital. The two hour feed was to celebrate the launch of Suzuki’s new Swift range, and it captured the attention of over 1 million commuters during the evening rush hour at Liverpool St, Waterloo and Kings Cross stations.

The content itself featured the awesome talents of graffiti artists Josh Sutterby and Richard Henderson aka Monorex as they illustrated a canvas backdrop behind the vehicle. The results were a testament to their talents, but the content here is somewhat secondary to the technical achievement, and that is something that could be a watershed moment for experiential advertising.

So Casual Films has planted a flag, we were here first and that’s never going to change.

Inspired by the theft of Casual head honcho Barnaby’s classic bicycle during August I’ve taken it upon myself to do the bare minimum level of research and declare war on this scourge on society.

Revelation

The shocking results of my investigation include the revelation that loads of bikes get pinched every day right across London, sometimes pinched to order.

Proficiency

The thieves often don’t want the bikes for themselves but to sell for profit – in fact some of the thieves haven’t even passed their cycling proficiency tests.

Glamour

Police refuse to commit the required man hours to this incessant blight on broken Britain, instead focusing on ‘glamour’ crimes like murder and armed robbery.

Happier times on London Fields

Shaken

Barnaby was left too shaken to talk about his ordeal, but it’s probably reasonable to say that he feels violated by the loss of his treasured bike, and abandoned by the police force that are supposed to be there to protect citizens like him.

Not Stirred

As Barnaby tries to recover in the saddle of a ‘rebound’ bike that can never truly take the place of his classic I bid you all take care, use extra strong chains, fasten your bike to something sturdy, and if you see someone stealing a bike give them a very enthusiastic kick in the plums.