A new dawn for Therapy Films

Much like Mark Twain, Therapy Films would like to clarify that reports of their demise have been grossly exaggerated…partly by us, for which we are very sorry.

In fact, they are very much alive and kicking, with a Creative Circle Gold and a BTAA win for the Malcolm Venville and Sean de Sparengo directed Reel favourite ‘Kill the Gun’ recently in the bag.

The confusion arose from re-structuring that occurred during the renewal of a 10-year lease on their premises in Market Street – they’ve moved up in the world and are now on the 3rd floor - that saw the departure of partners Guy Manwaring and Mark Denton to pursue their own projects.

The new streamlined Therapy, with founder Malcolm Venville solely at the helm, has retained some unique and award-winning talents in its roster, including Colin Gregg, Christian Bevilacqua, Mick Rudman, The Shammasian Brothers and Sean de Sparengo.

Venville said of the recent re-structuring, ‘[it] has given us an opportunity to prune our director roster and return to the good old days when we were a straight-forward, no-nonsense production company known for creating striking commercials.’

Indeed, the former Reel Ones to Watch and extremely talented Bevilacqua has recently achieved recognition for his Mastercard spot and Venville himself has made waves with his hard hitting Reel Hotspot for BBC 2’s ‘White Season’.

NewsReel 19/03/08

Revolver re-load with Bruce Hunt
Multi award-winning director Bruce Hunt has joined Revolver for Australian and Asian representation. Named Australian director of the year four times for his commercials work, Bruce has also directed the 2nd unit on one of the best films of all time ‘The Matrix’. Bruce is really excited to be joining the existing talent at Revolver, saying ‘The intimate scale of Revolver really appealed to me…our values and the sense of enjoyment of filmmaking are really similar.’

Bruce’s work has included the excellent recent Toyota 'Ice Sculptures'. He is represented by Believe in the US and Home Corp here in London.

WAX on
Newcomers WAX Media were established in late 2007 and have already produced campaigns for major brands such as Mars, Universal and Harpers Bazarr, and they were behind the recent Alesha Dixon ad/music video from Ford. Their fresh, innovative and all-encompassing approach to digital advertising, integrated creative and strategic services comes from an eclectic and talented board of directors: Bob Brimson – Consultant Director of Creative Services @ Universal Music; Mike O’Keefe – Head of Content @ Sony BMG; Asa Bailey – digital agency consultant @ Saatchi NY and Grey Worldwide; Phil Tidy and Patrick Holtkamp – joint owners of commercials and music video production company Draw Pictures; and Andy Bell – Head of Production @ Draw. Their remit includes acting as agency, production, distribution and management, and they look all set to provide a serious challenge to the traditional order of things.

Allen Coulter pulls into the Station
He’s directed episodes of ‘The Sopranos’ and ‘Rome’ and recently wrapped the pilot for ‘Sons of Anarchy’ for FX; now director Allen Coulter is ready to direct some commercials through Station Film, where he has made the move from Hungry Man.

And finally…
The most famous and enduring Sea Captain of all time (well, off the telly anyway), John Hewer aka Captain Birds Eye for an astounding 31 years, has sadly passed away, aged 86. He was replaced in 1998 with a handsome, leaner Captain, but the young pretender struggled to live up to the legend and is currently on shore leave whilst Suggs does the business with his make-believe family. For the fish finger chomping (Reel subscribing) kid in all of us, here’s a trip down memory lane