Keeping on my average of 1 blog post a year or so…
After a few Netflix docs scattered through the latter half of 2019, 2020 started interestingly with a pretty full on music doc shoot in Saudi Arabia, with a crew of old friends I’ve worked with a lot over the years. It was a lot of fun, and took us to truely surreal & stunning settings. Little did we know, the COVID pandemic started hitting real hard just as we came back – in fact we were allegedly on the last flight out of Medina Airport before it shut down…!
I’d started prep on my next feature film, Pretty Red Dress, financed by BBC Films & BFI, which sounds very exciting and has lots of live music elements to it, but of course the pandemic halted things before we started shooting. It’s hard to know at this point when things will start picking up again, maybe later in the year if all goes reasonably well, but in the meantime we’re just mostly staying home and trying to stay safe, like most.
These last 12 months or so have been very heavy in overseas work, travel docs in particular. I’ve recently come back from filming a sports doc in the DPRK (North Korea, for those not in the know!) for the Olympic Channel. I’ve been filming on railways across Europe for ‘Great Continental Railway Journeys’ with Michael Portillo, jetted over to the Maltese sun for various branded shoots, documented high fashion shows in historic Parisian courtyards at Le Louvre, recorded a ’14 million views’ stand up comedy gig in a sold out St Petersburg ice hockey arena…
I’m currently gearing up for a true crime doc series which will be filming over the next few weeks & months.
The first teaser for ‘Hurricane : Squadron 303’, feature film I worked on in late 2017, has recently landed, and is getting copious amounts of views already. Starring Milo Gibson and Iwan Rheon, have a look for yourselves!
Hello there!
As often it’s been a while… There’s a load of exciting narrative work coming this summer which I’ll mention in a later post.
It’s been a busy year so far. After finishing 2016 with a nice BBC Christmas TV Commercial, I started 2017 with travels up and down the country for a series of online Visit Britain films featuring comedian Diane Morgan, which took me to the Scottish highlands, Snowdonia, Manchester, as well as much closer to home, in East London.
I’ve recently finished a host of online commercials for First Direct, also featuring Diane Morgan, and have been doing some 2nd Unit on a Netflix drama, as well as various C4 TV programs.
I’m excited to say I’ve been gearing up in the last few weeks for my next feature film, entitled The Devil Outside (directed by Andrew Hulme and produced by Christine Alderson), which is shooting this August & September in Nottinghamshire, UK.
The Devil Outside is a coming of age film about religion, madness and adolescence.
It’s a BFI backed France-UK coproduction and I’m very much looking forward to starting filming soon!
In the meantime, here’s a look at some of the things I’ve been working on earlier this year:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgGuHo4IRyc
I am thrilled to announce that I’ve just joined the gang at Gravy Crew Diary Service! You can reach Jackie Alexander for all my work enquiries directly on +44 (0)203 696 4600.
Hello there, it’s been a while! I’ve been busy working mostly on commercials and content for advertising agencies lately, so nothing much to report on here.
However I’m excited to annouce that 2 of the feature films I worked on recently are being released in the coming weeks.
The Lost Choices has been picked up by Metrodome and will get a UK theatrical release on 14th September, followed by UK VOD release on the 21st and international DVD availability in October.
And Superbob is being released by Signature Entertainment, theatrical on October 16th and VOD on October 19th. You can read about it here: http://www.screendaily.com/news/superbob-to-get-uk-release-through-signature/5091642.article
These are two features that I’m very proud of and encourage everyone to go see! Superbob has had phenomenal success recently on the festival round, and got a few awards and nominations (including Best Sound nom @ FilmQuest Utah) along the way.
Don’t miss them!!
I’ve just recently come back from a documentary shoot in South East Kazakhstan (100 miles from China, 20 miles from Kyrgyzstan), titled ‘The Last Saint’. The shoot revolved around an elderly woman who’s settled a community around a mountain rumoured to be radiating with holy energy, and the strangers coming from far & wide to seek help or treatment for all sorts of problems or conditions.
We were out there for two weeks and lived among the community for that period of time (sleeping in a general dormitory with freshly cut sheep skins occasionally rolled around people in the beds next to ours), ate a lot of freshly sacrificed lamb, drank tea about 14 times a day, used refreshingly basic ‘facilities’ and also homemade saunas… Very nice team to work with, and a few excellent situations & encounters that will stay with me for a long time. I only wish my Russian (let alone my Kazakh) wasn’t just limited to Da, Niet, Spasibo, Horosho, Kagdila, Priviet, and the odd bit of swearing…!
One Night in Istanbul is being released exclusively in Odeons across the UK and Ireland on September 11th 2014, after a World Premiere and launch event on the 10th in Liverpool.
It was filmed in Liverpool and Istanbul in 2012, and stars Paul Barber, Stven Waddington, Lucien Laviscount and Samantha Womack.
Look out for it in cinemas throughout the country and go check it out!
Soundsfrench v1.0 is now LIVE!
Welcome, stranger, feel free to have a wander around.
The Credits section will give you an up-to-date glimpse at my work.
I will also post the occasional blabber in this blog section about jobs overseas, great locations, interesting sounds, etc…
Thanks for coming around here, hope you enjoy the visit!
Ludo