Inside the Wimbledon warehouse space was a full-scale recreation of an Indonesian bazaar, complete with skeins of fabrics, a massive spread of spices, and a real live wok filled with a steaming batch of curry (which, having been stirred vigorously all morning, was complete mush by lunchtime). Despite the miniskirts pictured above, it was actually quite chilly on set, so the cast and crew gathered around a massive heat lamp between takes. Later, we actually wound up using the lamp’s red light to cast an ominous glow on the threshold of a brothel door.

We rounded out the day with a steamy bedroom scene featuring two (nearly) nude actors and some crazy, lo-fi video effects conceived by Paul. While the actors got a bit raunchy in bed, Fergus and Rill used two video projectors to place images of gonorrhea, syphilis, and other nasty STDs growing on their skin.

After shooting, the Pukka crew packed up and went on their way, but not before grabbing some veg and spices from the market — there’s no need to let a delicious-looking sack of whole onions go to waste!

It’s that time of year (or more specifically that month in the year) when despite the protests of our wives and girlfriends, the Pukka team have joined forces to raise money for Prostate Cancer by growing their Mo’s.

Dan looks like something out of True Blood, Paul has something of the RAF about him, Fergus has gone for the Mexican look and I’m just about hanging in there with my hairier colleagues. As for Ana, I think she thinks we’re all mad…

All sponsorship welcome – click here for Team Pukka page

The Pukka crew have just returned with the rushes of their third big drama for Italian clients, Saipem. Shoots in Norway, Italy and Nigeria have been completed with another coming up in exotic Wimbledon.

The Italian leg was a welcome extension to the summer with blisteringly hot days and a wide range of locations (thanks Ivano!). After long hours we ate like kings and on a couple of occasions were serenaded in the bar by our principle actor, Samuel Anderson.

The last night was the moment everyone had been waiting for, when Dave Judge’s stunt boys performed a 50mph car crash, obliterating a Fiat Punto at 3 in the morning. Rinse, who drove the car, told us afterwards that it’s important to scream before impact to expel air from your lungs and avoid injury – but we think it’s because he’s a scaredy cat.

Barely any time to sweep up the broken glass, and we were on a flight to Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Our armed escort of non-smiling security with AK 47s was waiting and chaperoned us through the towns and villages to the Saipem yard. A security induction included phrases like ‘killing zone’, ‘Mortar Fire’ and ‘wait for the all-clear’ and lots of handy tips on what to do ‘in the event of an attack on the base’. Fingers crossed, then.

A day and a half’s filming flew by in the tropical humidity and before we knew it we were bouncing back down the potholed roads to the airport again. We had just enough time to snap a pic with our (now smiling) security before entering the purgatory of customs and collapsing onto the flight home.

The Handy Guide to Quality called for a performer with fascinating, expressive hands, and who better than Andy Dawson, who’s done the whole moon landing with his! (see here)

Special thanks also to Ben Grounds (Art Dept) for his patient and meticulous style in sourcing gloves, oranges and the creating the ‘Juictron4000’ which is now sitting in Fergus’ kitchen.

After a highly technical tabletop shoot at the Pukka Studio, David Ashardi’s wizardry in the edit and a fantastic voice over record from Simon Greenall (I’m Alan Partridge, the ‘meerkats’ commercial), the film was complete, and delivered more than a week early.

The film has been received well and is now being translated into more languages so that the message can be spread further afield.

Freedom from Torture work with torture survivors from all over the world, providing a range of therapies, medical services and welfare and legal advice and support.

There was a need for two films – one to introduce John McCarthy on the 20th anniversary of his release from captivity in Lebanon and another to show what Freedom for Torture does and their need for continuing donations from their supporters.

Francesca and Fergus teamed up and dived into the BBC archives, plucking out every news story on John McCarthy, which would become a 2 minute intro montage to show the 1943 days he spent in captivity. They then joined Marika Chaplais at the FFT center and spent a day interviewing therapists and clients to produce a documentary on the great work the organisation does and why it is so important to support it now more than ever.

You can watch the films here and here.

‘The film about Freedom from Torture was beautifully shot and edited, and has been described as ‘moving, lucid and dignified’. It was all we wanted and more. It’s always tricky for us to find a way to express what we do here, yet Fergus and team managed to do this perfectly. I know that this powerful film will be a tool which we use for years to come.’

‘The film about John, which I have now watched a hundred times and still moves me to tears, was the perfect introduction to John’s speech, and has been spoken about much since.’

The films were screened at the BT tower, where the organisation raised more than £30,000 during a day of speeches, workshops and the opportunity to take a ‘flight’ up to the top of the tower to view London.

So impressed with Freedom From Torture, Fergus is swimming 10k down the River Dart in September to support their cause. He hopes to raise £1000, and you can help him to do it, by clicking here.

What do Dizzee Rascal’s trainers and one of our films have in common? Not a lot you would have thought, except last week at Futureversity’s fundraising dinner and auction at the Savoy Hotel.

Three months ago, when Futureversity asked us if we had anything to donate to their auction, we thought long and hard, and after deciding that a compilation of Fergus’s comedy sketches might not quite cut the mustard, we offered up a prize of a free promotional film.

Fast-forward to the auction last week and with Alastair McGowan compering and Dizzee Rascal running the auction – we found ourselves up for sale and bought by Cisco Systems. One free promotional film ready to be delivered to Cisco, and one large contribution to Futureversity from Cisco Systems.

To find out more about Futureversity click here.

We had three days to put the pitch together and came up with the idea of a man having a conversation about pensions with himself at four different ages. You can see the result here

This was a very complex shoot technically and logistically and, achieved in a very short timescale (less than two weeks from shoot to delivery).

CLIENT COMMENT
“As part of our work to raise awareness of NEST in the run up to the launch of the scheme, we commissioned a series of short films. Our objectives were to inform people about pension reform, generate support for this change in workplace pension provision and educate them about the role NEST will play in delivering the reform.

It is too early to measure effectiveness of the films beyond informal feedback. So far that has been very positive from across the full spectrum of our stakeholders. We certainly consider it a valuable piece of communications.”

The government wants to pay less for comms across the board – less for production, less for distribution. And it would like to see more private sector partnerships in comms to relieve the burden on the taxpayer.

The biggest impact will surely fall on conventional TV advertising (which, were Mrs T still running things, she would no doubt be branding ‘the last bastion of Spanish practices’).

The government recently published its Review of Government Direct Communication and the Role of COI (click here). It demonstrates a clear aversion to the TV advertising regime of the past, with £0.5 bn. spent annually on comms, including millions on buying TV airtime for government messages. ‘Digital’ is the new mantra.

This of course reflects the proliferation of media channels and the declining power of traditional advertising: 77% of people say they like to skip through the ad breaks when watching recorded TV.

And there really is no longer any need for the taxpayer to stump up six (occasionally seven!) figure sums for government TV commercials – plus several times as much again on the airtime spend. Historically, production costs on government TV commercials have been generous to say the least – one problem being that production costs tend to be less visible when dwarfed by huge airtime spend.

But following the traditional agency approach need not be the only route. When I was at COI, we routinely achieved the highest production values for public information films (like commercials but transmitted in free airtime) with budgets of around a quarter to a third of a corresponding TV commercial.

Technology – particularly the amazing low cost HD DSLR format – continues to drive down the cost of producing very high quality pictures. And production companies with in house post-production can now match much of the offering of the high end Soho facility houses charging up to ten times as much. (And crucially, the top post-production creatives are more and more drawn to the freelance life and are therefore available to everyone).

On the distribution side, the internet will be the major factor in keeping spending down, but an opportunity to extend the amount of free TV airtime for government messages (along the lines of the aforementioned public information films) seems to have been missed.

While the report looked carefully at the possibility of implementing a US style AD Council – with agencies and media owners delivering public service messages on a free or near free basis – it seems to have retreated without argument in the face of opposition:

During the review, there was acknowledgement of the strong desire by government to examine        the potential for this, but it was also clear that media owners and broadcasters were very        wary of any impression that they would carry ‘government messaging’, feeling that this would        undermine their independence.

Should the government press harder on this issue? Although public information films are transmitted free of charge, the BBC is not a massive supporter, preferring to fill the space between programmes with promoting its other programmes. Meanwhile, it is effectively the taxpayer who pays for the BBC and for buying expensive airtime on commercial channels for government messages. Surely there is some leverage available to the government at the time of the next licence fee renewal?

But what can government communicators do right now to leverage their comms? The answer may well lie in private sector partnerships. Increasingly we are working on partnership approaches where private sector organizations see a benefit in being associated with certain government messaging and foot some (if not all) of the bill. A more relaxed attitude to working with private sector organizations seems to be seeping throughout government departments but the knowledge necessary to put together a deal that works for the private sector will take time to develop.

Challenging times ahead, but as with all upheavals there are huge opportunities amongst the hazards!

Our approach seemed like a good idea at the time – what would you say to your future or past self if you met? An excellent core idea on which to hang a positive message about saving for the future, we all thought. Now we had to execute it. And that’s where it got interesting. One actor at four different ages on screen at the same time. Two other actors at two different ages also on screen at the same time. Three versions of the film. Two days. Very busy make-up department. In a pub in Acton.

The technical challenges were met with a combination of split screens and chromakeying (and a lot of head scratching). Performance was even trickier – we couldn’t afford to stereotype but had to draw distinctions between the ages, plus timing and reactions were going to be essential for the right comedic tone to be created. Congrats need to go to all our cast but especially Jerry Lindop for his brilliant Brian, Brian, Brian and Brian.

Ahhh…. all in a days work!

watch the trailer here

Decision Aids are designed for patients with certain conditions who are facing healthcare decisions prompted by the alternative treatments available. They are used to facilitate shared decision making by providing the information that helps patients weigh up all the treatment options available to them, based on different consequences, long and short-term outcomes and support the process of constructing preferences appropriate to their individual situation.

Commissioned by Addenbrookes Hospital, we developed and produced the first set of UK decision aids in 2008 for localized prostate cancer and BPH. Subsequently in 2010 we delivered a knee replacement PDA and are now working on a further set of films for hip replacement, cataracts and end stage renal failure.

Structuring these communications to achieve the right balance of medical information and patient anecdote makes the development process challenging, especially given that our patient contributors have to be handled with great sensitivity (as do many of the consultants!). Given their importance as a recognized treatment option in and of themselves, we have been required to work closely with senior consultants and subject matter experts ensuring that all contributors stay on message and that where there are competing interests between policy and clinicians the films deliver the correct policy messages. There have also been the logistic challenges of finding the right patients and juggling multiple availabilities on the same shoot days.

“We were very pleased with the relationship that developed with your team and your immense patience with our developing materials and lengthy consultation. Please accept our sincere thanks for all your help and for an excellent finished result.”

Dr Mary Archer, Chairman, Addenbrookes Hospital

It has been shown that Decision support interventions have performed better than usual care interventions in a number of ways – including, most crucially, by showing reduced rates of elective invasive surgery in favour of conservative treatment options. This in turn has resulted in lower treatment costs across the health service.

We’ve worked extensively with the NHS and DH over the years, making films for Connecting for Health, the DH, NHS Direct and NHS Choices, as well as many PCTs and SHAs.

To see how the NHS use the Decision Aids films please click here