Minty Films news updates

Silver Award at the inaugural Charity Film Awards held at BAFTA.

The charity film awards have been created to celebrate the success of film in fundraising, to increase exposure of charity films and to encourage donations for good causes.

Two films I produced and directed last year for international development charity Kidasha were finalists at the awards. They had already made it through a public vote and a round of judging so I was pretty overwhelmed to have made it that far.

Kidasha support children living in entrenched poverty in Nepal. I spent time filming with these children and created a series of six films about each of their projects.

One of the films that made the finals followed a day in the life of some glue sniffing street kids in Pokhara and another titled, Escaping Abuse, gave a glimpse into the lives of two girls living in a safe house after escaping trafficking and persistent sexual abuse.

The awards ceremony held at BAFTA hq and hosted by Sally Philips was a great chance to see how other organisations are using film to tell their stories and promote their cause.

A Champagne reception was followed by the ceremony in the auditorium.
Our film Escaping Abuse won a Silver Award in its category. Here’s Janice, Kidasha’s CEO with the awards … and a big BAFTA.

Winning the award is not really about crediting the film maker, its about giving a platform and a voice to a small organisation doing amazing work. I hope the awards do raise the profile of some of the incredible organisations that were showcased last night.

To see the Silver award winning film Escaping Abuse, check out the showreel page or Kidasha where you can also donate. And thanks to Kidasha for allowing me to accompany Janice to the awards!

Charity, Minty Films news updates, People, Uncategorized

Thoughts from the airport

Late August 18 years ago I found myself alone in Heathrow’s terminal 4. I was 18, it had been a great year so far, Arsenal had won the double for the first time in 25 years, I won 50 quid on France winning the World Cup, I’d finished school and was about to got to Australia to live and work and learn about life. But I found myself feeling lonely and a little bit scared, or perhaps apprehensive would be better. To put those feelings to the back of head I used the public pay phone in the departure lounge to call the only person I knew who was guaranteed to pick up, and that was because they were the only I person I knew who owned a mobile phone. Rob O’Reilly. He answered, he was playing James Bond on the Nintendo 64. He wasn’t hugely interested in my chat about feeling lonely. And I only had about 50p for the pay phone anyway. It was a short chat.

Today I am again sitting Heathrow’s terminal 4 awaiting a flight to Kathmandu, there are no phone boxes, I’m charging my very own mobile phone and writing this on my wifi connected lap top – I didn’t even own a computer that time I was here! Its also been a good year, Arsenal haven’t won anything, but team GB have done well at the Olympics, Oliver is starting school and Minty Films seems to be motoring along quite nicely. But I do feel a bit lonely and apprehensive. Lonely because I’ve left behind my family, which I’m feeling terrible about. Oliver has given me one of his cuddly toys, so security have scanned “Carrot Bunny” and took a second glance at my Tupperware box of breadsticks which were lovingly snuck into my bag by the 4 year old.

airport pic — Carrot Bunny and I enjoying depart lounge!

And apprehensive because I’m going to meet some desperately poor children, surviving conditions Oliver could not even imagine. And that of course that is the point of the trip. Not to educate Oliver specifically, but to make a film that highlights some of the issues facing those in deepest poverty.

People have wished me a good trip and told me to have fun. I don’t know that being away from your family (which makes you feel pretty bad) and then being immersed with those living in the most shocking of conditions is going to either be “fun” or “good”. But its an important trip, and similar to that trip 18 years ago, its one I never thought I’d do.

Minty Films news updates, People

What is Minty Films?

Minty on the farm

Minty Van New Zealand

Minty at the waterfall

The Minty Van

Minty Films is a collection of stories, about people, about life, about human nature, captured on film.

I’m not an academic, nor am I an artist, or analyst, but I am a person, privileged to have met a wildly diverse bunch of other “persons”. I’d always assumed this privilege came to me primarily through the course of my day job. But circumstances have ensured I do a bit less of the day job now, however I still seem to encounter odd, inspirational, joyous and not so joyous people and their narratives when I have a camera to hand. So, here I’ve tried to collate some of these films, past and hopefully future, I’ve produced outside the conventions, or maybe that should be, constraints, of mainstream film making. This blog serves no purpose other than to share these stories and contain a portfolio of my alternative work and contributions in one happy compartment.

But, why Minty Films? One of the first films I made outside the constraints of the day job, on a Sony handy cam with only the in-built mic for sound on the camera, could be described as self portraiture, semi autobiographical even. But in truth it was home movie with a target audience of 2, intended for display nowhere other than the four walls of my own home.

Yet part of that film made it to the television screens in thousands of homes across the other side of the world. The original film captured the very personal adventure of life in a 1958 VW campervan called Minty, in which we travelled to the glacial peaks in the south, and the bubbling geothermal lakes in the north, of New Zealand in 2010-2011.

Then, somehow through some internet wizardry, Volkswagen happened across my very intimate, somewhat embarrassing – technically speaking – little film.

And so impressed they were, they used, (with permission) some of this footage in a television advert aimed at celebrating VW’s 60 year existence in New Zealand.

And so it struck me never has the phrase, adopted by photographer Chase Jarvis, “The best camera is the one that’s with you” been so apt.

VW long ago washed their hands of any direct links to actual manufacture of camper vans but the legacy of their imagery and its inextricable link to the VW brand hold a value that would be imprudent and rather foolish to shake off. If VW had commissioned me to shoot some material for their modern day ad, my approach would of course have been wildly different and would have definitely lacked the intimacy, spontaneity and character that made it so attractive, so useable.

Here the advert VW created using hundreds of clips from individuals with archive just like my original Minty film.

So to me, Minty Films seems a right and proper title, the Minty Film experience sums up nicely my intention with this site, it’s a collection of stories, filmed or recorded for reasons not always obvious and not always conventional and not always intended for broadcast. But important in their own right and worth a share I believe.