Happy Christmukkah
December 28, 2011
Schadenfreudegasm
November 10, 2011Humans are funny people imbued with a natural sense of schadenfreude. We slow to peer out the window at traffic accidents. We have an insatiable hunger for films about our own destruction and an unquenchable thirst for the misfortunes of others more famous and successful than us. And we love, LOVE, to see someone’s career evaporate in real time. Which is what happened to Republican presidential Rick Perry last night.
Governor Perry’s realtime career hara-kiri is so good it goes straight into the top three real time career-killing calamities where a politician has tanked himself and his future in public view. The amazing thing is that you can spend decades sowing the seeds of your own destruction, but when the moment comes it’s suprisingly short. And completely irrevoceable. It just takes a few seconds to fuck everything up beyond repair.
So without further ado here’s my top three career killing political moments as they happened. Welcome to the schadenfreudegasm:
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a commentSpoek Mathambo
October 13, 2011Check out this stunning, and stunningly well shot, video for Control by one of the great new generation photographers, Pieter Hugo:
A fantastic cover version, too.
If you don’t know Pieter Hugo, you may recognise him form the iconic pictures of men and street animals in Nigeria — Mad Max-y looking dudes holding lions and hyenas on rope leashes. Check ‘em out here.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a commentRebel Rock
October 13, 2011Amazing picture from the fall of Sirte. Qaddafi falls to the strains of three bar blues.
Somewhere, Joe Strummer is smiling.
Getty Images
Occupy LA
October 13, 2011Hot day, ditched meeting, I went downtown to the occupation at City Hall. Kind of a cross between the aftermath of a festival and a 24 hr rolling demo. Everyone seemed relaxed and peaceful, maybe that’s just the California clmate: it’s easier to protest in Autumn when the temperature’s over 80. LA’s finest — not known for their restraint — were totally unconcerned and cars honking every which way as they went past.
“There’s something going here and you don’t know what it is do you..?”
Let’s see.
Donkey Punch Punched
August 3, 2011You know you’ve arrived when you get blamed for the woes of an entire industry and sure enough last week’s Observer piece on the UK Film Council’s recoupement record, ‘UK Film Council’s Winners and Losers Revealed’, put Donkey Punch in the stocks and pelted it with the warm rotten fruit of disdain. Mmm, sticky. According to them we were “critically panned” and didn’t do well. One problem.
That’s rubbish.
They’ve been good enough to print my reply which you can read below and if you want to read multitudes of cracking quotes about the film from groovy critics and major publications just go here.
As to how the UKFC recoup their contracts and how Donkey Punch did compared to the rest, take a look at this chart and judge for yourself. It says a lot about the process that we’re in the top third, compared to a great many films that recouped… 0%.
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 CommentsDear Observer Editorial,
Last Sunday’s article, ‘UK Film Council’s Winners and Losers Revealed’ painted my film ‘Donkey Punch’ as a nasty, distasteful film that was “neither a commercial nor a critical success”, I want to set the record straight: My film may be nasty and distasteful but it got excellent reviews and is making returns to its financiers.
Your piece didn’t mention that Donkey Punch is one of the UKFC’s better recoupements, in the top third, and while I can’t speak for how they negotiated their contracts I can tell you my film cost barely a million pounds and has collected close to double that from International Sales, UK theatrical release and DVD alone. It’s sold in more than 20 foreign territories including North America and Japan while its UK premiere on the Film 4 channel put it straight into their top 10 most viewed films (post-watershed) with 299,000 viewers – it’s now played to over a million TV viewers.
Rather than being “panned”, Donkey Punch premiered at Sundance, was in competition at Edinburgh and official selection at major film festivals around the world. It got good reviews from major publications including your paper, the Guardian, Empire and The New York Times. Instead you use a single quote from the Daily Mail’s Chris Tookey and while I want to say “of course the Mail hated it” even that’s inaccurate: Jason Solomons gave us 4 stars in the Mail on Sunday and Baz Bamigboye praised it at Sundance and Edinburgh.
Yes, Donkey Punch was divisive. That’s its DNA, it’s a dark horror thriller. British cinema is – must be – a broad church that covers everything including small edgy films which travel wide, propel fantastic new actors like Jaime Winstone, Nicola Burley and Tom Burke into stage and screen and clearly stick in the mind three years on. I think that’s just what our struggling industry needs. In every genre.
All the best,
Olly Blackburn
TV License ‘All At Once’
August 3, 2011My new TV License spot has started airing on the BBC, another spot of comedy following from my previous film for them ‘Busy’. Here’s the director’s cut:
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BBC Local Radio wins D&AD Pencil
August 3, 2011BBC Local Radio picked up the Yellow Pencil for best cinematography at this years D&AD awards. Natasha Braier deserves every ounce of praise for her extraordinary work but hey — I’ll take some too.
Now I’ve got a nice yellow pencil to accompany the Seven Samurai figurine set, Wallace & Gromit Were-Rabbit diorama and plastic polar bear that shits brown jellybeans which clutter my desk… Amongst others.
I was in LA and she was shooting so, like Marlon Brando at the Oscars, a factotum (called Jeremy) was sent in our place to collect the gong:
Check it on the D&AD site here. And you can see the 90″ director’s cut here:
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BBC Local Radio
April 27, 2011So my BBC Local Radio films from last year have been picking up some awards love. Eight at the LIA‘s – 4 for direction and 4 for cinematography – a British Arrow finalist and I hear it just got nominated for a D&AD in Cinematography.
That’s all very nice, Natasha Braier who shot them is quite brilliant and any DoPs out there reading this inbetween light readings take note… working with me will be good for your trophy cabinet (and eye-opening too).
Check out a couple of the films below,’Sussex’ which won the most gongs and ‘Essex’ which I love too and because it’s Essex. The rest will be up on my website in the commercials section very soon with a groovy 60″ cut with new material in it. If you can’t wait that long check my Vimeo page to see the rest.
Peace out.
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Break Hearts Blow Minds
April 27, 2011Those in the UK may have already seen the films I made for the Industry Trust’s anti-piracy/pro-movies campaign ‘Moments Worth Paying For’. There are four films focussing on the big audience emotions – Horror, Laughter, Sadness and Awe – and they’re showing through the year (they’ll be up on my commercial’s page soon but meanwhile check them out on my Vimeo page here).
This is my 60″ directors cut:
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