D&AD Next Director Award

There's a very exciting new awards show on the scene. Earlier in the year D&AD launched the Next Director Awards at Google HQ in London. Joining forces with MOFILM and YouTube, the awards aim to discover and showcase the next generation of talented directors from around the world. 

ARE YOU NEXT? 

It's open to all aspiring directors of any age, providing they have less than two years industry experience as a director, and any work can be entered from short films to music videos as long as they are 5 minutes or under. 

CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT MORE

All shortlisted directors will have their work showcased worldwide by MOFILM. The Winner receives a D&AD Next Director Pencil, a mentoring scheme, a production grand from MOFILM, appearing in D&AD Annual 2015 and tickets and flights to the D&AD Awards Ceremony in May 2015. 

The first shortlist was announced yesterday after much deliberation and fierce competition. Laura Gregory who is the foreman of the jury comments, "Themes of loss, love, perversion, depression, addiction and nutty humour prevailed. The shortlist is a balance of every of every element and the best was almost a unanimous choice. The overall quality was excellent."

We're super happy to say that one of Great Guns' new signings Joseph Oxford has been shortlisted in the first round for his touching short film Me + Her - which you can watch HERE

You can watch all the shortlisted films BY CLICKING HERE

Tempted....? Well we have good news! There are 2 more deadlines over the next 6 months, so you still have 2 more chances to enter. Submit a film you've already made, take a leap and get out there and shoot that film you've always wanted to shoot... and then ENTER IT. 

Here are the dates you need: 

15 October 2014 - Round Two Deadline 11 November 2014 - Round Two Judging 28 February 2015 - Round Three Deadline 20 April 2015 - Round Three Judging 21 April 2015 - Annual Judging 15 May 2015 - Annual Ceremony

Good Luck! 

The Gunners x 

#NextDirectorAward

lots of food and a bit of culture

We're writing this after our fantastic first Directors Lunch of 2014. We had a brilliant time at The York & Albany but more on that later... 

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We'll pick up from where we left off in the last blog post. We were talking about Klaus Thymann teaming up with BBH London to shoot a short film on Brazil's street kids. 

Well the film went live last week and has already racked up over 4000 youtube views.

The film is part of the joint initiative with BBH and The International Exchange (TIE) 'A leadership development programme that combines the expertise of corporate communications and the needs of NGO's to create positive sustainable change'. In this case it was for Ruas E Praças. 

If you're interested in helping out you can visit their website and get involved. 

You can read the official press release HERE

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Andy Morahan spent last Sunday filming Benjamin Britten's 'Peter Grimes' live from the London Coliseum to over 200 cinema screens nation wide. 

Lucky audience members got the chance to see the whole production from different cinemas across the UK. 

Have a read of the review on the ENO website

Did you see it? if YES let us know what you thought on twitter or in a comment on this post.  

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We finished off the week with a lovely get-together at the York & Albany at the top of Parkway in Camden. 

We like to get a group of our directors together with producers and creatives from advertising agencies for good food and great company a few times a year, and this thursday was our first one of 2014. 

Hendricks & cucumber 

Andy Morahan & Michelle from Leo Burnett's 

There was lots of great food and plenty of 'try this!' and 'shall we share?' going on 

chilli salami and olive pizza 

herb crusted cornish cod with leeks and a shellfish bisque 

The York & Albany burger 

Classic Caesar salad 

We spent the afternoon catching up with old friends, meeting new ones and laughing. a lot. 

the team photo. 

Thanks to all who came - we're looking forward to the next one!

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Up and coming things to look out for from the Gunners is a new spot for The Fabelists that Olivier Venturini shot a few weeks ago. It's currently in post-production so watch this space for updates on that very soon! 

Just to tick you over until its release, here's a behind the scenes picture from the shoot. 

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We realise this post has been very food-indulgent so we might as well stick to the foodie theme. We've got a brilliant pub to recommend for one of the best roasts going. 

It's actually apparently not raining in London all weekend - which at the moment is a bit of a miracle. 

Get yourself out of bed and cure that foggy Sunday head with lunch at The Princess of Shoreditch. 

photo credit

nestled on the corner of Paul Street just off from Hoxton Square and a stones throw from the City and Old Street, the pub boasts both a lively downstairs bar and a more relaxed upstairs eatery. Despite being over 200 years old it manages to escape that old man pub feel, while keeping it cosy. 

Gloriously simple british pub food at its best. 

Try booking a table downstairs as there's a bit more atmosphere, and definitely make a reservation and it gets busy. 

You can find all the info you need HERE.

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We've gone a bit old school in the London office today and have had Billy Joel blasting out all day so our weekend tune has to be Everybody Loves You Now

Happy weekend folks! 

The Gunners x 

A Gunners Weekly Roundup

It's been another busy week at Great Guns - we've been shooting around the UK, prepping for the LIA awards, jetting off to Dusseldorf, doing interviews, screening our short film at Raindance and launching book trailers. 

At the end of last week GG Director Calum Macdiarmid traveled to Dusseldorf for the BBDO Directors Lounge where he showcased his new short Liquid Spirit as well as his new trailer for 'The Farm' the new novel from Tom Rob Smith. 

Calum and Julia at BBDO 

Calum, Kelly and Robert at BBDO 

You can read all about the BBDO Directors Lounge on here on LBB and check out the all the other work that was showcased that evening. 

Calum got back from Dusseldorf and went straight in to making preparations for the launch of 'The Farm' on Vimeo, Facebook and Twitter while also doing a brilliant interview for Shots.  

Here's a short excerpt from Shots:

S: The film is very stylised and visually powerful but doesn't give much away in terms of story; was that a purposeful approach?

C: Yes, very much so, Tom was keen not to give too much away and spoil the book. It’s a detective novel as much as a thriller and from a technical point of view anything too overt could easily have spoiled it.

It was a game of teasing the audience unlike with Hollywood trailers where they tell you the whole story up front. This was perfect for me as I sometimes use a more expressionist style to communicate a sense of emotion and tension. In this way I was able to be more sensitive to the emotion in the writing.

Read the rest of the interview here: Young Macdiarmid had a Farm

You can watch the trailer here: The Farm

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We've started the festival trail with Turn and it kicked off with a screening at LA Short Film Festival at the start of September. This time we were in London at Raindance where Turn took to the screen for a second time...

Turn director Stuart Gillies 

You can follow all things Turn related through our Facebook page: TURN FACEBOOK and you can also watch the trailer here: Turn Trailer

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In other news Guns Director Ron Scalpello wrapped on his 2nd feature Pressure last week and has gone in to post production at Great Guns HQ in London. Screen Daily did a great post on his new film, read it here: Pressure 

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Laura Gregory & Sheridan Thomas are off to Vegas for the LIA awards. Gregory is on the judging panel and both her and Thomas will be speaking alongside some other great creatives. Read about what's coming up at the LIA's this week here: LIA 2013

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To round off a great week, Great Guns and Bang have been shortlisted for 4 Shots awards in the Interactive (Subaru), Branded Content (Neft), Mobile (Nike) and Music (Bridgestone, Bang) categories. Have a look at the complete list here: Shots Awards 2013

Check back next week for brand new Gunners news! 

silver sharks, bronze spikes, pilot whisperers & formula one

We admit it's been a while since our last update via a blog post - but we haven't been neglecting you on purpose we promise! It's been a very busy few months for us Gunners and we've just tied it all up with some exciting news and wins! 

We put forward GG director Ilya Naishuller's subtly titled 'Bad Motherfucker' for the digital category at Kinsale Shark Awards at the end of August and we took home Silver! 

You can read all about the win here: our silver shark 

Straight after our win in Ireland the team jetted to Spike's in Singapore for a week of talks, awards and the Singapore Grand Prix. 

Spikes started with the yearly 'DDB Presents' and this year DDB asked Great Guns director David Nutter to speak. Fresh off directing the most talked about TV episode ever - Game of Thrones 'The Red Wedding', Nutter shared his secrets behind developing, directing and producing television pilots. 

The talk was a huge success! He took delegates behind the scenes on set and along the way illustrated his directing techniques and his uncanny eye for material that audiences connect to emotionally. 

The Gunners then went on to win a Bronze Spike in the Branded Content and Entertainment category for Subaru 'The Big Night'.

The campaign for Subaru is the most ambitious branching-narrative film ever. Directed by Jeremy Haccoun the script was 45 pages long, required 2 producers to help realise it, has almost 98,304 permutations, 40 potential endings and they ended up with 46 minutes of finished edited film, the equivalent of half a feature length film. 

Steer your own adventure here: 'The Big Night' 

After an amazing few weeks the Gunners spent a few days in Singapore after Spikes enjoying the Grand Prix. Here's a small taste of what the view was like 51 floors up. 

Keep checking back for more exciting updates!