what to do this weekend

Another week has rolled by and it's getting closer and closer to the holiday season. With December diaries getting well and truly filled up, this might be the last weekend that you can pop down to the pub on friday, browse shops on saturday and snuggle up in front of the TV on sunday (the forecast is rain so it's a perfect duvet day). 

Here at GG HQ we thought we'd share our perfect pre-december weekend in London. 

As some of you might know GG is based in Camden Town, and Camden Town has some fab friday night pubs for drinks after work. There are a few firm favourites amongst the Gunners, in particular The Prince Albert. 

it's cosy, it's quaint and it serves up some yummy food. 

there are local ales on tap and their food is organic and British - what else could you ask for? Oh and not to mention Happy Hour until 6pm on Friday. 

Top Tip: if it's your birthday let them know & you'll get a free bottle of wine on the house.

Pop down and you might even spot a Gunner! 

--------

Rise and shine! Kick start your saturday with this - from Vaudeville's 'Tuesday Tunes' playlist. If that doesn't get you going in the morning we don't know what will! 

With sunshine forecast for Saturday in London there's no better way to spend it than outside. Make the most of the last quiet weekend before the Christmas shopping madness begins and get yourself down to The Kings Road and head to the Bluebird. It's a great little Saturday brunch spot and the perfect place to people watch. 

Even better than the brunch is their shop which is packed full of great stocking fillers, christmas gifts and maybe even a little something for you (go on, treat yourself).  

Gunner Laura Gregory is a big fan of Rory Dobner's work, which is stocked in the Bluebird Shop (hurrah!) Rory is a London based artist and illustrator, known for his intricate pen and ink designs. 

His little corner of the shop feels like stepping into a friend's living room. Filled with pictures, pillows and ceramic work - have a browse and see if there is anything that catches your eye. 

We love this skull candle. 

If you fancy a more market feel to your saturday shopping experience (with even more Rory Dobner) you have to check out Mama Brown's Pop Up Experience. Located in an old Victorian postal sorting office, 72 emerging and established designers and artists will be on offer over a period of 3 weeks (alongside organic homemade food). 

Shop at a lovely leisurely pace and when that gets too much, take a seat on one of the lounge style sofas, relax with a glass of bubbles from the bar and chill out with tunes from the resident DJ. Read all about it here. 

-------- 

With the weekend coming to a close Sunday should be all about recharging those batteries (especially as next week christmas parties start coming in thick & fast!) 

Gunner Sheridan Thomas has suggested the perfect Sunday movie for your sofa day - 'The Man From Nowhere' 

With 100% positive feedback on Rotten Tomatoes 'The Man From Nowhere' is a South Korean action-thriller starring Won Bin and directed by Lee Jeong-Beom. We think it's pretty badass. 

--------

On that note we hope you have a GREAT weekend! 

The Gunners. 

--------

pictures from:

http://rorydobner.com/galleries/interior-design/first-rory-dobner-shop-london

http://untitled-magazine.com/londons-largest-pop-up-shop-launches-in-chelsea/

http://lifestyleetc.co.uk/2012/10/04/the-world-according-to-illustrator-rory-dobner/

http://www.bluebird-restaurant.co.uk/

http://theshopatbluebird.com/blog/rory-dobner-home-style/

london is cooling down but great guns is heating up

For many the lead up to the festive period is a time to wind down, tie up those loose ends and gear up for the New Year - not for the Gunners, we're steaming ahead and are busier than ever! 

GG director Jonty Toosey has been even busier since the last blog post. He's just directed a gorgeous spot for Alpro Soya Yoghurt.

Shot in Slovenia this heart-warming advert focuses on the mantra 'stay curious', and follows a woman's rediscovery of her love of photography. 

You can watch it HERE. 

As promised here is the link to his advert featuring Antonio Banderas - Kaspi Bank 

Jonty is currently in full on production mode at Great Guns with an exciting shoot confirmed for next week - we can't wait for you to see it so check back soon! 

--------

Our mammoth project with Russian Standard Vodka officially launched this month and some of the team spent an evening sipping on Russian Standard Moscow Mules and watching the amazing new advert at the British Science Museum in South Kensington.

GG director Calum Macdiarmid teamed up with My Agency and Jason Silva (a filmmaker and performance philosopher) for the shoot. It was partly filmed on location in Russia and partly in a west London studio. 

Edited in house by GG editor James Demetriou the spot is slick and utterly fascinating, with one viewer stating on youtube  'what in THE WORLD is a vodka scientist? I want that job.'

The launch was a huge success and you can actually watch how the event unfolded here and of course please have a look at the spot HERE. 

--------

Steven Boyle just filmed a lovely promo for the singing duo Elephant titled 'Shapeshifter'. Described on Davids Reviews as 'blissed out wonder' Shapeshifter seems to be about appreciating the return of a love that was lost. 

Backed by the sparse and stretched out Snowday, as icily cool as it sounds, full of chiaroscuro contrasts and flickering atmospherics, it's a release that suggests their debut album is set to be one of the standout albums of 2014.

Have a watch of the video HERE

--------

We've been sending out LOADS of Turn DVD's as we continue the festival rounds. 

And we've just been accepted into another festival - The London Short Film Festival which is another Oscar and Bafta booster! 

--------

Our beautiful Gold LIA award for Best Music Video arrived in the post this week and has taken prime place in the London office. 

Other exciting post includes our Shots Tickets - we can't wait for next thursday night and are crossing our fingers! 

--------

Our directors are busier than ever with some really exciting work coming up towards the end of the year and some great stuff to kick off 2014. 

Ron Scalpello continues to cut his film at Great Guns and has just shot an action-packed spot due to air in January. 

Andy Morahan has just jetted over to LA to shoot in both downtown LA and Vegas.

Paul Shearer has shot a brilliant spot for a well known sports brand featuring some familiar faces so watch this space for a link in the coming weeks. 

And Klaus Thymann has just been featured on i-D online talking about his five top extreme locations to shoot. 

Extreme locations include The Blue Lake in New Zealand and the Rwenzori Mountains in Uganda. 

You can have a read of that article HERE 

--------

We polished of the week as all weeks should be polished off - with a lunch at The York and Albany in Camden. We headed down with the lovely folk at McCann Health and GG director Olly Blackburn and gorged ourselves on spicy wings, calamari, pizzas and burgers. 

Sorry to disappoint but the food was so delicious and the company so brilliant we totally forgot to take some snaps. Anyway, we wouldn't want to make you jealous. 

--------

As always have a wonderful weekend wherever you are & check back soon for more updates. 

For more regular updates follow us on twitter @greatgunstv 

you can't rain on our parade

Despite the incredibly miserable weather in London today nothing can dampen the mood at Great Guns HQ. Since our last blog post we've won some awards, our directors have shot some awesome new stuff, we've screened a #greatgunsshort in Toronto, and celebrated Halloween in true New York style. 

It's full on awards season in the industry at the moment and we've been having fun submitting and screening our spots. Shortly after the team flew back from Vegas for the LIA's we found out that Neft Vodka - Bad Motherfucker took home GOLD for Best Music Video!

UK Gunner Kelly flew over to Berlin earlier in the week and teamed up with German Gunner Robert Leisewitz to attend the Ciclope Festival 

It was a jam packed few days full of talks, screenings and parties topped off with the awards ceremony tonight. 

we were thrilled to find out that Neft Vodka - Bad Motherfucker has been awarded GOLD at this years festival for Branded Content and we will definitely tweet a picture of our shiny little ciclopse after tonight! 

Here's Gunner Robert Leisewitz with Diane Jackson from DDB Chicago at Ciclope Festival 

We're also very happy to say that Olly Blackburn's spot for Erbitux has just taken home GOLD at the RX Health Awards.

Neft Vodka - Bad Motherfucker, Nike and Subaru have all been shortlisted for Shots Awards on November 28th - watch this space and cross your fingers for a win or 2! 

--------

We're steaming ahead with #greatgunsshorts as Turn continues to do the festival rounds. This week saw us screen at the Toronto International Short Film Festival which is both Bafta and Oscar recognised. 

To keep up to date with all things short check out our website dedicated to it www.greatgunsshorts.com  

--------

Mikko at Sauna International repped by Great Guns has just shot a powerful new spot titled Baby Love (#babylove). The team being 2011's chilling 'Monsters' spot for Fragile Childhood were enlisted by The Cancer Society of Finland to drum up some conversation around the topic of smoking while pregnant. 

This hard hitting spot racked up over 30'000 views in its first 24 hours online. You can watch it here and read the interview from Mikko and creative director Marko Vuorensola here.

--------

GG director Jonty Toosey has just come back from Kazakhstan where he teamed up with Hollywood actor Antonio Banderas and Kaspi Bank to shoot a spot for the banks new PR campaign. The idea was simple: to get an A-list Hollywood star to be officially employed at the bank for 2 days. 

It was a simple enough execution for Jonty - he wanted to get as many people together and unleash them onto Antonio. They cast 100 people to feature in the advert and then added a dozen real customers into the mix. The result is hilarious. 'Everyone was over excited to meet him so the job was to orchestrate everything so that I got what I needed out of the meetings whilst letting the action unfold naturally. Banderas was a dream to work with. We had 5 hours to film the spot and he gave me everything I needed, including a toilet pit stop I asked him to do. We had a lot of fun.' 

The spot hasn't been released yet but watch this space for a link  very soon! 

-------

GG director Jenny Ash has once again teamed up with More4 to mark Remembrance Sunday by shooting a trio of award-winning actors: Noel Clarke, Christopher Eccleston and Vicky McClure to read a collection of war poetry from Seamus Heaney, John Agard, Carol Ann Duffy and Dunya Mikhail. The poems are each read as a stand-alone short film and will be broadcast between programmes throughout the weekend. 

The films will be showing alongside poems from World War One which Jenny shot last year, starring Gemma Arterton, Sean Bean, Stephen Graham and Sohpie Okonedo. 

You can watch the films here and read more about them. 

--------

We like to round up all our busy weeks with a bit of fun and thats exactly what Laura got up to for Halloween. She hosted a dinner party at Sen NYC. Here she is with 'fanged' co-owner of Sen Tora Matsuoka 

Her top tip for Sen is not to leave without trying the 'Demon Woman' Hot Chili Sake! 

On that note go out and enjoy the weekend and check back soon for more Gunners News. 

A Gunners Weekly Roundup 2

We seem to be getting busier and busier - which is incredibly exciting for the Gunners team. We figured the best way to keep our readers up to date was to start a weekly roundup (more a fortnightly roundup but weekly has a nicer ring to it!) 

A few weeks ago we ended our week on a high by taking a group of creatives to dinner at the Hospital Club. This wasn't any old dinner, it was the launch of super-star La Maison Bouffe chef Maria Elia's new cook book 'Smashing Plates'. 

we started with scallops, soutzouki and watermelon and beetroot, apples and feta curd salad

followed by marinated lamb with feta curd, peas and artichokes and topped off with an amazing dessert of chocolate soil and goat milk & green coffee panna cotta. divine.  

Maria went on to appear on Sunday Brunch that weekend and cooked up a storm for a bunch of celebrity guests. One of the guests at our dinner loved the food so much she took home a copy of the book and whipped up the sesame buns the following day! 

While all this was going on Laura, Sheridan and one of our young directors Karel Van Bellingen were in Las Vegas for the LIA awards. They spent a week there immersed in talks, judging and meetings. 

Above: Laura and Sheridan speaking at the LIA's. You can read more about the whole event and the speakers here

Karel had a slightly different LIA experience going as one of the young creatives. LBB caught up with him post Vegas and he spilt the beans on his creative heavy week in the desert. Read all about it here.

--------

Back in the UK we found out that Ilya Naishuller has been shortlisted for a UK Music Video Award for best International Alternative Music Video for Bad Motherfucker. The awards are next week so watch this space! 

The good news didn't stop there... Sauna International / Great Guns director Mikko took home 3 awards at this years Golden Drum Festival for his spot 'Monsters' for Fragile Childhood - the special prize - virtuoso for Cinematography, a Grand Prix in PR and a Gold for the film. You can watch the amazing case study here.

--------

We also did a few interviews. The first was director Ram Madhvani speaking to Little Black Book on his new film for Greenlam. 

A fun, charming spot with Bollywood flair, Ram talks to LBB about the whole process. Here's a short blurb from the interview:

LBB> The idea seems to really chime with what's going on in India at the moment - do you see the ad as a political statement?

RM> It’s more of a social statement. If you give people beautiful things they will have better thoughts and therefore they will become better people. Better design leads to a better world. 

Yes, it does resonate with what is happening in our country. The election is around the corner. Though the film is a satire, it is pitched innocently. It's not cynical. It's meant to be charming. 

You can watch the spot and read the rest of the interview here

--------

The second interview was with 'King of Pilots' David Nutter who spoke to the Directors Guild of America on his amazing career so far.

Packed full of his feats, his advice and how he likes to work, this interview packs a punch and you can read the whole thing here.

--------

In other news, our director Klaus Thymann has been working with his not-for-profit organisation Project Pressure and has travelled to the Pallin Glacier Tunnel to document the effects of climate change. You can watch the feature on the Guardian website here.

--------

Turn is continuing its festival round and has just been accepted into the Toronto International Short Film Festival which is Bafta and Oscar recognised as well as the Big Apple Film Festival in New York. You can keep up to date with all the Turn news via Facebook www.facebook.com/turnshortfilm 

-------- 

And finally we end this Gunners Weekly Roundup with a screening and cocktail evening for Director Calum Macdiarmid. 

We launched our new website www.greatgunsshorts.com and our hashtag #greatgunsshorts this week by screening Calum's short films Liquid Spirit and The Farm at China Whites prohibition theme lounge Mankind&Reason. 

The evening was enjoyed by creatives and media over Gunners Fizz, Liquid Spirit bottled cocktails and Great Guns branded Truffle Popcorn. 

As always you can keep up to date on daily happenings via our twitter feed @greatgunstv or by facebook www.facebook.com/wearegreatguns 

Check back in a few weeks to catch up on all our latest news!