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.

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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!

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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!

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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

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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 ;-)

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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 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! 

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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

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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! 

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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 

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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

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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! 

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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 

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!