Gunner's radio silence over!

We're sorry! Please forgive us... Total radio silence our end on the blog front. We decided we didn't want to update the blog so often and keep our news page up to date. Our blog will now focus more on events and what the Gunners get up to when we're out and about. That said - we have lots to talk about!

Awards news first, and 3 of our directors have picked up a bunch of awards over the last few months.

Jonty Toosey picked up several awards for his Kaspi Bank film starring Antonio Banderas, including the festival Grand Prix at Red Jolbers Festival and Gold at Best of Central Asia Awards. If you haven't seen the film, watch it HERE. 

Olivier Venturini picked up best film idea at the Australian International Fashion Film Festival for his film for The Fableists - a sustainable kids clothing company. (watch the film on his reel)

And finally Joseph Oxford has won a load of awards for his amazing short film ME+HER, including Best Animation at the Aspen ShortsFest, and the Audience Award for Best Short Film at the Monadnock International Film Festival. Joseph's work has also been featured on The New Yorker's video page.

----------------------

On to new work and Calum Macdiarmid has just shot his first music video for the amazing Chloe Black for her first single '27 Club'.

Calum has obviously found his music video feet, as he spent yesterday shooting another! Watch this space for more info on that!

--------------------------

Both Laura Gregory (GG Founder) and GG director Remo Camerota have been doing talks recently.

Laura has just done a talk in Dubai at Dubai Lynx awards. She was joined by director Omar Hilal, and together they attended the ECD talk in Dubai, which was attended by all major ECD's from the Middle East.

Laura Gregory and Omar with Johan Olson, Attila Nyeki, Falvio Zanni, Jamil Assidy, Ahmed Nazzal, Eli BouChayaa, Mario Daou, Alain Mhawej, Ramzi Moutran, Sascha Kuntze, Akram Dohjoka, Ossama ed Kaoukji and Paul Shearer.

Remo hopped across the pond to Hamburg to speak at the latest BBDO Directors Lounge. His talk was very well received with BBDO Creative Director Steffen introducing him as "one of the most inspirational directors" he has seen in years.

Remo managed to steal a few moments of calm in his crazy 48hours on the ground to capture some of the city:

Cheers to a great talk Remo!

----------------------

You might remember a news article about Andy Morahan directing a live opera for the ENO back in May 2014. Peter Grimes was a huge success, and screened to cinemas across the UK live from the ENO. It was so well received that Andy has been asked back to direct round 2. This time it's La Traviata. It will be screened LIVE across the UK tomorrow in selected cinemas as part of the ENO Screen. For more information, visit your local cinema's website.

Andy comments: "This is a fantastic opportunity to film an overdue revival of Peter Konwitschny's very stylised version of Vedi's classic Opera 'La Traviata'. A moving tale of society and morality, this masterpiece combines characters you care about with powerful melodies you’ll recognise right away. It makes for one of the most emotionally engaging and popular operas of all time and I feel very lucky and privileged to be able to film it for the ENO at the Coliseum and take it 'live' into over 400 cinemas in both the UK and Europe."

Let us know if you're going to see it, tweet us @greatgunstv

-------------------------- 

Seeing as we love to finish off a blog post with a great lunch, why break tradition? We had a lovely lunch with some of the Rainey Kelly team last week at the York & Albany - and took along two of our directors Calum Macdiarmid & David Hartley. 

Unfortunately we were all so hungry by the time the food came that we forgot to take photos! Hopefully these pictures of the pudding we had last time make up for it?

Gorgeous profiteroles, smothered in melted chocolate, with a scoop of chocolate ice-cream on top of chocolate soil. 

And our favourite - a salted caramel apple cheesecake, laden with caramel sauce and accompanied by a tart apple sorbet. 

Go on, have another look at it close up.... don't lick the screen! 

We highly recommend the York & Albany. Part of Gordon Ramsay's collection of pubs and restaurants, it's located at the top of Parkway, just by Regent's Park. Pop in for a afterwork drink, or after a long walk round the park. Their bar snack menu includes pizzas, sausage & mash and crispy squid rings. Though we go for the pizza every time ;-)

-----------------

We promise not to leave it so long next time! We have lots of exciting things coming up, so keep your eyes peeled.

As always you can contact us / tweet us / send us stuff / chat to us via twitter @greatgunstv

Love,
The Gunners x

a GREAT summer

What a summer we’ve had. London has been (mainly) bathed in sunshine and the Gunner’s have been busying away throughout. We’ve traveled, tweeted, filmed, BBQ’d on our roof terrace, signed new directors, and won awards. We’ve had videos go viral, interviewed for D&AD and even spent time with Gromit. We decided to keep the blogging to a minimum over the summer months and hit you all with a massive update - so here goes... 

First up lets talk awards and screenings... we’re so proud of our directors who have collected an array of awards over the past few months. Mikko took home a Gold Lion for FragileChildhood

Jonty Toosey won Best Of Show for Molson ‘Beer Fridge’ 

and Shearer clinched a Bronze Clio for Nike Ordem at the first ever Clio Sports Awards. 

Olivier Venturini has had his brand film for the Fableists shortlisted into two fashion film awards so far. We've happy to say that Fableists 'Finn' has been selected for the London Fashion Film Festival and the Australian International Fashion Film Festival! If you haven't already seen the film you can watch it HERE

Ron Scalpello's new feature film PRESSURE is set to make its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival later in the year. A trailer is yet to be released - but have a read of this to get an idea of what to expect.

Olly Blackburn makes his return to UK television with E4's brand new series Glue - which starts this September. Written by Jack Thorne (This is England '86, This is England '88 alongside Shane Meadows, Skins and Shameless) Glue will tell the story of police officers investigating the death of a teenager found underneath the wheels of a tractor. Watch the trailer HERE. 

Olly has also just completed on his newest feature film Kristy. 

It's going to screen at the BFI London Film Festival in October. Here is a short write up from the BFI:  

British director Oliver Blackburn (Donkey Punch) proves that college life can still be a killer. As her fellow students depart for Thanksgiving with their families, Justine prepares to spend the holidays alone in her dorm. With just the campus security for company, she finds ways to fill her days, but her peaceful break is suddenly shattered when a gang of bloodthirtsy outcasts invade the halls and Justine finds herself on a desperate fight for survival. Blackburn expertly blends traditional stalk and slash thrills with moments of striking visual lyricism, and in the lead role Haley Bennett infuses Justine with the strength and ingenuity to forever ensue her place in final girl history.

------------------------------- 

The world of social media has gained a new account as Laura Gregory joins Twitter for the first time! 
@blacknapkinT41 is Laura's personal quest to find the best food, bars, chefs, cocktails and black napkins for the solo traveller. 

You can expect great restaurant recommendations, links to interesting news articles, foodie pictures, her best hotel picks and more... think underwear that helps you fart with confidence!! - definitely worth a follow. 

She also has a busy lead up to 2015 with a diary jam-packed full of jury duty and judging. She re-joins the judging panel for the LIA awards 2014 as jury chair for Music Video, TV/Cinema/Online Film Production and jury for Post Production. She will also be sitting on the Eurobest Jury which this year takes place in Helsinki in December. Laura who is already on the D&AD Board of Trustees will also take on the role of judging the Black Pencil New Blood awards as well as the D&AD Next Director Awards.

------------------------------- 

Speaking of D&AD - Andy Morahan has just done an interview with them, talking all about his life behind the lens... 

You can watch it by clicking HERE

-------------------------------  

The next stop for the Gunners is Singapore for the Singapore Grand Prix followed by the Spikes Awards. After last years success choosing DDB's keynote speaker for Spikes (we sent over Game of Thrones and Great Guns Director David Nutter to speak) Great Guns was approached again this year to supply to the key note speaker. We chose Casey Neistat  who will speak about his path in the world of new media. 

From having written, directed and starred in a television show on HBO to building a personal YouTube Network with 100,000,000 views, he will walk the audience through his journey both professional and personal. Focusing on how never learning the way you are supposed to do things forces you to pave your own path and that process can yield unexpected successes. 

It's going to be good! 

-------------------------------  

As you know we love a good lunch and what better way to end this mega roundup than with just that. Yesterday we took the lovely Shots team to Shoreditch House to chat about what we had been up to and what's coming up. 

It was a pretty glorious Tuesday on their rooftop! 

We went simple with a classic pizza

Ryan from shots plumped for the steak with perfectly cooked french fries. 

We shared the salad. Definitely going to try this at home. Strands of courgette soaked in lemon juice with warm haloumi cheese, smoked paprika and coriander. Simple and delicious! 

SH is members only but they have a fantastic sister restaurant downstairs called Pizza East where you can gorge on sourdough pizzas, gorgeous salads and as much antipasti as you like! 

-------------------------------   

We promise to not leave it so long before our next blog post! 

The Gunners x 

croisette and cocktails - a foodie based post from Cannes

As McCann left... in came the Gunners.

We began with a reunion lunch, all sat round the table catching up, chatting and some meeting for the first time. The team flew in from all over the world and Maria and her team utterly spoilt us with a gorgeous sit down meal to kick off our Cannes.

We started with a white and green asparagus, wild mushroom, parmesan and white balsamic salad and BBQ flat peaches with prosciutto, pecorino fresco, truffle and honey.

The main course was incredible - radicchio and strawberry risotto with balsamic oil. The dessert stole the show and was perfect on a hot, sunny day in Cannes - avocado sorbet with chocolate and coffee ganache, coffee jelly, cocoa soil and chocolate popping candy. YUM.

Lunch finished and we started getting ready for our first big dinner. The tables were set for 40 fabulous dinner guests and the evening kicked off with mojitos and some great music from Massive Music.

The lovely Laura Jordan-Bambach President of D&AD with Kelly and Janene from Great Guns enjoying the last of the sunshine. 

Some happy Gunners girls!

Great Guns Director Karel Van Bellingen and Bonnie Reilly of Vaudeville

Kat Friis - Producer at RGA LA

Britt Nolan from Leo Burnett Chicago

Bonnie & Nick 

Scott North and Stephen Clark from Leo Burnett Chicago 

Great Guns director Remo Camerota and Laura Jordan-Bambach

Great Guns Director Olivier Venturini 

Pete & David our amazing get-it-doners 

Al Moseley from 180Amsterdam 

Janene Fitzgerald our EP in Shanghai 

Dinner was delicious. We were treated to a selection of salads & huge platters of pulled pork wraps. 

A totally gorgeous evening spent in amazing company. Looking forward to doing it all again tonight! 

Another foodie related post up tomorrow on day 2 at La Maison Bouffe - so check back soon..  Until then we're off to enjoy another glass of rosé...

The Gunners x

a great update

Friday has come round again and have we got loads of news for you! 

We've had a busy couple of weeks at Great Guns. The prep for Cannes has well and truly started (a mere 34 days until the GG crew touch down in the French Riviera) we've revamped one of our offices, made a big announcement, launched an exhibition, changed a website... and we're about to tell you all about it! 

--------

Announcements should come first and ours is a good'un. Jonathon Ker, former Partner and EP at Paydirt has joined the family as Partner and CEO of Great Guns USA. Joining Ker at GG USA will be Executive Producer Annie Hanlon, who's focus will be on digital and new media work. 

Ker and Hanlon will work closely with Laura and her team of Great Guns EP's and Producers in London. 

You can read all about it on LBB: HERE

--------

With big announcements comes office revamps and the LA office has undergone a beautiful one. The lovely Nanna who transformed our UK office a few years ago jetted out to LA to work her interior design magic. 

Vaudeville's sound suite is up and running after their successful LA launch a few weeks ago.

The revamped space is now effortlessly cool and more like a gorgeous home than an office. Check out the amazing grassy balcony (we even have a BBQ!)

View of our LA home from Soho House LA! 

We're very happy with our LA home! 

--------

With a new home comes a new look and we've done just that on the Great Guns website. With loads of new features there's lots to see!

Go on... go explore it www.greatguns.com 

--------

Moving on to events, we've had a few recently. We headed into central last week to watch the launch of the D&AD Next Director Awards. Laura is Foreman on the Jury. 

The event was held at Google just off Tottenham Court Road.

Like all great events it started with canapés and excited chatter. 

Then the speeches got underway and the 2014 jury was introduced by Laura. 

The Next Director Award is a brand new award which aims to expose the best new directorial talent (directors with 2 years or less professional experience). The winner and nominees will get amazing exposure at international screenings, the D&AD platform and YouTube as well as mentoring from top production companies. 

You can still enter your work now if you're interested CLICK HERE

--------

We ended this week with an event for Timothy Allen at Glassworks in Soho. It was an evening to launch his new exhibition 'Travels Around Our Human Planet'. 

The exhibition features 20 of Tim's favourite prints from his travels around the world. The exhibition will remain in London for a month before traveling to Glassworks in Amsterdam.

2 Timothy Allen fans all the way from St. Albans!

Tim spent a few minutes talking about his favourite prints to a lovely crowd. We then enjoyed nibbles and wine, while admiring the amazing photographs. The evening was a big success and everyone had a great time. 

Don't worry if you missed it as the exhibition will return to London for a closing party towards the end of the summer. Watch this space! 

-------- 

No restaurant suggestions this week but we'll come back with a killer one next time... On that note, have a fantastic weekend wherever you are. 

The Gunners x