13-02-11 / THE P-P-P-P-P-P-P-PETEBOX AND SOME STRING
A satisfyingly productive weekend. My extremely talented beatboxing friend Peter Sampson, better known as The Petebox, boomed and clicked his way to bubtowers for a spot of long-overdue collaboration. We filmed some of his typically barmy/brilliant live loop-pedal performances and my equally long-overdue first use of Canon's game-changing 5D camera proved to be interesting. Nice one Simon, only took you three years. The camera (big cheers to Graeme Crowley for the loan!) had none of the optional accessories that make it easier to operate, like a separate screen, support rails, or follow focus. Shooting in long, unbroken takes was a must to give a flavour of the process behind such a multi-layered performance, and it's a shocker how heavy such a little camera can become after roaming with it for four minutes at a time, often at an extended arm's length.

Being limited to the on-board LCD screen, which obviously doesn't flip or move in any way, meant I could never move the camera very far from my face. I was also shooting at the most shallow depth of field I could muster, so having to manually ride the focus directly from the lens with a hand that should have been supporting the camera became something of a trial by fire. A cheeky length of string attached to a disconnected light fixture on the ceiling worked wonders when I started to think I wasn't going to pull it off. Made me feel right proud, that. So, to quote James Mason in Spring and port Wine, "You never know when you'll need a piece of string...". Peter will release the finished clips at monthly intervals, starting as soon I have found time to grade them.

03-02-11 / FINALLY, THE SWIMMING DOCUMENTARY FROM DECEMBER 2009
Here is a short documentary to accompany the upcoming release of 'Sun in the Island' by Swimming. It was one of those occasions where I wished I'd taken a better camera, but we didn't expect quite so much snow and I probably wouldn't have been as trigger-happy with anything more than the old DV handycam I was carrying. In any case, the abandonment of technology is appropriate to the piece, as you will see. The official video to the very different rock/pop version of the song is almost done (for a second time, grrr) and even daytime Radio 1 have been playing it.

30-01-11 / 'JAM TODAY' NEW SHORT FINISHED
OK, so the most anxiety-riddled part of the post-production process, the sound mix, is over. Despite having the good fortune to work with excellent engineers, and this time was no exception, there is little anyone can do to alleviate the deep-rooted sense of dread I feel during a mix. The trouble is almost always the same. I do so much detailed design in my picture edit that the inevitable disruptions which occur when subsequently mixing/mastering the audio cause me to feel an immense loss of control. It is comparable to the days before desktop editing, struggling to keep hold of creativity, sprinting to the finish while the clock is ticking in a hired facility. It is also control freakery, as understandable as it is utterly unreasonable. My 'dog-hearing' doesn't help matters, being thrown so completely by a tiny click here or an unfamiliar rustle there.

The mix is also the moment of truth, when you are closing the chapter and putting the film out for the world to see (hear). On this particular film, mysterious, still-unexplained technical issues massively multiplied the work required by angels at 750MPH before dubbing mixer Ben G was even able to begin work. Given that these delays meant I only managed a total of nine hours attending personally (which included recording final snippets of ADR by the actors), I am lucky to have a mix at all. Ben G, a soldier who also mixed the knife crime campaigns, really hung in there when time was laughing at us and pulling faces. Massive hat-doffs also to Dave Ludlam, Matt Clarke and Andy McLintock over at Framestore, for a smashing job on the picture. By this time next week I will have submitted the film to its first handful of festivals. Whatever happens after that is anyone's guess.

25-01-11 / STUTTGART FILMWINTER, GERMANY
Just back from the Filmwinter Festival for Expanded Media in Stuttgart, on jury duty for the international competition. My last time there was ten years ago for the international premiere of Telling Lies and this time I screened my retrospective programme. There is something disquieting about your fellow jurors being able to see so much of your work, not to mention all of the directors in attendance whose films you are there to judge. As an added bonus, Hamburg's ever-excellent Wall is a Screen team were there and once again I got to participate, which is always an absolute pleasure. While the cold gnashed through my converse and into my aching toes, Bass Invaders was projected high onto a shop wall in the main street, craning the necks of a good crowd of unsuspecting shoppers. Brilliant.

It was also mint seeing Ruben Östlund's excellent Incident by a Bank again, also on a shop wall, with laughing children in the crowd. Speaking of which, an audience member told me in the festival bar that she took her four year-old daughter Franke to my retrospective, and when she asked her after several screenings what she had liked the most, she said "I like Simon Ellis!" haha :) So, my youngest fan. Go Franke! Still, I do hope she's not having nightmares about flying speakers, walking televisions or spade-wielding nutjobs. All in all, a great time with plenty going on. Lovely people, cheap beer/wine/jaegermeister/rum, and of course, currywurst. My hotel room's angry door handle attempted to electrocute me every time I used it, at one point emitting visible sparks. As for the films, some personal favourites in no particular order: Charles Fairbanks' Wrestling with my Father (USA), Pilvi Takala's Real Snow White (France/Netherlands), Jules Zingg's Les Voisins/Neighbours (France), Bartosz Kruhlik's Wycieczka/Trip (Poland), Anssi Kasitonni's Masa (Finland), and Roberto Perez's Los Gritones/The Screamers (Spain).

In other news, comments about Soft on Youtube are becoming very interesting debates.

20-01-11 / KNIFE CRIME FILMS
A new version of the last knife crime campaign I directed has been edited, specifically for a limited cinema release. Though I am unhappy with the way the second campaign turned out, thus not mentioning it since the horrific shoot, this new version comes somewhere close to visualising the broad concept. I thought I should finally showcase it in honour of those who worked tirelessly on it, like editor Matt Swanepoel who also edited the first campaign (Choose a Different Ending) and flew back to the UK from South Africa especially for the second one (Who Killed Deon). I must doff my hat again to producer Jonas Blanchard, as always. Finally, kudos to the actors. I was lucky enough to find a great ensemble and would LOVE to work with them again on something of our own.

And the all-new cinema version of Who Killed Deon:

20-12-10 / SOFT ON YOUTUBE
So after a few years of managing to keep Soft offline, you can now see it on Youtube (Update - the film has been reclassified for upsetting pew-bothering penis-fearers, so was removed then reinstated). The comments have certainly been crashing in (see a selection below but watch the film first). Quite apart from the rage it seems to inspire in young men, it has fired up interesting debates about US/UK law systems, penis size, and, err, the proximity of shops to homes in the UK.

"This movie was sooooo great that i wanna get that actor and actually beat him up myself, even though he was an actor, I dont care"

"That was awesome!!! I wish it was a full movie, my heart was racing the whole time"

"Wow!! Well done! Got my heart going there..."

"Disturbingly real"

"One word: epic"

"Amazing. Had my heart pumping"

"This was an excellent short. Really got the adrenaline going"

"This was phenomenal..."

"This was powerful as shit. Really really good"

"I was jumping up and down cheering and clapping"

"How did they fake that shit? Every hit looked so real"

"I hate bullies down to the very core of my soul and this really made me angry"

"In the UK the store is just around the corner?"

"This sucked. Thumbs up if you like sex"

09-12-10 / NEW INTERVIEW
So you're cold and miserable, your house is freezing and it's too cold to go out. You wish you could just nestle down in a big warm yorkshire pudding (I really must get over this yorkshire-pudding-bed thing), watch old matinees, drink hot stuff and return to work in January. Or you could hop on over to The Rough Mix and read this interview.

07-12-10 / HEAVEN AND HELL IN SCOTLAND
Returned from Kintyre Island off the west coast of Scotland at four o'clock this morning, after a seventeen hour journey through the country's worst snowfall in fifty years. It was utter bedlam and quite impossible to describe with the measly limitations of words. Despite the hard ice on the roads, the sunshine in Kintyre had been heavenly for two days but it buggered off as a white-out suddenly set in as we left. If sliding down a steep road towards the back of the car in front isn't much fun, then the sight of a completely overturned car on the roadside was the shape of much worse things to come. Deciding against the ferry crossing because of the winding mountain roads on the other side, the long route to the mainland by road seemed the sensible option. The radio warned of traffic chaos around Glasgow, with reports of people moving only five miles in twelve hours. After witnessing a car in front of us spin almost 360 degrees, at speed, yet miraculously missing a petrified woman and her child in another car by centimetres, everything became utterly surreal and apocalyptic.

At eleven degrees below freezing, the gridlock on the motorway was insane. Snowmen with windscreen wipers for arms had been built on the otherwise inaccessible central reservation, service stations were oversubscribed, causing one entire lane (lanes were indistinguishable from one another) of the motorway to become a parking strip for people to sleep. Some abandoned their vehicles when their batteries ran out, adding to the congestion. People alighted buses in droves and walked through the traffic, ignoring a troubled commuter whose wheels were hopelessly spinning on the ice. Some were standing in the lanes smoking cigarettes while others had no choice but to relieve their bladders in the collective glare of everyone's headlights. News reports today talked of drivers drinking melted snow to stay hydrated, teachers and pupils having to sleep in their school overnight, the army ferrying the sick and injured to hospital, nearby residents delivering hot food and drinks to motorists, and snow ploughs breaking their blades on the ice. Many hours later I arrived home to frozen pipes and no hot water, which has today caused said pipes to burst and rain through my kitchen ceiling for the second time in six months. According to the plumbers, temperatures have plummeted to as low as minus seventeen here! WTF?

27-11-10 / TWO MORE AWARDS
Choose a Different Ending just won two more at the BIMAS, whatever those are. I honestly can't keep up with all these different advertising award ceremonies, but I'm not complaining.

11-11-10 / ONE OF THOSE DAYS AGAIN / BREAKING BAD
Here's a little story. This morning, while frantically trying to print out my boarding pass before leaving for Brest European Short Film Festival in France, I'm up against a variety of technical and human obstructions. Long story short, while doing so, the airline's four-hour rule expired. This means you can no longer check-in online because you have only four hours until the plane bounces, so instead you must pay an extra fee to check-in at the airport ten minutes earlier (ten whole minutes in situations requiring train travel to distant airports is a very, very valuable amount of extra time). To my mind, paying more money for less time is a bit like handing over your sister in order to finally have your toes pulled off, or something.

Meanwhile, all the dicking about trying to sort out said check-in meant I had missed my train. The next one was an hour later and would only get me to the airport with about three minutes to spare. One tiny delay like the train stopping because there was a burp on the track would guarantee failure. So I call the festival and tell them my situation, and a very nice girl called Muriel assures me that, despite the risk factor, the festival would kindly swallow the extra journey costs. She then encourages me to "run Simon run".

Half an hour later I get in the taxi cabbage for the station and the journey is taking twice as long as it should due to roadworks. It is late morning but the traffic is comparable to peak-hour congestion. I miss the train. I think back to the posh old man in his bogey-green Mercedes who pulled in front of us before a red light, adding a crucial minute to the journey. His image goes up in flames and I call the festival to say I could get back in the taxi for the hundred miles to Luton and it will cost more than twice the train ticket but at least I'll get to the airport on time. They say "run Simon run" again and I do just that, back into the cabbage.

We're cruising down the motorway and I'm sitting in the back reading a newspaper, feeling a bit Miss Daisy. The driver knows I need to be at the airport for one thirty and everything is cool. Even the clouds are breaking up, and I think the low sun gives the driver a headache or something. He forever cruises comfortably down the middle lane with a distant meditative frown, things get tense, a lane closes and we are crawling for half an hour. We arrive at airport at the exact time that check-in closes. I'm resigned to defeat, given the airline's reputation and my own experiences with this airport in particular, but decide it's not over until it's over.

I get the driver to pull over somewhere where he isn't supposed to, and a horn immediately honks from behind. I'm really not in the mood for this. The driver gives me a receipt and I put it in my mouth while grabbing my bag. I open the door and a big fist of wind punches the receipt from my lips and sends it spiralling up to god knows where. The driver hands me another one and the car behind honks again, spelling merry hell. I look at the two ladies inside, mouths like O's breaking into complaint with palms upturned as if a giant eyeball was pissing pupil pus onto their bonnet, and I actually bellowed at them. The whole episode can't have set them back more than fifteen seconds. Still, sorry ladies, you caught me at a really bad time and I shouldn't have lost my temper. But I hope a giant eyeball does wazz on your bonnet. And your pillows.

I think that was when karma pounced on me. I wasn't allowed on the flight. Five minutes late. Paid for a train back home and here I am, Brestless.

But let's hear it for Breaking Bad, a US series I caught up with late but, my god, episode six of season three (above picture) just got me really fidgety in all the best possible ways.

(OLDER POSTS)