After 5 years as a producer at CNN, I have moved onto new pastures. I am now exec producer at an amazing organisation called Content With Purpose (CWP), which makes documentary content exclusively on the health of our planet. It’s a subject very dear to my heart and I am been beyond excited to be working solely on this topic. Watch this space.
Emmy award win!
This week the 42nd Annual News and Documentary Emmy® Awards is taking place. CNN as usual had a host of content entered across the whole board of categories and I was the lead video producer on the winner of the ‘Outstanding Interactive Media: Current News’ category for a piece I worked on called ‘How American Police Gear up to Respond to Protests’. It was the brain child of my colleague Sarah-Grace Mankarious and it’s a fascinating long read about the militarisation of the police in the USA, well worth a read.
John Oliver show features one of my CNN pieces
A great way to start the week, John Oliver’s show Last Week Tonight profiled a snippet of a CNN Business piece I did with reporter Hadas Gold on misinformation around the coronavirus. The section can be found at 8 minutes 15 secs into the YouTube video below, and the full CNN piece below that. Researching the topic was a terrifying insight into the darker recesses of the internet. There’s some pretty fanatical, disillusioned people out there. Always do your own research before forwarding information on social media.
And the full video on CNN Business:
World Rainforest Day and the success of the southern white rhino
With everything else that is going on in the world, the environment seems to have taken a bit of a back-seat. It may not be the biggest day in our diaries, but what it represents is one of the most important things to the stability of our planet: World Rainforest Day. One of my pieces was re-released on the CNN homepage today to mark it. It’s on Kakamega Forest in Kenya, one of the last remaining pieces of a forest that used to stretch across Africa. It’s a sad statement of the decline our planet is experiencing that it itself may not be much longer for this world.
On a brighter note, my piece on the resurgence of the southern white rhino, thanks mainly to the hard work of those conservationists a Hluhluwe Imfolozi Park, went live today as well.
Two good environmental pieces on the CNN homepage in a day. I wish there would be more!
E-LIFE on Amazon Prime
Pac-Man's 40th birthday in lockdown
Lockdown is tough, and like many people in the media world, I am going through a small existential crisis on exactly what my career entails, and how that will change in the future. Many of my freelance friends are really struggling, a few are doing better than ever. At CNN, we have been working from home over two months now and, from our team at least, we have shot no new content. That hasn’t slowed our rate of content production however, far from it. As well as clearing projects on the back-burner, I’ve worked on some great new films. High up on that list is this piece I put together for CNN Style to mark Pac-Man’s 40th birthday. Enjoy!
A bit of an update
It’s been an eventful year and as I am now over 18 months at CNN I thought I’d post a bit of an update. Here are a list of series I have produced to date:
Global Gateway - a series on Dubai
Best of H.K. - a series on Hong Kong for CNN Travel
The Adorned - a series on eccentric dressers for CNN Style
Great by Design - a series on innovative British companies
Plus too many stand alone pieces that I care to remember. Here are some of my favourite though:
Me surfing the plastic tide. Plastic pollution was one of the Lush Summit's causes this year.
E-LIFE at the Lush Summit 2018!
It was a happy Valentine's to me as E-LIFE, my doc on electronic waste that is now being distributed by Espresso Media, was showcased at the Lush Summit in Old Billingsgate Market, London. Maybe a little naively I hadn't truly grasped how diverse the soap company's philanthropy stretched, with issues ranging from migrant crises to deforestation represented. A large corner of the event was dedicated to Digital Ethics and E-LIFE was on display alongside Fairphone, the ethical phone company featured in the doc (I've also done a few vids on them separately like Circular Cellular below).
With me was E-LIFE co-producer Huw Poraj-Wilczynski. Lush are also about to launch a campaign on the growing issue of discarded tech and on sale at the summit were Agbogbloshie bath bombs (modelled beautifully by Huw below). Agbogbloshie is the name of the infamous scrapyard in Accra that processes a large amount of eWaste and is featured heavily in E-LIFE. Solutions to clean the place up are easy enough with the right amount of support and hopefully with this increased attention we'll see some change in the near future.
You wait an age for a Plastic Shores screening, then 2 happen at once
It's been a good long time since my first film Plastic Shores was screened anywhere. It was released in 2012 and has been shown all around the world now. Perhaps it is because World Environment day this year is focussing on plastics that there has been a sudden interest in the film, which looks at the problem of marine plastic debris. Friends of the Earth are holding a screening in Chester tomorrow (18th January) and then there is another in the Cayman Islands not long afterwards. Although there are many things about Plastic Shores I cringe out now being a more experienced film maker, it will always have a very special place in my heart and shows what you can do if you see an idea through its creation.
The Greenlandic Men's Championship semi-finals: G44 from Qeqertarsuaq and tournament favourites and last year's champions B67.
In the Arctic Circle for CNN Travel
I've just returned from my first posting abroad with CNN and it was quite the experience. We were in Greenland with CNN Travel, mainly to do a piece on the shortest football season in the world: The Greenlandic Men's Championship. However, as we were on the ground we covered far more than football. In the end we shot everything from dog-sledding champions to Inuit seal-hunters, shaman-experts to how to make the perfect Greenlandic coffee. Only two films are out so far (unfortunately they don't have embeddable video): a short film on the football (to be followed by a feature piece) and one on the furthest north contemporary arts festival.
E-LIFE wins its first award!
It's hard to keep this website updated as I am now full-time but this is something to shout about. E-LIFE has won its first award! The Impact DOCS Awards have granted it the Award of Excellence Special Mention: Documentary Feature. Impact is a Californian based organisation that hands out awards to films that try and change the world, which is why it is hugely complimentary they have given E-LIFE won. It is always nice, after investing years of your life into a project, to have it recognised and therefore I am incredibly grateful for the guys at Impact.
Further news is that E-LIFE has secured distribution! I can't quite reveal the details yet but they are soon to come.
First few days at CNN
So yes, this is the big news. I have started as a content producer at CNN as of Monday 3rd April. The freelance life is at an end for now but the first few days at CNN have been quite a whirlwind, what with the St Petersburg bombing on Monday and the chemical attack in Syria on Tuesday. Today comparatively was pretty calm and saw the release of my first piece for the news corporation.
O2 and Tate: Hockney, two more projects go live
In one day two other commercial projects go live. The first is a linear 360 experience of the new David Hockney exhibition at the Tate Britain. Presented by Sara Cox, the viewer gets an exclusive view of the empty gallery as Sara chats to curator Chris Stephens about the artwork. It was released on Facebook today and has received 30,000 views in 15 minutes.
The second, a major VR commercial for O2, went live in store this week. Unfortunately it is not live online yet but I'll post about it as soon as it does. The blurb from O2 reads as follows:
"Featuring a cast of over 100 and filmed by a crew of almost 30, the experience offers two experiences in one – allowing users to live through a pre-performance at an O2 Academy venue as either a music fan or a member of a band.
Using a unique, interactive and switchable storytelling mechanic, users can constantly swap between the music fan and band perspectives – experiencing first-hand how the excitement builds both in front of and behind the stage.
The experience is the first time an O2 Academy venue has given 360° ‘behind the scenes’ access, with the band point-of-view showcasing how musicians build up to an event – from leaving the tour bus to being backstage in the dressing room – eventually building to a crescendo of the band walking on stage to an onslaught of noise that transports the user directly to the live music arena."
Ted Baker Meet the Baker campaign launched
My second project with Happy Finish (first to be released) is now live. Ted Baker: Meet the Bakers is the new campaign from the British Fashion brand. The cinemagraphs were just one aspect of it and they are one of the world's first 360 videos of this high quality. Filmed in the Ukraine towards the end of last year, it was a hugely enjoyable job to work on. Only a shame I'm going to be moving on from working with these guys at the end of the month to go to a major news network (to be revealed soon).
"Built To Last" A Film for Fairphone
Off the back of the release of Circular Cellular, the case study within that film Fairphone approached me to help make a couple of short online content pieces for the company. The first has been released and can be watched below:
Release of Circular Cellular
Back in August, I won Dell's Legacy of Good Film Competition with my short doc idea Circular Cellular. We have now launched the film and have great feedback so far. It'll be showcased by the Disruptive Innovation Festival next week, and then by the Guardian shortly after. You can view it here in all it's glory!
Unreleased RED Scarlet W now for hire in London.
As part of the awards package from Dell's Legacy of Good film competition, I was given the new RED Scarlet W, as yet unreleased in the US and UK. With film capabilities of 5k and 300fps (at 2k), it's a great piece of kit and I have decided to list it with my friends at Kitmapper. If you're interested, or just intrigued, just go through their website or email me directly.
US Leg of Circular Cellular Complete
Production for Circular Cellular has kicked off in earnest with two weeks filming in California. Interviews with Chris Guenther from the Ellen McArthur Foundation and Anthony Borges of Electronic Recyclers International. The deadline for completion of the project is mid-August and so things are moving along at a cracking pace. The Chase Films, my agency, has kindly said they will manage the post-production, with Patrick Fry taking control of the graphic element of the film.
In other news, it will be interesting to see how the EU referendum affects the artistic community in the UK. I returned from California yesterday in time to vote and was genuinely shocked by the disparity between London, which was very much in favour of staying in the European bloc, and the rest of the country (England that is). Demographic trends in the country seem to imply if you are white, of lower income, and live outside a major urban centre then you would have voted My own personal point of view is that an issue like this should have never been put to the vote. The sentiment of people having "had enough of the experts" is terrifying, and mirrors the anti-intellectualism of Trump's politics in the US. What on earth are experts for if not to listen to them?
Winner of the Dell Legacy of Good Film Competition!
It has been quite the week! On Friday, I was announced winner, alongside my LA producer Tom Fox-Davies, of the Dell Legacy of Good Film Competition for my entry Circular Cellular (trailer below). I've worked with Dell through my feature doc E-LIFE, and they pointed me in the direction of the competition. We beat over 200 other applicants to the winning spot, receiving $25,000 to complete a short documentary on the circular economy, along with additional support in the form of cameras and work stations. I've chosen to make Fairphone, the incredible Dutch start-up, the topic of the film.
In other amazing news, the short fashion film on Private White V.C. I produced for The Chase Films has been nominated for a Drum Design Award (Moving Image category). The event is in London on Wednesday (27th April), and I am attending alongside the talented DoP Fernando Ruiz. As I said, it's been a good week!
ZSL London Zoo TVC Goes Live
Over the past few months I have been working on a new TVC for The Chase Films. The client was ZSL London Zoo, who have just launched their latest attraction: Land of the Lions. As part of this launch, they wanted a magical commercial to be shown in cinemas, TV, VOD and online. The final version is below. It was directed by Mitch Walker and the production was great fun to work on, filming across the country. Word to the wise, if you need a cheap version of central London, use central Liverpool.