2morro Is Where It’s At

Our latest piece of work. Commissioned by the 2morro Festival.

Presenter: Leanne Butterfield. Cameraman One: Dwain Bowman. Cameraman Two: Liam Thomas. Production Assistant: Jerome Bucchan-Nelson. Production Manager: Angela Stavrou. Edited and Directed by Dwain Bowman.

Also, special mention goes out to the “Something Wacky” girls who won our DV Challenge for the excellent footage you see throught the film. Madhya Mehmood, Zainab Patel, Gabriella Belgrave and Sameera Patel – well done! Your work truly spiced things up. We’ll be in touch with your prizes. Also a big shout to Krishna Maroo, our DV Challenge Workshop Guru, who guided the young bright sparks on their path to action, lots of laughs, positive messages and ultimate glory.

Lastly thanks to Alicia Little for taking some amazing photos for our exhibition on the day and Lee Davies for his excellent assisting work.
Phew! What a roll call of names. We dedicate this blog post to you guys who helped make our 2morro experience one to remember. Think of it as a virtual monument. With it’s own movie.

I’ll be back with some brain-nourishing blog postage before long. You can bet your sandwiches on it.

[Duane]

Brain Food #4: True Romance.

Nope, they are not from the 60s, 70s or the 80s.

These guys played at our Christmas Party in 2007 and since then have gone on to sign a deal with XL recordings and win the Glastonbury Emerging Talent comp (to mention a couple of their achievements).

Find your flares and break out the instant sideburns. If this doesn’t put a smile on your face you might wanna check your pulse. Immediately.

[Duane]

Audition Your Frustration

We’ve all seen the mad scramble every time Big Brother has it’s yearly audition but when it’s not just for naked fame and glory, how many young people are interested in getting on TV and getting their voices heard?

Well, we are about to find out.

Enter studentvoice.tv. The English Secondary Students’ Association (ESSA) is collecting young people’s views on education for a Manifesto which they will present to the people in charge of education in the UK.

Young people aged 11-19 are invited to get their point across via the fresh and easy medium of YouTube.

And as if having a say in how the £62.2billion education budget is spent was not enough, the best of all vids will feature on Channel 4.

If you want to find out more then check out www.studentvoice.tv

[Duane]

OK, I know I’m pushing the BB reference but that logo looks so cool up there.

The End.

Brain Food #3: Storytelling by Ira Glass

More Brain Food (making up for lost time).

Ira Glass breaks down the storytelling methods used by Hollywood and gives us the recipe for their success.

Some real ah ha! moments in there.

[Duane]

Brain Food #2: Exploratree

It’s been a long time, I shouldn’t have left you.

Without some brain food to step to.

Old-school Timbaland references aside, I wanna talk about SUCCESS.

Especially in this age, success has no skin colour. No sex, no age, no social background. On screen and in those annoying free papers that are shoved into our hands every day in London, we are seeing images of all kinds of people who have managed to make a lot more than just two pennies to rub together.

Success isn’t an outer form. It’s a mindset. So therefore tools that help us improve our mindset improve our chances of success, no?
Enter Exploratree, a collaboration between Futurelabs and Microsoft, that offers a wide array of thinking guides.

“Why would I need a guide to think” I hear you ask.

Well, nobody is saying that you do, but help from Futurelabs’ collective genius has got to be a powerful ally on the road to SUCCESS.

I thank you.

[Duane]

P.S. check out mindmapinspiration.com for more maps like the one above.

We Wanna Shout About:

Our 30 Minute Cam Challenge. Just got a bout of nostalgia during the shortened edit of our old film. Maybe we should do another one of these… Now there’s a thought.

30 hungry young photographers, 30 disposable cameras and 30 minutes to get the best pic. Then an exhibition and a prize presentation. Ah, memories.

[Duane]

Who Are Foster + Partners?

Home of Sir Norman Foster, architects of the Gherkin, the stunning Milau Viaduct and pretty much every interesting modern building known to man.

Thanks to four spanking-fast IBM PCs which now live at our offices, they have a new honour to their name – friend of SENSE Media. We are an easily impressed bunch, what can I say!

Seriously though, BIG thanks to them for giving us the kit which has made working life here a lot easier. You guys didnt have to help us out but you did, and we salute you for that.

[Duane]

BOOM! Another Award.

A big shout goes out to Leanne Butterfield who done us proud this week.

Leanne effortlessly scooped up an award for best front-of-camera performance at the BOOM! Awards, held at the prestigious Apple Store on London’s Regent Street. MTV News recorded it here.

Check out the award winning performance here.

Once again thanks to TomTom Nation, MTV, Apple, Clubs for Young People and v. If you don’t already know about BOOM! check out the site. Guaranteed to restore your faith in humanity. Or at least put a dent in your cynicism.

[Duane]

Shower Cap Happy

There’s a whole world of high-end, chic, feelgood, celebrity-endorsed, red-carpeted charity fundraising out there. We got to experience it last Thursday when the legendary crew over at TomTom Nation gave us two tickets to the ICA annual fundraising gala at the Brewery, Chiswell Street (because they roll like that).

The roll call of names read like the gossip pages of The London Paper. At the risk of sounding like a “name dropper” Bob and Pixie Geldof, Allan Carr, Janet Street Porter, Bianca Jagger, Henry Holland, Alice Delal, Jo Whiley, Mika… Need I say any more?

The evening was fab (darling) with champers, an immaculate dinner service and good times with our table fellows including the guys over at SpinVox and a great geezer from Digital Media at Haymarket Publications.

Needless to say we had a great time, highlights included Mika’s last minute thwarted bid at the Auction to have a wing of the ICA named after him, Allan Carr’s raucous presenting, the unparalleled welcome on the red carpet from the concierge and assorted paparazzi and Janet Street Porter giving us her shower cap! I can explain…

And that ends our first (and probably only) pseudo celeb gossip column. Normal service will be resumed shortly…

[Duane]

Jerome Reviews… Notorious

NEW REGULAR FEATURE ALERT!

After we sent Jerome along to the premiere of Notorious he came back with this hilarious video review.

I enjoyed editing it so much we have decided to make it a regular feature. So Jerome gets to see films before they are out and mingle with the glitterati, SENSE gets some great content, and you guys get a heads up on the latest films, and a few laughs along the way.

Pretty good deal all around I’d say. Enjoy…

[Duane]