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Thank you for playing such a key part....

Elsewhere:
You would think, wouldn't you, that with all the awards shows we work on we'd be utterly cynical about the whole thing....and you'd be right. So how come we’re so chuffed to find that something we had a hand in has received a couple of gongs?
It was called "The Beautiful Game" and it was a ballet. About football. Not a combination of words you hear very often (especially after the World Cup - a more likely phrase is ‘Big Girls Blouse’), and synchronising an animation to a man throwing a woman in the air is something not easily forgotten!
It went well on the day, despite the usual frantic last-minute programming and editing, inserting extra bits after the last rehearsal, etc. ..and the Guardian obviously liked it, since they gave it an Innovation Award.
Not that we have to clear any space on the shelf, or anything...too far down the food chain for that. Still, when most of our stuff is forgotten the moment it's over, it's a nice warm feeling - which probably explains why there are so, so many awards shows! Later we heard that the same project won a Cannes Lion Award - no idea what that is, but it sounds exotic!

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Debit cards, chocolate and trade unions,
gardening and women’s football...

Flexible Friends...

A ‘digital agency’ called us because they keep being asked for PowerPoint presentations and templates, and it’s not really their bag. Having done one for them - whizzy (by Powerpoint standards) animations for a debit card sales pitch - there are now several more in progress.

Chocolate....

The food giant Mars take their social responsibility seriously: groups of their staff go out every summer and paint community centres, do gardens at schools, that sort of thing. Jonathan spent a fortnight following them around with a video camera, the plan being to show their colleagues what they’d been doing and encourage more people to join in.
Especially pleased to film them building new climbing toys at the Thames Valley Adventure Playground, where children with Special Needs can have fun in safety: Jonathan’s youngest son Ben is a regular there.

Out-Of-Vision....

Jonathan’s done lots of live voice-over this year, for clients including freight forwarders, women footballers, plasterers, home carers, travel agents, the World Cup trophy...

(chuckle moment at the Travel Agents: presenter stops in mid-script and says “what time is it?” Jonathan opens mic and tells him. Presenter says “Thanks, voice! Funny about that voice, y’know - when you meet him (puts on silly high voice) - he talks like this!”)

They’re better than the England men’s team....

The Women’s Football Association’s annual awards happened at Wembley Stadium: Keynote programming and operation and live voice over by PresPro.

Trade Unions....

Meanwhile, the everyday stuff goes on: we have enough kit to run a small conference without having to rent anything - the client gets a good deal because we don’t have huge overheads and we get some return on all the money Jonathan’s spent on new toys with lots of buttons and flashing lights....It’s a mantra of ours that we’re not a rental company, what the client’s paying for is our expertise plus the tools we need to do the job. If we own those tools it makes everybody’s life easier.

An addition to our kit
Frustrated by some odd, not to say bizarre or even dangerous, awards plinths we’ve seen, we commissioned our own, and it worked so well we thought we’d give the rest of the universe a chance to use it too. Read all about it

And, a thirty year ambition achieved

Well, it’s like this: the teenage Jonathan was a huge fan of a band called After The Fire,
and taught himself to play bass by playing along to their first album ‘Signs Of Change’.

Thirty years on, a band called ‘Signs Of Change’ did three gigs last November and December, playing those same songs, as support to the re-vitalised After The Fire.....and Jonathan was
the bass player.
You can imagine the feeling....of terror!
Especially when joined on stage by After The Fire themselves for their eleven-minute
epic “Pilgrim”.

Click here and here for more action shots from two of the gigs (with thanks to Richster64)