LESS IS MORE

It looks like I've been nominated through a staunch democratic decision ("yeah, I reckon Tim should do it, who agrees?" *hand thrown in air like a schoolkid desperate to answer a question*) to be our sole resident blogger this year. Fine. It just means I'm going to write about whatever I want and everyone can deal with it.

2012 is going to be yet another year of technological advances, time saving devices and social media, some of which we've already been playing around with in ways they probably weren't meant to be used. Already we've chatted to Martyn's phone and it happily scheduled in his diary to remember to perform some male-specific personal hygiene practices. Other than that, we've all finally succumbed to the social time-sap of Twitter. If your Mum's already on Facebook then it really won't be long before she's @-ing you to see how you are and thinking LOL means 'lots of love' #shecantevenworkoutebay

What's the best thing about Twitter? Everyone will have a different opinion on this but for us it's the fact that it takes us back to an age where sending messages was character limited otherwise it cost you yet another 10p and you'd have to go to the shop again to top-up your credit. Seriously, remember how much info you used to be able to cram into one text? Loads. You organised things super quick, got an answer immediately because when things are on your phone they are infinitely more important than than an email. How many commissioners actually want to write a massive long email sending out requests for pitches when they could do exactly the same thing in 140 characters or less? Then when Billy Big Ideas sends his 27-page epic treatment back to you, are you going to spend an hour reading it all? Nope. 140 characters back, easy.

How much easier is that for everyone? Sit back, wait for your phone to buzz, 2mins, sorted. You might think this is far fetched, but we've had a client tweet-sign-off a video already with a stoked mention. Good promo too when you reply back, everyone can see you've smashed it. Who knows, might even end up as a top trend if fans of the band get on the back of it.

Even feedback to edits could be done in the simple yet effective #hashtag format, it'll make everything so much quicker than the email trails of changes and requests

Alright, so it doesn't change the usual problems that come with production, but it's a start eh? First commissioner to implement this with us will be our favourite person in the entire world ever. GO.

PROMO PROMO PROMO

So Martyn has been busy these last few weeks working on an animated promo for Cornelia 'Aquarius Dreams'. All of his spare time has been dedicated to drawing on over 2500 photographs and hand scratching them with sand paper, i guess 'long' is not even close, we havnt been able to drag him out for a pint until now, now that it is finally finished!

SKULLS

So we've been working on a pretty fun little project recently with the darklord of illustration French, as he created his own take on a Norweigan church inside his studio. If you don't know French, you know nothing. He's a wizard with a pen and draws some pretty gnarly shit as well as Biggie

Days of breathing in sawdust, drinking bucket loads of tea, listening to black metal, Wu Tang and Katy Perry (yeah, surprised me too, but secretly we all love a bit of the Perry, right?). The video should be done pretty soon, but during the grade was when some seriously occult stuff started happening. It must have been the spirits of the dead seeping into the cameras, infecting the footage then trying to escape, or maybe it was the fact we were nailing goat skulls to every available surface of the shack. Whatever it was, something weird happened.

Skull flag, check. Rusty saw, check. Anthrax postcard, check. Sweet, all looking good, let's just make sure everything's cool on the histogr... ohhhhhwhatisthat?? Zoom in on that, enhance.

SKULLLLLSS MAAAAAN. Like ghouls rising from the murky depths of the Styx ready to suck the soul clean out of your bosy, across all the colour channels. Spooky. I'm gonna go now and give my computer a Viking funeral, sending it off across a lake in a burning longboat to cleanse it's perverted inerds.

(ie. Hello Tom)

This week's blog is something we've dragged up from the vast archive of emails we get from people asking if we'd like to shoot a music video for them. Don't get us wrong, we love shooting music promos, always striving to make something amazing and we're pretty good at making small budgets go a VERY long way. Stitchthat, by our very nature, have a DIY ethic. "What? How much?! Mate, we could make that ourselves with a biro casing, half a pack of Wrigleys Extra, five plastic cups and some gaffer tape. Yeah, a hammer. Hammer it together. Done."

But I digress. We recently had an email from a guy looking for some video wickedness to go with his new single, self-funded of course, and asked us to get involved. Sweet, sounds goo... Oh, keep reading the email.

"Dear Sir,

I viewed through your website and recorgnized that your company is one of the best video companies in London for shooting music videos. I am eager to develop my skills and promote one of my songs via the internet- Youtube and would like to use your company for my video shoot."

Flattery will get you everywhere fella. Hear that London? This dude just said we're the best. Don't even bother searching for another production company, he's already found the best and it's us.

"I've done three singles at the moment. I the moment I promote them via myspace and youtube."

Awesome, let's smash this first vid and he's got two more to follow, guaranteed cert we'll work those too.

"Attached above is my storyboard.

Thank you for your time and consideration,

Z."

Yes, he's done STORYBOARDS. I love this guy, even if he does use the number '4' as a replacement for the perfectly adequate and not exactly long word 'for' as his artist title. It is in the context '4soul' though, maybe we'll give him that.

Slide 4, already we can hear the CSI Miami 'YEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHH!' and Caruso delivering scorching puns about Kanye

This is probably my favourite one of the lot. Slate 1 and 2 talks you through how to make a phonecall to your girlfriend, once you've got passed the fact she doesn't actually remember your name and just lists off the first one that came into her head. She may as well have rung up and said "Hi male counterpart, who at some point was given a fairly average name, for example, Tom, how are you?" He doesn't even need to get angry about it, just respond. A shrug will do, she won't even know you did it, but you did respond, and that'll annoy her. Perfect.

Slide 2 here lets us, the best production company in London, decide which way we want the camera to pan. I vote from the left, everytime. Always looks better panning from the left. Clearly here our silent phone shrug has narced the missus, ie. Stephanie, right off. She leaves to go meet her mates, do some shopping, who knows. You just bought her lunch, was only a cheap cafe too so no wonder she's leaving. The poignant empty chair at the end totally signifies this empty relationship. Damn, Z is one hell of a director. We all know that ie. Tom has gone to the pub with his mates though for an afternoon of crisps and sweet sweet pints of Red Stripe in the sun. Sunglasses on, of course. Yeeeeeeaaaaaaahhhh!

Whilst writing this, I just noticed this guy scanned this on a pretty hench HP Scanjet. 5590 model to be precise. Design classic. I remember my mates Dad used to have one of these and we'd use it all the time in his office to photocopy homework to take home and rewrite up and pretend it was yours.

We replied to him, obviously. Never let a potential client hang waiting on your response, specially when he needs to release "That's The Way It Is" out to his fanbase. Sadly, this is not a cover of 2Pac, that would've been sick. Z mentioned the budget is about the same price you can buy a 4-door G reg Volvo 740 with 160k on the clock for from AutoTrader. So not ideal, but as we said, we can make budgets go far and have a great producer to do this. So Z, when you thinking to shoot this and do you need back-up dancers grinding on the bonnet of the royal blue saloon we're gonna spend your budget on? Schedule is pretty busy but we can make something work...

"The song is about 3minutes long and doesn't need back-up dancers etc. I'm free on Mondays and Friday mornings. I hope this can help. Thanks."

Unfortunately, Monday wasn't good for us, and Friday morning we had a meeting booked in. Sheeeeeiii-. Next time Z, next time.

TAKING BACK SOME LAND

Im sure every skater has dreamed about owning their own skate park, even just building their own ramp in the garden right where mum has her prize flowers... but few can say they actually get the chance.

A group of dedicated London Skaters have started to do just that... and in concrete!

What started as a paddling pool that time (and the council) forgot, it has rapidly expanded into the beginings of a full blown concrete skate park. Yeah its small, and yeah it has some flaws, but its really fun to skate and if you let it have its way it will still throw you to the ground and not think anything of it.

Here is a short film Martyn shot while down there one evening, there was a good turn out as there were some Austrian skaters in town and everyone just decided to rip the park a new one...

enjoy.