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The Finals Countdown

They say that no-one remembers who came second; equally, the losers of football matches are relegated to pub trivia answers at best. But for some of the football fans at the Proudfoot Company this is a big week, with both Fulham and Portsmouth contesting for major trophies. In a matter of hours, Fulham go up against Athletico Madrid in the final of the Europa Cup, with a pretty solid chance of glory. On Saturday, plucky Pompey - dubbed the 'crisis club' by the media for the entire season - face the Goliath that is Chelsea in the FA Cup final, with a considerably less good chance of victory. Good luck to them both.

Nothing is certain; both teams may cause upsets and fill the office with joy. The favourites may of course do what favourites usually do - we hope to be spared humiliation. And there will be nothing but respect if one team manages to achieve their place in footballing history and the other becomes a tricky question on 5 Live's Fighting Talk.

It turns out that a couple of things ARE certain: in this office we will remember what happens in these two huge matches, even if our teams fail this final test of the season; and we will be back next season, tryinig to urge them on to even greater glory.

Play Up Pompey - and Fulham!!

A Weekend in Geneva

Eddie and Michael got stranded in Geneva due a cloud of volcanic ash....they had a Flip camera with them.......http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ow64avFJonE

I AM A PAINTBRUSH

I am a paintbrush. Watch my film here

What I learnt in Spain

Just back from a week in Madrid with Jonathan Glazer, Brazilian futebol ace Kaka, four 3D camera rigs and a crew of just over 100 on a shoot for Sony Bravia. It was a tough but fun week and I learnt a lot.
1. Making TV commercials is hard. That's why I stopped doing it nearly 10 years ago and that's why it would take a team of especially strong wild horses to drag me back into it again. Doing what we do - the Making Of the commercial - is much easier and much more fun!
2. Jonathan Glazer is alright. He probably deserves all the hype and he remains approachable and friendly. Creatively, he has a strong sense of what he wants and he keeps going until he gets it. This 3D commercial should be amazing.
3. Kaka is not as good at football tricks as I thought he would be. But he is much better at performing on camera than I thought he would be so I guess we are evens. And he is a nice guy.
4. Mike James is a terrific cameraman and is very good company on a long shoot. I knew this already but it is always good to discover that something as crucial as this is still correct.
5. The rain in Spain falls wherever and whenever it feels like falling. And last week it fell everywhere, a lot, and it was accompanied by enormous and very uncomfortable hailstones.

Birds and Guitars

I am a frequent visitor to the Barbican Centre and often head there after the Proudfoot office closes to catch a film and grab something to eat. Occasionally I’ll also visit to see something a bit less run of the mill: among the things I saw there last year were a spectacular one-off concert with Grizzly Bear (my lo-fi indie idols) featuring the London Philharmonic orchestra, and a screening of cult film “The Room” with commentary from comedians Graham Linehan and Peter Serofinowitz – another memorable experience, although for rather different reasons (the event was part of the Barbican’s “Bad Film Club”, so I’ll leave you to work out the rest…).

The Barbican is apparently the largest multi-arts centre in Europe and also plays host to art, theatre, dance and educational events. Not being much of a connoisseur in these fields I hadn’t thought to properly check out what else is on offer, but earlier this month I stumbled upon an “installation” in the Centre’s Curve gallery.

The entrance to the space tells you that held within is “a new commission for The Curve by Céleste Boursier-Mougenot”, and as you enter into darkness with strange ambient noises playing in the background, you’d be forgiven for wondering what on earth was going on. But as you get to the last quarter of the gallery (which is literally named after the shape of the space, a long semi-circular corridor), suddenly everything is illuminated and you are greeted by two things: birds and guitars.

Mr Boursier’s idea is remarkably simple: he has placed several electric guitars and a few cymbals on stands, hooked them up to amps, and filled the space with 40 zebra finches. The flock of finches use the guitars as perches, and the cymbals double as feeders, with piles of bird seed scattered over them. As the birds land on the instruments or occasionally pluck at the strings they create a unique and ever-changing sound.

He may have added a couple of effects, such as reverb and echo, but to my surprise, the resulting noise sounds remarkably musical. Boursier is a trained composer, and he is fascinated by the musicality of the sounds that surround us in everyday life. His previous works apparently include an installation of 13 vacuum cleaners which have harmonicas attached to their suction nozzles. He likes to orchestrate situations that will produce unusual sounds, but he wants to enable the sound to occur in a random and unaffected way. As you walk in between the instruments in the Curve you notice that your movements can also affect the birds behaviour, and on the two occasions I have visited the experience has felt and sounded completely different.

It is unclear if the birds know about their temporary rock-god status, but they seem pretty at home; on my second visit I noticed a couple of them trying to weave a nest between the strings of one of the guitars. They will be maintaining their residency for another couple of months yet, and entry is free, so I recommend paying a visit to the Barbican before these guys get signed and embark on a world tour.

Shutter Island

For some reason or other Wendy and I decided to go and see “The Girl With The Dragon Tatoo” last week. Nicely done, but I gather it’s a cut-down from a two part Swedish TV drama so some of the plot is irritatingly sacrificed, maybe you should just read the book, although Noomi Rapace who plays the Lisbeth Sander character is great. So this week we brave Scorsese’s “Shutter Island”. Scorsese’s latest is another long one and seems to have had mixed reviews, so you wonder, is it worth the time? Nevertheless you go along knowing that Marty is at least going to show you some interesting moments, even if it is flawed. The way Scorsese moves the camera or moves the performers within the frame is always elegant and inspiring to watch, his style is economical but somehow we are always aware that his eye is there – we are being shown things in a particular way for a reason.

Well let me tell you “Shutter” is certainly worth going to see and in years to come might be seen as one of Scorsese's best films. What he does with this story is subtle and clever and it’s only on coming out of the cinema after the final twist you begin to remember how his careful direction has lead you though the narrative’s many layers. The beginning is deliberately pulpy, by that I mean the camera angles he chooses, even the dialogue has echoes of a fifties comic book. Gradually the visual styles change and Scorsese uses different filmic devices (all beautifully executed) to draw us into the final denouement. Without wanting to spoil the ending, one often comes out of mainstream cinema wondering what you have carried away from the experience, in the case of Shutter Island I was reminded of something Jonathan Miller once said to me: “as scientists, we know more about deep space than how the human brain actually works”. Maybe we all have a little bit of “Patient 67” about us?

Proud foot

Proudfoot have a shoot in Geneva at the moment and it has coincided with the first few days of spring. It's new year's day in the natural world and Michael has started the ball rolling with what looks like a new resolution to exercise during shoots. I'll be taking my running shoes next time I'm working abroad- they might even help when someone tries to steal the camera.

Dark Days - or a new beginning?

It has finally happened. A decade or more of poor management, short-sightedness and greed have caught up with my beloved Pompey and we are now in administration and surely doomed to relegation. Plenty has been said about the personalities involved in the surely temporary downfall of this great club and those involved will be cursed by Pompey fans for at least the rest of their days.

Now that administration has finally happened I feel bitterness - at the string of petty crooks who have played with club as if it were a bauble or a trophy girlfriend, and anger - at the officials of the Premier League, who have apparently been drugged by the wealth and glamour of modern football to the extent that any ex-con could pass the 'Fit and Proper Persons' test, let alone an Arab swindler or a Russian arms dealer. I also feel a sense of relief - an enormous weight has been lifted from the fans, the only innocent party in this whole sordid mess and the only ones who will be punished by the points deduction (a senseless punishment, in my view).

It is all rather sad, grubby and pathetic. And there are serious concerns about many other clubs, amongst them Premier League clubs, whose owners have lead them down a similar path to that which has seen Pompey stray dangerously close to the cliff edge. They must get a grip now while they still can. My first game was against Rotherham in August 1981. It was a rich mixture of mud, sweat and the odd flash of talent and I was hooked from the first minute of that 3-1 victory. David Gregory was an instant hero. Watching from the the well-behaved Family Enclosure in the South Stand, I immediatey wanted to be part of the noise and passion of the Fratton End, even today considered Britain's best group of fans, and some decades later it was a huge thrill to take delivery of my first Fratton End season ticket - ear-splittingly close to John Westwood and his famous bell. And my wild ride as a Pompey fan began.

It is easy to become addicted to success; Pompey fans loved every minute of our brief period inthe limelight. We spent decades in the lower reaches of the league - more than a decade in second tier alone - and suddenly found ourselves getting promoted to the Premier League, going to Wembley 3 times in as many months, winning the FA Cup, winning games in the UEFA Cup and establishing ourselves as a footballing force to be reckoned with. It was fun. And there may be some more fun to be had during the rest of this season. We still have the excellent Avram Grant, who seems to have fallen in love with the club, and it looks as if we will keep at least a few decent players. We may even get to face Harry Redknapp's Tottenham (Pompey in disguise?) in the FA Cup semi final at Wembley in what would surely be the most ironic game ever held at Wembley.

The future is out there. We should, at least, now survive as a club. We thought we had seen the last of grounds like Selhurst Park but we will be back at the top level one day.

Play Up Pompey!

New Proudfoot Showreel

At long last, our new showreel is ready to view. This is just a taster - a full reel of our very best work is available by contacting simon@proudfoot.tv

Enjoy.

A Late Valentine To All Our Friends & Clients

Essential Elements

This week saw the launch of The Rolex Learning Centre in Lausanne. Our film was part of the presentations made to architectural press from around the world. It's a very simple film and consists of five essential elements. The first of these essential elements is some extraordinary camerawork by Chris Morphet, who approached the task of filming in the snow against a grey background in freezing temperatures with his usual aplomb. We decided to go for abstract shots that somehow followed the idea that SANAA, the architects, had created a kind of land locked spaceship, well that's how I saw it anyway. The snow became a dimension that we could use to create depth and mystery, maybe even romance. The second essential element is what you might call literary content, in this case some interviews with the architects, Kazuyo Sejima & Ryue Nishizawa shot in Tokyo on a flying visit and Mr Patrick Aebischer, chief Academic at EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Federale De Lausanne). Mr Aebischer tells us why? and SANAA tell us how?. Element number three was a bit of a wild card, music by pedal steel guitar legend BJ Cole, a track called "Indian Willow Suite" which matched the fluid lines of the building perfectly while also giving off a mysterious, spacey feel. Fourth element: sensitive and beautifully timed editing by The Scandiman himself, Andreas Torner - who prefers to be briefed with the essential elements in front of him and then left to get on with it, I willingly obliged. One further element: the client, who were able to look, listen and see the the film for what it was and know that it is as close as it could be to fulfilling what they wanted.

See the film on youtube here

Baby making music

Yesterday saw two babies being born that made two proudfooters proud uncles. Not content with this happy coincidence, Channel 4 decided to screen "One Born Every Minute" last night. Shot with discreet cameras in a Southampton labour ward, it was a great example of real people providing compelling stories. There was the odd cynical edit here and there (one in particular seemed to poke fun at a father-to-be as he told us his unimpressive GCSE results), but we got to see how people acted when confronted by what Anthropologists often call the 'boundaries' of humanity. Mothers hugged son-in-laws ("she's never hugged me like that unless she's pissed") and expectant mothers shouted "I hate you" at anyone who cared to listen. I watched with a lump in my throat as a mother (heavily drugged at this point), midwives and a 'rabbit caught in headlights' father stood quietly listening to the wavering rhythms of the child's heartbeat echoing around the small room, hoping it would pick up the pace. I was unaware of this aspect of sound design in hospitals where the whole room is filled with the amplified heartbeat of an unborn child, but there was an eery similarity to the final scene of Das Boot. Thanks to the experience and decisiveness of the NHS staff, this time there was a happier ending.

3 things that make us sad and a little bit angry

1. Videographer. This is not a word. It is certainly not a term we would use to describe anyone we have ever employed. Please don't ask us for a videographer. What you need is either a cameraman or, possibly, a photographer. And not a DOP, either.
2. B-Roll. We know what you mean but, seriously, everything that we shoot is A-Roll. Let's think of another word for the package of material that you are intending to supply to the media.
3. Cookies. They are biscuits, even if they are chewy and loaded with chocolate chips.








Thanks for listening.

Festival Brazil Film

Calm down everyone. Here it is.

Triumph and Disaster

Rudyard Kipling means a lot to millions around the world. He has certainly helped us to treat those two imposters, triumph and disaster, just the same. We recently had cause to test our even-handedness; a couple of weeks ago we celebrated Golden Wednesday, the proudest day in the short history of the Proudfoot Company. On Golden Wednesday, 20th January, we were the busiest we have ever been with 4 shoots on the same day in London, New York and Brazil. Just a few days later the company was visited by disaster. On Friday 29th January, a day henceforth and for ever more known as Fridge Friday, the company fridge was destroyed because of foolishness and lack of patience. Remember friends - when defrosting a fridge, put down that knife!

Festival Brazil

This morning saw the press launch of Festival Brazil.

Proudfoot's film was shown and seemed to go down

well. After looking at the list of events and people

involved it really looks like it will be a great time to

visit the South Bank.

Travel and Subsistence

There is an illusion amongst some people that this business of ours involves jolly trips to the world’s most glamorous places, staying in top hotels and eating and drinking like Lords. Mostly our “travel and subsistence” is just that, travel and subsistence. Last week Chris Morphet and I alighted in the small Swiss town of St Suplice which nestles on the shores of Lake Geneva near Lausanne (forgive the tour brochure language). In the preceding days to our departure there had been talk about our choice of hotel and whether or not it was a suitable hostelry for a top executive of The Proudfoot Company and his trusty camera wielding aid, Morphet. In the end, budgetary intervention from the production department meant that we stuck with our original booking at the modestly appointed Hotel Pre Fleuri.

Certainly on our arrival in the gloom of a Swiss winter’s afternoon the Pre Fleuri did not look promising – the small, gothic looking hotel’s main building was tightly shuttered, only blue neon signs hinting at the possible luxury within, “Bates Motel” came to mind. At the reception we were greeted by a young man in a matelot sweater and horn-rimmed glasses, he looked a bit like Michael Caine in “Alfie”. After he had briefed us on how to gain re-entry to the hotel after the nine thirty pm curfew we explored our rooms. It was immediately apparent we were two of perhaps three guests at the Pre Fleuri that night. This may sound a little grim but actually the Pre Fleuri was both warm and comfortable. The hotel has many of the film crew’s minimum requirements: clean (cotton) sheets, a bathroom (with hot water) and a decent telly with BBC World. There is no bar at the Pre Fleuri (probably a crucial film crew minimum requirement but we’ll let that go) and only a modestly stocked mini bar, outside I noticed petrol station sign which meant I might be able to buy milk and make English Breakfast tea with my ever present travel kettle. I ventured out into the cold only to discover that at six thirty the petrol station was closed. Undaunted I strode in the direction of the village hoping to find an open grocery store, after ten minutes I reached Centreville only to find that it too was closed. Back at the hotel I cracked a bottle of Heineken and watched an item on BBC World previewing Tony Blair’s upcoming appearance at The Chilcott enquiry. Musing to myself that someone should question the ex PM on New Labour’s lack of performance on the promised “Education, Education, Education” manifesto pledge I set off to meet Morphet in reception. As usual Chris looked like a man who had just finished a combined session of Pilates and US Army Marine Callisthenics, in short, fit as a butcher’s dog, even after a day’s camera toting.

Having enquired of Michael Caine at reception, we headed off through the now stygian gloom to the local Auberge where we had an excellent and inexpensive dinner. I had Perch from the “Lac” with chips after a wonderful small pot of mushroom risotto – Chris had Dover Sole (a Morphet staple).

Breakfast was simple but serviceable and the Pre Fleuri turned out to be only a four minute drive to our location (proximity to the place of filming being another basic film crew requirement).

So, for any crews headed towards St Suplice, The Hotel Pre Fleuri and the local Auberge get a Proudfoot Company four star rating.

Proudfoot meets Ernesto Neto

Proudfoot's shoot in Brazil had many highlights, but my encounter with Ernesto Neto, the extraordinary sculptor, is destined to become a lifelong memory. My brief was to talk to Ernesto about his upcoming exhibition at the Hayward Gallery and his involvement in a project called 'The New Decor', both of which will be included in The South Bank Centre's 'Festival Brazil' this summer. 30 seconds after my first question, I realised I would be getting much more than I ever expected. Ernesto is an artist that likes to make his art and to talk about his art. There are definite, concrete ideas behind what are often described as abstract or surreal sculptures and installations. Looking at his luscious, sensual works of art it was surprising to hear about Ernesto's obsession with physicists such as Einstein, Plank, Newton and Faraday. I've always believed that the greatest scientists, working at the fuzzy boundaries of their fields, are really artists. It's interesting to see that the opposite is true too.