We’re on a train heading back to London after a weekend with family up in Scotland. Our sister just had a baby and our mum was over from Canada to visit her new (and first) grandson. So it was a perfect opportunity to head up there.

So we have about half an hour or so before the Train gets to London King’s Cross…pretty bored…

Did we mention we were doing some concept stuff at channel 4 this year? Yup.

Ummm. What else. We did a bunch of Bridgestone boards for Daniel Kleinman. Apparently the commercials were used for Superbowl. Wouldn’t it have been great if one of those astronauts ripped the other one’s shirt down to reveal a throwing-star nipple jewel on his nipple?

Anyway, that was a long time ago.

Why is this train going so slow right now?

Now-a-days we are working with Mike and Sleepydog developing some cool ass teeveeeeee. More on that later as this will be an ongoing thing. It’s pretty fun stuff, robots and space ships. Actually we have a meeting with Mike tomorrow at the BFI if this train ever gets there.

Just pulled in at.. where the fuck are we? Stevenage? Bunch of teens on the platform. The place to be, it seems. One of them was flipping our whole train a barrage of double finger salutes, machine gun fuck you style. Ya? Fuck you too punk. Fuck you too. ~\/m m\/~

Let’s seee….That’s it for now.

A couple of weeks ago we sent a pitch to Team Waterpolo to shoot their first video. They asked for colourful, energetic and cool so our pitch, in a nutshell; Film the band in super slow motion, mid air, pulling interesting shapes on a bouncy castle (of course the pitch was more eloquently put than that…and we added pretty pictures). Sony brought us in for a meeting with the band on Thursday. They told us they liked the pitch and would like us to direct it. Done. All set. Let’s do this.

So the ball was in motion and while Factory started booking the space and equipment, we called a friend of ours to see if he was available to help. He listened to the pitch and said “I’m going to tell you something that might upset you…” Turns out he was on the set of a PJ Harvey video that Jake and Dinos Chapman were directing. They were in the middle of shooting PJ in slow motion… on a bouncy castle…

We said we’d have to call him back…

We’re just glad it’s the Chapman brothers and PJ Harvey. At least you know it will be a good video.

If anyone needs us we’ll be at the drawing board.

A lot of British talent brought home Oscars last night but we’d like to say congrats to one in particular. The great Michael O’Connor, who won the Oscar for achievement in costume design for “The Duchess”.

How lucky are we to have had Michael lend his increadible talents to The Suicide Brothers?

If you pick up Lula magazine this month there’s a 3 page spread about the short. It’s a nice piece. There’s a short fairy story by Rupert Friend, some fairy drawings by Keira Knightley, a couple of our storyboard drawings, also Michael’s costumes and Daniel Phillips hair and make-up drawings. As well as Kate Friend’s pretty photos from set.

Also we have a Brownlee Brothers Facebook page now because….well why not?

We met Toby Hyde and Paul Fennelly from Factory Films for a chat and they shook our hands and welcomed us to the Factory Films family! Everyone we’ve talked to about them say that “They’re lovely” and “such sound people to work with” and generally pleasant things like that. We’ve only been with them for a couple weeks but completely agree! They are sound and lovely and we’re looking forward to working with them this year.

Its the year of the OX! So Arran and I are preparing to vigorously plow the field of prosperity until the great super harvest party. Then we trade it all in for some magical beans. Because that’s what the OX do. Trust me. We met an OX in 2007. Her name is Keira Knightley. She, along Rupert Friend (year of the rooster) and Tom Mison (year of the dog) were all playing make believe in a short film we shot in 2008.

It happened like this here:

We’re in Budapest and Rupert says to us “Wanna direct a short film that Tom and I wrote?” Then he starts to tell us this crazy little fairy tale and the next thing you know we’re meeting with art directors and costume people and special effects people and pointing and explaining and directing a fantasticalismly imagined cautionary tale.

(Arran, Corran, Kiera -photo by Kate Friend)

The reason short films take so long is that everyone works on them for free so it’s more of a side project for people. What’s good is that everyone is doing it for the love of the work.

In February we will be finishing the visual effects for the film at MPC and ILP. Meanwhile Tim Phillips will be continuing to compose the most magical soundtrack ever scored for a short film and Caleb Knightley will be creating a cerebral sound scape. Adding the 4th dimension to the silent characters in “The Continuing and Lamentable Saga Of The SUICIDE BROTHERS“. Coming soon(ish).

The short is featured in the February issue of Lula Magazine if you feel like having a peek.

Now…You, poets of the 21st century take note; Today is the 250th anniversary of the great Robert Burns! We expect the greatest drunken poetry to spew forth on this bra bricht moonlicht nicht nicht.

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He’ll make it whissle;
An legs an arms, an heads will sned,
Like taps o thrissle.
—from Robert Burns Address To A Haggis

The AGT video we made is video of the week on 6 Music. You can listen to the interview with Nemone for at least a week on their “Listen Again” column (Monday Nov.17th).
There’s also a sweet, two (web)page article @ CGSociety about an ad we worked on for minivegas (who are wickedawesome and the ad is wickedcool). Check it! you can see a couple concept designs we did for them. It gives you a good idea of the process from concepts to final product.

That’s all for now. Stay safe! Bush isn’t out yet.

A new video for The Asteroids Galaxy Tour - Around The Bend

Ya so like…this is the video that broke bones! That was a crazy week. One day to shoot it and then about 6 days to finish the post at Glassworks. We asked our friend Ollie Barron from J.A.F.C. (Just Another Film Company)if he wanted to produce it and he said “Sure. Sounds fun”. Then we said “Cool cool…you have 3 days of prep!” and he was like “What the fuck?! You tricked me!”. But he pulled it off and even maneged to find us a tube camera from 1981 that was buried in storage at panavision.

As usual it was Diego who brought the post production magic. We wanted to recreate the feeling of watching TV when we were kids and Diego goes “What, like this?” and we were all like “Yeah maaaan!”…basically…

Hey if you like it you can apparently download it on itunes.

Arran and I went to the UK Music Video Awards last night with Steve Barron and his son Ollie, who was producer on our last video (which we apparently aren’t allowed to show you yet). Steve, who is a music video legend, was invited to present the award for best director. The award was given to Nima Nourizadeh who once directed a video where he paid homage to Steve’s Money For Nothing video. Here’s the original and here’s Nima’s. If you want to see more winners you can check out the site. All of the videos were fantastic except for the people’s choice which, as always, was a shit choice.

Adam Buxton hosted the evening and had us all in fucking hysterics. He’s a funny chap -Adam was in a channel 4 comedy with Cara last year called Ladies and Gentlemen from the writers of Peepshow. Didn’t end up getting picked up as a series because the humour was for smart people. I personally think it would’ve been a hit if they ended the show with someone getting voted off but instead they ended the episode with a hanging -which, don’t get me wrong, is hilarious but it wasn’t a decision that was voted on by the other housemates or phoned in by the viewers at home…so…-

Grant White from Minivegas was there last night. He’s a great guy. We did some concept designs for their brilliant bol commercial (you also have to check out their AIDS awareness project). Grant grabbed me at one point and said “Dude, come quick i want to introduce you to someone! Corran this is Corin!” I can see why he was exited. When do you ever get to say that? Corin had a plastic fish in his breast pocket. I congratulated him on his “best visual effects in a video” award. It’s an amazing video.

There isn’t the money to make videos like there used to be. In order to make one now it has to be favours and mates-rates and lots of dedication (sleepless nights). Even Bjork’s video for Wanderlust (which won video of the year) took over 100 volunteers working for months to make it for very little money. Amazingly people still manage to pull off beautiful, well planned works of art. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens in this industry in the years to come. Record companies and management are going to have to start forking out cash soon. They’re taking more than they’re giving and at one point it’ll bite them in the ass. We think there must be a way for them to make more money from videos these days but it’s gonna cost money to make money.

Hey listen if you want to see Steve’s film Choking Man you can catch it at the BFI.
And if you want to see the video we did for AGT’s new single you just have to wait a little longer until Apple i-tunes says we’re allowed… It must be a credit crunch thang.