FEBRUARY 2024
Artefact 3000 and Old El Paso have asked us to make an exciting new spot for them in Paris. We can't say too much about it just yet, other than it's very ambitious, very absurd and we get all the fajitas we can eat (our record is 9).
JANUARY 2024
We're overjoyed to be kicking off the new year with a project for Orange Business for Havas starring some of our favourite people. We're flattered that the cream of UK comedians (Luke McQueen, Rachel Stubbings, Ele McKenzie to name but a few) are excited to come out to Bulgaria and shoot with us. Although let's see how excited they still are after catching the 6:25 Wizz Air from Luton to Sofia...
DECEMBER 2023
We've finally finished up our short film
Wet Fish starring the incredibly talented and mind-bogglingly game Toby Williams and Rachel Stubbings. Watch it now
here (not advisable immediatly after eating).
SEPTEMBER 2023
We're very excited to be working with some nice amis from TBWA France (see what we did there?) on a new Christmas campaign for McDonalds, or as it's called over there, "Le Mackdo". That's a little something they don't teach you in the Tricolore books.
AUGUST 2023
We're going to be shooting a campaign to publicise the upcoming series of I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here with our favourite childhood paintballers, Ant & Dec. We're packing antacids, bug spray and long pointy sticks which go zap at the end. To fend off the jungle critters ... yeah.
JULY 2023
We're delighted to learn that our comedy sketch show pilot
Red Flag has just been awarded the Broadcast Award for Best Short Form Comedy. In your face Mrs Sherman from year 3 English who said we'd never amount to anything.
JUNE 2023
We've just locked the edit on our new short film Wet Fish and are now twiddling the extensive special effects and orchestral score prior to unleashing it on an unsuspecting public who have hopefully not eaten recently. More news on where and when you can see it soon.
APRIL 2023
We've just been awarded a lovely new campaign for [REDACTED], a [REDACTED] who are launching in the UK for the first time. AML have asked us to direct the [REDACTED] and have also made us sign an NDA.
MARCH 2023
Some lovely creatives at Buzzman have asked us to direct the brand new campaign for Uber Eats in France so we're off to the land of crossiants and cheese, which apparently we can now get delivered.
FEBRUARY 2023
We've just shot a pilot with Zeppotron for the BBC as part of their new comedy shorts programme. We can't say too much about it but there may be some inter-species loving involved... Exactly the kind of thing you'd expect from a family sitcom right?
NOVEMBER 2022
Having finished a long stint shooting back-to-back commercials this year (none of which are due out until January) we've decided to spend some time making crazy side projects to render ourselves less employable in future. We're teaming up with some of our favourite comedians on a slate of new shortform projects, and can't say too much more about it yet but with any luck the first one out of the trap will be a collaboration with our old friend
Christopher Bliss.
OCTOBER 2022
We're super excited to be in preproduction for another short film, this time starring the incomparable Rachel Stubbings and Toby Williams who also came up with the idea. It's one of the weirdest scripts we've ever sent our team and the most common response we've had is "you're not really going to make this are you?". Yes. Yes we are.
AUGUST 2022
Just like Josephine Baker and Jane Birkin, we've been a little bit adopted by the French at the moment with projects for Orange, Cuisinella and Aldi's Christmas campaign all keeping us busy on the sexier side of the channel. Vive le Grand Bouton Rouge!
JUNE 2022
We’re really looking forward to directing the next HSBC spot for the good folks at Wunderman Thompson starring national treasure and patron saint of nerds, Richard Ayoade. There’s nothing even slightly intimidating about telling a multi-award-winning feature film director what to do on camera.
JUNE 2022
Our friends at The Gate have asked us to direct some funny new spots for Smarty Mobile. One of them films in the UK countryside in July. We haven’t yet told them about Johnny’s allergies. They’ll find out soon enough.
MAY 2022
Some nice people at Havas in France have decided we’re the right guys to direct a surprisingly violent campaign for Orange that involves beating up a bunch of people who work in an office. We have no idea how they got hold of our HR records, but it’s nice that something positive has finally come out of that infamous "break room incident".
MARCH 2022
We have two exciting new projects. The first is a Channel 4 Blap for a new sketch show starring the incredible Kiell Smith-Bynoe. The second is a very funny commercial for our friends at Engine. The first is called Red Flag and the second, believe it or not, is for Green Flag. If we suddenly find we're filming Kiell replacing the transmission on a Renault Megane we'll know we're colourblind.
FEBRUARY 2022
We're super excited to announce that we are now represented by
Blink in the UK. We're really proud to be part of such a bold and creative roster and can't wait to get making some truly weird and exceptional work with all our new blinky friends.
JANUARY 2022
We're off to sunny Marseille to shoot a spot for Citroën with our friends from La Pac and BETC. Looks like that new year's resolution to consume less fine wine, pungent cheese and fishy fishy bouillabaisse is going to be pretty hard to keep.
DECEMBER 2021
We're never very comfortable blowing our own trumpet but our short film
Don vs Lightning just won gold at the 1.4 Awards and got
this write-up in the New Yorker. Phraarrp!
NOVEMBER 2021
Some lovely praise from the short film programmer of the Vancouver International Film Festival for our short: "My favourite film in all of the International Shorts programmes is
Don vs Lightning — which is the best comedy I’ve screened in a long time." Let's hope Academy members feel the same way when they consider it for Oscar eligibility next month - we don't want to get our hopes up but
Variety seems to think we're in with a chance...
OCTOBER 2021
We're going to be making a new spot for Funding Circle that combines our well-known obsessions with werewolves, puppets, and affordable small business finance. What are the chances?
SEPTEMBER 2021
Our friends at Karmarama have asked us back to direct some more spots for Plusnet. These ones are set to be even weirder and more deadpan than
the last one.
AUGUST 2021
Another quick festival update on
Don vs Lightning - we won Best Comedy at Rhode Island festival and are in Best of Fest compilations at Bolton, Interfilm Berlin and Show Me Shorts NZ. Other festivals we're screening at include Galway, Vancouver, Encounters, Leeds and Norwich.
JULY 2021
Well, it's July which means it's time to start thinking about Halloween apparently. Havas have asked us to direct a new spot for ASDA featuring lots of seasonal goodies so we're off to sunny Leeds to shoot a bunch of rubber pumpkins because the real things are still only the size of a tennis ball... what with it being July and all.
JUNE 2021
Our short film
Don vs Lightning did rather well at the prestigious Palm Springs Film Festival, screening in the Opening and Closing Night programmes and Best of Fest and winning a Special Mention from the Jury. More information on the film and upcoming screening dates are on this dedicated microsite:
www.donVsLightning.film.
MAY 2021
We've been asked to direct some short funny spots for American Express by the lovely folks at Dentsu McGarryBowen. And another nice bunch of people at Karmarama have asked us to shoot their new commercial for Lidl. You notice it's always the nice people who give us jobs? We won't comment on the folks who decide to go with another director...
APRIL 2021
Very excitingly we've just finished up a short film starring Peter Mullan and Joanna Scanlan. We can't post it here just yet because it's off on a little tour of some of the world's (hopefully) prestigious film festivals, but you can watch a
little teaser in the meantime.
MARCH 2021
Our friends at 72 And Sunny have invited us back to direct some spots for plant-based meat substitute LikeMeat. Now that's some much needed good karma that will hopefully make up for the
McDonald's spot we did. Although we suspect our balance is still pretty heavily in the red.
FEBRUARY 2021
Another year, another lockdown, but all that time we spent holed up in our bedrooms alternating between googling how to retrain as circus performers and gorging on biscuits in fits of self-pity incredibly seems to have paid off! It turns out we have the perfect insight to direct an all-biscuit talent show for the folks at McVities and TBWA. Now if we can just avoid eating the cast between takes...
DECEMBER 2020
We just heard that our short film
La Princesa de Woking won funniest film at the
Short Com festival! We always knew those guys had amazing taste and were not at all susceptible to bribery.
NOVEMBER 2020
We've made some more new friends across the pond! The lovely team at
Gravy Films have thrown caution to the wind and publicly announced that they think we might actually be capable of directing stuff without screwing it up. Now they just need to convince the rest of America to feel the same.
OCTOBER 2020
A gang of trendy young things at 72 And Sunny have asked us to make some films to launch a brand new drink for Fanta. The project is a lot of fun, but really we're just happy to have an excuse to get out of the house. And if selling fizzy pop doesn't count as an essential service, we don't know what does.
SEPTEMBER 2020
We're delighted to be joining brand new shiny Canadian production company
Feels Like Home. Friendly people, amazing roster and maple syrup on tap. What's not to love?
AUGUST 2020
Some enlightened folks at Karmarama have asked ust to break off our extended summer holiday and come shoot a couple of Plusnet commercials. Time to put away the sandals for another year.
JUNE 2020
We're back at work! Our friends at JWT have coaxed us out of lockdown to shoot some commercials for Duracell. Of course whenever possible we'll all be staying two metres apart, and just to be on the safe side we've invested in those rubber hazmat suits from
Naked Gun.
MAY 2020
We've just launched
La Princesa de Woking to some lovely feedback and the occasional xenaphobic remark.
This write-up in the Guardian made us want to jump for joy while the comments below made us want to jump off a cliff. Seriously Guardian readers, what the fuck?
APRIL 2020
Hmmm. Not much going on this month. Things are weirdly quiet. At least the sun is shining. If it wasn't for this cough we'd take the family for a lovely day-trip to Castle Barnard. Maybe we'll go anyway.
MARCH 2020
Rockfleet and 2LE Media have asked us to shoot a taster for a new Channel 4 show with the very funny comedy duo
Egg. Now all we have to do is find a way to make it look like it belongs in a big budget Friday Night slot, while shooting it for less than the price of a Mars Bar.
FEBRUARY 2020
We've just finished a
new campaign for Veg Power through Adam & Eve DDB. "Yes, we can definitely help you convince children to eat their vegetables" we lied confidently, whilst trying not to think of our own anaemic beige-food-only offspring.
JANUARY 2020
We just heard that we won a Clio for Direction for our AA Charitable Trust
Drowsy Driver spot. Do we deserve all the hype?
Judge for yourself.
DECEMBER 2019
A gaggle of dashing, devil-may-care disruptors from Tiger Aspect have asked us to direct a pilot for a brand new show featuring some rather disturbing new technology. We can't spill too many beans so we'll describe our favourite bit of it using only every third and forth word: REDACTED REDACTED Barak Obama REDACTED REDACTED pistol-whipping REDACTED REDACTED frozen shrimp REDACTED REDACTED borderline defamation. We'll let you know more about whether we're going into production or prison in due course.
NOVEMBER 2019
We just shot a short film! Starring Peter Mullan, Joanna Scanlan, Stephen McCole and Amit Shah. It was an exciting if brisk stint in Scotland and will be cut and hitting the festivals in the new year. More news here when we have it.
OCTOBER 2019
We've just shot a nice film for the guys from The Corner for Travel Republic. Shame the beach set was only a green screen in Acton.
SEPTEMBER 2019
We're thrilled to have a new agent! The incomporable Hugo Young at Independent will now be getting all the junkmail that used to come to Pier.
AUGUST 2019
We're going to be directing a new film for CBBC promoting their Own It app, which helps kids navigate the perils of the internet and promises to help them become nicer people. These guys don't know our kids...
JULY 2019
We're super excited to announce we'll be shooting a short film later this year, starring the incomparable Peter Mullan. Don't want to let too much out of the bag right now but watch this space for more details.
JUNE 2019
We're excited to be shooting a little introductory video for Tom Rosenthal's Edinburgh show this year. It's going to be very glittery....
MAY 2019
We're going to be working for the Man. Some nice people at Adam & Eve DDB have asked us to direct a new campaign for Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. Let's all just assume we got the job fair and square and we're not working off some irregularities in our tax returns.
MAY 2019
The folks at Shiny Button have asked us to direct a Channel 4 comedy pilot for hilarious character comedian Colin Hoult in the formidable persona of
Anna Mann. As s/he's one of our favourite funny wo/men, we were only too happy to say yes. And also a little too scared to say no.
APRIL 2019
Some funny guys at the BBC have asked us to direct a sketch show pilot for them. We're really thrilled to be working with
Ali Shahalom and Aatif Nawaz and are going to do our best not to screw up.
MARCH 2019
We're really excited to be making the first ever adverts for Monzo. Yes they're a bank but they really don't want to be seen as evil. We'll do our best...
MARCH 2019
Some nice chaps at Iris have asked us to help them advertise Precision One Contact Lenses using one actress, 30 sets and an ostrich. Luckily we've
worked with ostriches before.
FEBRUARY 2019
We're delighted receive 3 British Arrows nominations.
Drowsy Driver for the AA is up for best 60 second commercial and also Best Charity and Public Service, along with
Escalator for RNIB.
JANUARY 2019
JWT have written a couple of very funny spots for Ribena and have asked us along to direct them. Ben Ashenden and Daniel Cook - two comedians we love - will be coming with us in the guise of blackcurrant farmers. A missed calling for both of them, to judge from their auditions.
DECEMBER 2018
Our pals at Adam & Eve have asked us back to shoot another campaign for them, this time for their brand new client Booking.com. We can't say too much about it, but it features a number of very wild animals and one particularly well trained camel...
NOVEMBER 2018
Leo Burnett have asked us to come away with them on holiday for a little burst of winter sun. Oh, and while we're in Palma we might as well shoot a little commercial for McDonalds. The result will be coming to this site soon.
OCTOBER 2018
We're super excited this week to be shooting a pilot for a TV/Web series written by and starring the unnecessarily talented Emma Sidi, and based on her hit Edinburgh show Telenovela. We've got an awesome cast, an overly dramatic storyline, and a bearded stuntman in a dress... Should be good!
AUGUST 2018
The nice folks at Grey have asked us to direct a new spot for Lenor Unstoppables with one of our favourite comic performers from across the pond, Tituss Burgess. Yes we're totally going to try to outdo one another on wardrobe and sass.
JULY 2018
We're taking it as a sign that our driving skills are beyond reproach that Adam and Eve DDB have asked us to direct a new road safety campaign for the AA. All you losers drivers better watch up and learn a thing or two.
JUNE 2018
We're off to Lisbon, land of delicious tinned fish, to shoot a Christmas spot for Stella Artois. Yes it's that time of year already, and thank you Mother NY for all the extra weight we're about to put on.
MAY 2018
We're really thrilled to be directing a new campaign with The & Partnership for the RNIB, which aims at breaking down preconceptions towards people with sight loss.
MAY 2018
Some nice people at Saatchi & Saatchi have asked us to direct a new campaign for Direct Line, and we're really excited because we get to cast our friend
Rachel Stubbings in the lead. Expect something very, very daft.
APRIL 2018
We just heard we're off to Paris to shoot a new campaign for Mercedes Benz with our buddies at La Pac. We're not sure exactly which insight won us the job, but one of the scripts is about an inept father who can't control his child...
APRIL 2018
We've been nominated for a Webby!
Get Staffed is up against The Simpsons and some great content from Funny or Die but we're just excited to be included in such illustrious company.
Vote for us if you can.
MARCH 2018
Publicis have asked us to shoot three and a half commercials for a brand new product from Heineken, and we're off to 3 of the 4 corners of the world to shoot them, otherwise known as Slovenia. Hopefully there'll be a little liquid research involved...