A Back to School Special
It's that time of year. The kids are heading into school and it's a big deal, especially if you're a 4-year-old and it's your first day.
It also happens to be a big day of firsts for us too. Yesterday, we had not one but two adverts broadcast into homes all over the country, which for us is pretty monumental. Our specialty has always been content for online but increasingly we're getting to work our magic in Adland.
Don't get us wrong, we love producing content for online. But there's an entirely different type of thrill that hits when your work goes out at prime-time and you know millions of people are watching.
First up, broadcast halfway through Corrie, was our new film 'Every Day' for the NSPCC.
This is a very special one for us. We've been working for the NSPCC for a good old while now (our first million hit video was for them) and it meant a lot to be asked to create the film that would spearhead such an important campaign for them.
The film is based around a day in the life of the charity and its many services, offering the audience a sneak peek at the sorts of work they do to protect children, prevent cruelty and transform lives. Featuring performances by real NSPCC practitioners, each scene depicts a different type of conversation that they might have on any day of the week.
Next up is our second ad in a year for the very lovely people at Explore Learning, which aired on the likes of Channel 4 and Sky yesterday. The spot focuses on the moments that matter in a school day, when the pressure's on and pupils have their mettle tested.
We need to say a huge thanks to all of the people who helped us make these films. A particularly special mention to Director of Photography Sebastian Cort, who worked with Danny (NSPCC) and Guy (Explore Learning) to make both films look as splendid as they do.
So yes, quite a day for your friends here at 3angrymen. If you need us we'll be glued to our telly boxes, party poppers and foghorns at the ready.
Creativepool Annual Award v2.0 (Copy)
Winner of Best Production / Creativepool Annual 2018
A year on from having our NSPCC Making Contact film included in the inaugural Creativepool Annual, we were dead pleased to find out we'd won again for Best Production. This time around the award was for our Together We Will End Homelessness film for homeless charity Crisis.
Have to say, the competition for this year's Annual felt like it had hotted up quite significantly. The shortlist for Best Production included some really brilliant work from some top-notch companies and brands, it definitely felt like we were up against some significantly higher budgets this time around.
Of course, it's lovely to get recognition for this sort of thing but it's probably worth stressing, getting to make this film in the first place was a real honour for us. The work Crisis do is amazing and the film couldn't have been made without their commitment to the idea and collaborative efforts throughout the production.
Please take a minute to go and find out more about their plan to end homelessness, it isn't inevitable.
And big thanks again to the extended team who went way above and beyond: Adrian Peckitt (Director of Photography), Francesca Beard (Writing), Jackson Holmes (Sound Design) and Jason Kelvin (Art Director).
New Side-Project: Wallpaper - End of the Arcade
We’ve made a new short documentary called ‘Wallpaper - End of the Arcade’, set in a decades-old amusements on the Isle of Wight.
I’d been thinking about doing something set in an arcade for years, it’s a setting that I’ve been mildly obsessed with since I was really young and the annual fair used to visit my hometown. There was always something so exciting about the neon, the noises, the new technology and the older kids who hung out there - I was way more interested in spending my pocket money there instead of on the dodgems.
These days, I still can’t resist having a quick mooch around to see what games are on show, even though they’re definitely shadows of what they once were. I think there’s something fascinating about the fact that these places, which used to be home to the very latest gaming tech, have now transformed into time capsules full of these electronic relics.
A while ago we got offered some new kit to try out so we quickly arranged to go and spend a couple of days in Ryde, shooting this mini-doc featuring the two guys who've been running an arcade for nearly 40 years, Richard and Peter. Having worked in the same place since the 1970s, through the heyday of the 80s, it was lovely getting first-hand accounts of the complete rise and fall of this seaside staple.
We kept things super simple, shooting on one Sony FS7, the DJI Ronin gimbal and a single panel light to help with the interviews. Having been given the run of the place and free use of the machines, the biggest challenge was staying focussed on the filmmaking, not getting drawn into yet another run at Time Crisis 2.
Give it a watch and let us know what you think.
Thanks to everyone who helped us put it together, especially our mate Titas, who set everything up for us.
TW
We're doing a thing and it's called Ask Away Thursday
Starting mid-way through August, 3angrymen are going to start a new initiative called Ask Away Thursday and it’s for anyone at the outset of their production career who wants to ask us anything about whatever.
What’s prompted this then?
Well there’s a few reasons but the main things are a) we’ve been there b) we could have done with some help and c) we’re getting more and more people asking us how they can make progress in the industry.
11 years ago, when 3angrymen started becoming a thing, we rattled around London, shooting the odd promo here and there with little to zero idea of how to set up a production company and no idea who we could ask without being a right bother. The people we did get to ask questions are still heroes to us.
Today, with the industry being more popular/crowded than ever, we know the competition for jobs is fierce and the routes to success are less and less straightforward. We’d like to do what we can to help start the 3angrymens of the future.
What are we offering?
We’re offering, once a month, to open our doors for a couple of hours to whoever, to share our experience and opinions. If you’re trying to start out in the industry and you have a question, we’ll try and answer it as honestly and helpfully as we can. If you want us to look at your CV, we will. If you’ve got a showreel to watch, we’ll take a look and let you know what we think. If you’ve got ambitions to start your own company, we’ll tell you not to bother (jokes).
At each Ask Away Thursday we’re going to try and have at least three of us around to talk to. Could be one of our producers, could be an editor or director, could be one of the founders of the company. And with any luck, there’ll be more than one of you, so you can have a natter amongst yourselves and compare battle scars.
There might even be a cold beer or two if you’re lucky.
What we aren’t offering is jobs. And we’re not going to commission you to make your next passion-project. We’re not even offering work experience. We’ve got an intern scheme that we’d love people to sign up for but that’s a separate thing you can apply for if you’re up for it.
Why should you listen to 3angrymen?
Good question.
One thing's for sure, whatever we say shouldn’t be taken as gospel. We’ve muddled our own way to where we are but we’re not sat here thinking our way of doing things is for everyone. We can’t tell you the one way forward because chances are there are a few thousand and, clichéd as it sounds, that’s your call to make.
In fact, every person in our company has got to where they are via completely different routes - some traditional, some not, some meticulously planned, some entirely haphazard.
We’re not even saying we’re the perfect model of a production company (what is that in this day and age anyway?) but we do get paid to make films for real clients and we do employ people to do it and we’ve got better at doing that every single day since we set out.
When’s it happening and can you come?
Well, it’s probably going to be on a Thursday, we know that much.
It will be at our place and probably go on for a couple of hours between 6pm and 8pm. Other than that, keep an eye on our Twitter feed and we’ll post when we’ve picked out a date and you can just DM us to let us know you’re coming by.
Behind the Scenes Photo Special: #SkillsForLife / Scouts
We've been making films for the Scouts for a few years now and one of the reasons we love working with them is that inevitably, the shoots tend to feel like Scouting missions of their own.
In our latest film, promoting Scouts' #SkillsForLife campaign, we follow the story of Nat, from her last day at Scouts through adulthood and all the challenges that entails. For the shoot, we decamped to the beautiful Dorset coast for the best part of a week and set about overcoming a few challenges of our very own.
Kevin Yeates, Head of Creative at The Scouts: ‘We chose 3AM to make our Skills for Life brand launch film for 3 reasons - every film with them is an adventure from start to finish - their ability to story-tell and, most importantly, the care and respect they show all our support staff and volunteers.’
Amongst other things, time and the weather were our two biggest enemies this time around. In total we were attempting to film a total of 34 scenes in four days, a lot of which were set outdoors (it is a film for the Scouts after all). And as a matter of course the weather was, frankly, a bit miserable. But this did not deter our intrepid crew in the slightest and thanks in no small part to the Scouting spirit on set, they even managed to look like they were having a lot of fun behind the scenes.
Excuse the less-than-perfect photo quality, very much a 'take the odd shot on your phone type of shoot, with very little time for posing!
Our Second Summer Signing
It's been a very busy summer transfer window here at 3angrymen!
That's right, we've got yet more personnel news - this time around, we're over the moon to be welcoming our brilliant new Producer, Kezia Clark, to the House of Angry.
Before getting on board with us, Kezia's experience included producing for industry giants like B-Reel and McCann, as well as directing YCN's Talent Agency. Suffice to say, she knows her production onions and she's got her finger firmly on the pulse of what/who's making waves in the creative industries.
Kezia's been with us a little over a week and is already deep into bringing a couple of creative projects that we're really excited about to fruition, keep an eye on the Instagram/Twitter/Facebook feeds for updates, behind the scenes shots etc.
Adding another Angry
We're very pleased to announce the arrival of our new in-house Director, Danny Baldwin.
Danny's been directing spots, music videos and short films for a few years now, having graduated with an MA in Directing for Screen from Drama Centre, London. He's got a tonne of experience working with actors, he's lightening fast coming up with concepts and has a real talent for exposing the emotional heart of the films he's making.
Check out his showreel to get a flavour of what he can do:
Danny's already got his head down, scribbling away at his new desk, working on a few of our upcoming projects and it won't be too long 'till we're sharing his work with y'all.
Creativepool Annual Award
It's always lovely to hear that someone likes your film, even better when other folks in the industry say that it stands out in a massive crowd of other great work. This week we got to attend the Creativepool Annual Awards and it was a real honour to pick up our gold annual in recognition of winning Best Production, for our film for Childline, 'Making Contact.'
We're big fans of the Creativepool platform, we post our work on there regularly and really like how it connects us up to thousands of other creatives, from all sorts of creative professional backgrounds.
As we've mentioned in previous posts, this project's a particularly special one for us; it was one of the first films we made for Childline/NSPCC and we've now remade it several times, creating specific versions for helplines across Europe. It's also one of the films we get the most feedback about, due to the fact that it's shown in schools every week as part of the NSPCC Schools Service.
If you haven't seen it yet, you can have a watch it here. And you can read a bit more about how it was made, here.
Massive thanks to everyone who worked on the film.
Behind the Scenes Photo Special: Literacy is the Start / Build Africa
It's been a while since we did a 'behind the scenes' post on the site, not least because we've been a bit preoccupied with chucking pictures from our latest shoots up on Instagram as they happen,
However, to mark one of the more visually interesting 'behind the scenes', from our latest production for Build Africa, we thought we'd put together something more substantial for you to enjoy.
So here's a gallery of stunning photographs taken by the incredibly talented Adrian Peckitt, Director of Photography for us on this project, snapping between filming in Uganda last year.
Massive thanks to Adrian for letting us share his photographs, you really should check out his Instagram feed. And thanks to Build Africa for inviting us, yet again, to film the truly inspiring work that they continue to do.
A Decade of 3angrymen
When we started working under the name '3angrymen' back in 2006, I don't think we realistically considered the possibility that we'd still be making films 10 years later.
But here we are, 3angrymen is 10 years old.
It's strange to think how much the world has changed around us since we first picked up our Canon XL1s and started making videos - YouTube was only a year old, everything was being recorded to tape and the iPhone was still a year away from giving us reason to never make eye contact, ever again.
Over the decade 3angrymen has changed too, of course. From humble, disorganised beginnings, desperately trawling the internet trying to work out how to capture footage in our "home office", we've become a small but (if you don't mind us saying so) pretty brilliant team of professional filmmakers, producing work we're proud of for clients we really like.
A few tidbits we've learnt along the way:
put more than 15 minutes thinking into your company name, you'll be typing/explaining it for years to come
planning is useful
remember that things will never go to plan
don't be afraid of working with children
do be afraid of working with 50+ children at once
guns don't kill people, rappers do
cameras don't make films, people do
you actually realistically probably definitely can't fix it in post
10 years, 7 offices, hundreds of films, a few website redesigns and millions of views later and that is all the wisdom we have to show for it. More than enough.
Last things last, a very quick word of thanks: to all of our clients, staff, collaborators and supporters, past and present, a big fat thank you very much - you've shaped the way we work and the films we make, you've got us where we are and we simply wouldn't have been able to do it without you.
Right, that's quite enough nostalgia for one decade, best get back to work...
Revisiting & Refining Creative Work
Director Thom Wood on the challenges of improving a project that’s been seen by hundred and thousands of school kids
Six years ago, Thom Wood, his team at production company 3angrymen, and illustrator Hattie Newman completed a film for the NSPCC’s Childline service. It’s since been viewed by hundreds and thousands of kids and the European Parliament - something that’s always filled Thom and the team with immense pride but also a niggling feeling of shame. They couldn’t see past the “rough parts” and were itching to have another pop at the project and lend it the skills they’d honed in the six years since they made the original. Eventually NSPCC granted them exactly that opportunity.
LBB’s Laura Swinton spoke with Thom about the new film and the challenges that came with refining and revisiting a previous creative project...
LBB> What was your reaction when you were asked to revisit the first film?
TW> When the film team at NSPCC told me we were going to get a chance to revisit the film, I was well up for it - I’d actually asked them a couple of times if it was something they might do. It had been one of our earliest projects and it was still getting shown to thousands of kids so I’d been hoping we’d get an opportunity to have another go at it, make it better.
My one worry was that Hattie, the illustrator who’d collaborated with me on the original project, would be too busy, or just not up for doing it again. Hattie’s awesome. I loved working through the original film with her and I knew she already understood all of the thinking behind the concept, so I think it would have been a much bigger, considerably different challenge had she not been up for it. Thankfully, she was just as keen to have another pop at it.
LBB> Was there any change in the brief compared with the original? What was the client looking for in this revamped new film?
TW> There wasn’t a massive shift in the brief, it was mostly a case of bringing it up to date and making it feel up to the standard that a young modern audience have now come to expect.
Because the film was about how young people get in touch with Childline, we had to think about how that’s changed over the last few years, how much more ubiquitous chatting online is for example.
The other major consideration was the rebranding of Childline, which we knew would launch alongside this - so we just had to make sure the colour palette would work with that, that we had the new homepage design etc.
For our part, we wanted to clean everything up, to make the colours bolder, more defined and to make all of the props feel more connected to each other aesthetically.
LBB> As a creative person, how do you know when to stop noodling about with a project?
TW> I think that when you’re getting paid to make something, you just keep testing and refining ideas for as long as you can afford to. I guess because I’m running a company I’m pretty good at keeping my producer hat on and knowing when I just need to click save and get to the next stage in the process. At a certain point you’ve got a studio booked, or a freelancer’s time is going to run out, or the client’s expecting delivery.
It definitely helps when you’re working in collaboration with someone you can trust, who’ll let you know if you’ve nailed it or if your idea’s just a bit shit. Hattie and I would sit for hours going round in circles, pitching ideas at each other, prototyping props, until we both thought we’d got it right.
LBB> I know a lot of creative people are often self-critical perfectionists and are privately never 100% satisfied with old work (e.g. if only I had done it this way, I wish I’d thought of x sooner). Is this something you experience? And if so, was there something nice about being able to go back and revisit old work?
TW> We used to be terrible critics of our own work. Pretty much as soon as we finished anything we’d start picking at it, to the point that people would be saying nice things and we’d start slagging it off! Over time, I think we’ve got better at staying positive about the work, especially in the way we talk about it.
With this project, to be honest, it had been us pestering the client to let us remake it. The original film had been watched by hundreds of thousands of kids and we were just never 100% happy with how it ended up looking.
Everyone was really complimentary about the original but all we could see were the rough bits, the cracks we’d had to paper over because of budget or time or whatever. Whenever it got shown, in front of the European Parliament a couple of years ago for example, it was a strange mix of pride and shame - we’ve come a long way as filmmakers in the six years since we first made it.
LBB> Comparing yourself and your work all those years ago, when you did the first film to now, how has your approach and style evolved?
TW> Compared with six years ago, I think we’re much better at making the right film for the right budget/timescale. I think in the early days we’d get an idea in our heads, get excited about it, propose it to the client and then wonder how on earth we could make it for pretty limited budgets - it meant there were some nice ideas but some less than great executions.
First time around, I remember it was just myself, Hattie, Guy (co-director at 3angrymen) and a work-experience person making this film into the early hours of the morning - desperately making new props because we’d seriously underestimated how many takes we were going to shoot. This time around we shot in a proper studio, with nice lighting, plenty of time and a lot more spare props - I think we're much better now at knowing which corners we can get away with cutting.
LBB> What was the most exciting element of the new film?
TW> My favourite part of the new film is just the overall colour palette - it’s so much brighter, bolder and more considered as a whole. And it’s dead exciting knowing that like the previous version, thousands and thousands of kids will see the work over the next couple of years and hopefully they’ll feel that bit more comfortable about contacting Childline should they need to.
Getting our filters on
3angrymen Productions on Instagram
There's a new way to keep an eye on what we're up to here at 3angrymen, you can now follow our feed on Instagram. We'll be posting pics from behind the scenes on shoots, office-based shenanigans and even a few images we come across when we rummage around in the archives.
Whenever we have shared pictures in the past, people have responded very positively so this seemed like a good way to organise that in one place and push content out to our other social channels, like Twitter and Facebook.
Looking forward to sharing!
The DoGooder Video Awards
'Time Machine', the video we made last summer about Build Africa's work in Kenya has been short-listed for an award which we can only win with your votes. Please take 20 seconds to vote here.
DoGooder is an online and live event platform hosted with YouTube. The DoGooder National Awards attract thousands of compelling stories of people making change in the world. We’re excited to be shortlisted!
Here's the video in case you need to refresh your memory.
Winners
3angrymen Productions win a Lovie Award for Best Editing
A while back we mentioned that we'd been shortlisted to win a Lovie Award for Best Editing for our mini-documentary, Blue Marble, that we made for the Shoreditch Trust, a charity based just up the road from our office in Old Street.
Well the good news is that we won bronze, our second at the Lovies and we are, of course, pleased as punch.
It's always nice to win awards for your work but it's especially pleasing when it's for a style of video that we've not really made before. We're really excited about the potential for longer-form content and already have a few short documentary ideas in the pipeline.
Thanks again to everyone who contributed to making the film.
Our first Mini-Documentary: Blue Marble
A participant in the Blue Marble scheme run by the charity Shoreditch Trust
If you’ve had a look around our website and clicked play on a few of the videos, you’ll be aware that we spend most of our time making short bits of content, rarely even getting close to the 5 minute mark. To make a change, last year, we decided to make a mini-documentary for Shoreditch Trust - we’d worked with the Trust a couple of times previously on their Creative Mentoring scheme and now they wanted us to make something to help promote their Blue Marble Training programme.
The programme offers people the chance to train and work in the kitchen of a real restaurant and eventually open up a career in the catering industry. Having had an office above the Waterhouse Restaurant where the training takes place, we’d met a lot of the trainees and more importantly, eaten a lot of the food they’d prepared.
For a while we’d been itching to do more documentary-style filmmaking and we thought this was a great opportunity. We knew that there was a story to tell, about the trainees and about why the kitchen, with its long hours and all its very apparent pressures, made such an effective environment for young people who had previously struggled with attitude, authority and commitment.
The production was split into two parts. We began by sitting down and talking to six of the trainees with an audio recorder but no camera - we wanted the discussion to feel as natural, unforced and unguarded as possible. Those interviews gave us about 7 hours of audio to work with. Eventually, we decided to concentrate on three trainees: Leanne, Jack and Lucca. All three had their own distinct story to tell, their own unique circumstances and personalities.
While we got a very rough half hour edit together, we arranged to spend a day with each of the trainees and a camera. We kept filming simple and relaxed, a tiny crew, one hand-held camera (the wondrous Arri Amira) and no lights. Finally we shot for a day in the kitchen, with all of the trainees and an open Waterhouse Restaurant complete with paying customers and food being served.
The edit was necessarily epic, we had so much great material to play with. We had to be brutal, making sure to avoid cramming too much in and potentially ruining the pace of the film. We tried several configurations before settling on the final structure, splitting the dream-like slow-motion sequences out from the more frenetic live action scenes in the kitchen.
We hope you like the film, we’re really proud of it.
Massive thanks to: Jacqui Roberts at Shoreditch Trust, who got the idea from the start and let us run with it; Mike Simpson, the DOP who made the film look so beautiful; Siena Bevan, who patiently worked her socks off to bring the whole thing together in the edit; and to the trainees, Leanne, Jack and Lucca, for giving up your time, telling your stories and inspiring us from start to finish.
Behind the Scenes: Remaking Contact
'Remaking Contact' is a project we just finished putting together for the charity Child HelpLine International, involving creating a film for each of twelve different helplines across Europe. If you've been following our work for a while you might recognise the concept, it's based on a film we made for ChildLine and the NSPCC (called Making Contact) that we made way back in 2010.
Our first piece of content to be released in multiple countries in multiple languages, we always knew that this project was going to have a set of unique challenges, not least the creation of over 400 unique paper-craft props designed by the wonderfully talented illustrator Hattie Newman.
With that in mind we made sure we documented some of the process, shot some behind-the-scenes and sat down the director, Thom, so he could give us a bit of an insight into the whole endeavour.
If you're interested in seeing the whole film in all it's multi-coloured, paper-folded glory, just click here and you'll be able to watch the full Czech version.
As mentioned, the original film has now been seen by thousands and thousands of children as part of the ChildLine Schools Service, which is pretty awesome. You can watch that and play spot-the-difference below, if you like.
Going Green
We're very pleased to be able to share the work we've just done for The Green Party, a film about the difference a Green MP can make, directed by our very own Ruth Sewell.
Shot on Sony FS7 in beautiful Brighton, Bristol and Camden, the film captures Caroline Lucas, Darren Hall and Natalie Bennett delivering a simple but important message: if you want change, all you have to do is vote for it.
A few days in, with a week to go until the general election, the film has already had over 71k views across YouTube and Facebook.
Behind the Scenes: Creating the music for 'Every Childhood'
Back in 2012, when the NSPCC first came to us and asked us to produce a film that would tell their complete story, we had no idea of the sort of scale that the project would go on to become. Fast-forward to mid-2014, we had filmed contributions from over 30 NSPCC staff at 20 different locations throughout the UK and we were in the midst of an epic edit.
Even then, we were missing one vital component of the film, the score.
From the outset the concept we developed had been intentionally adult-focussed - we wanted to confound the audience's expectation for an NSPCC film and showcase, for the first time, the everyday heroes who work tirelessly for the charity. Naturally the essence of childhood still needed to be present in the film though and so the idea of using a children's choir as background accompaniment was agreed.
To begin the process we engaged the composer Nathan Stornetta, who created the score from scratch, taking inspiration from a very early edit of the film. Next on our wish list was the perfect choir and we got exactly that in the National Children's Choir of Great Britain, who were very keen to get involved with the project.
In the film above you can see some behind-the-scenes as Nathan and the NCCGB met to record at the renowned Air Edel recording studio in Baker Street.