THE MOB FILM COMPANY EXPANDS NORTH
14th May 2008
Press Release
Commercials production company The Mob Film Company reveals that it will move its northern headquarters from Leeds to Manchester this summer.
In its 10th year in London, the Leeds move to Manchester follows a successful 3 years there and as part of the expansion, Mark Collins also joins as Senior Producer, formerly of The Gate Films.
Whilst the Leeds office is set to remain open to service existing clients in the area, from July the bulk of its operations will run out of a new, flagship Manchester base.
John Brocklehurst, Managing Director of The Mob Film Company, explained: “We have clients in Manchester and we do a lot of our shooting there so it’s something we’ve looked at for a while. It just feels like the right time to make the move. You’ve only got to look at how much attention there’s going to be on the place when the BBC move up and we’ll have a head start on that.”
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Hogfather Scoops Second BAFTA
24th May 2007
Press Release
Hogfather picked up its second BAFTA award on Sunday when Aidan Conway, Giles Pooley, Rod Brown and Ian Sharples were awarded the prize for ‘Interactivity’. The Hogfather came up against stiff competition from Dispatches (C4), The Big Climate Change Experiment (BBC) and The Secret Policeman’s Ball (C4) in order to triumph at the awards.
The programme, which was aired on Sky One last Christmas, has thus far received high acclaim from a number of institutions. In February this year the programme won its first BAFTA for the stunning Visual Effects used throughout the film. The Hogfather has also won the Multichannel Award from the Broadcasting Press Guild Awards, and has been nominated for a RTS Award for ‘Best Drama Serial’.
The Hogfather, based on the Terry Pratchett Discworld novel, was a joint venture between The Mob Film Company and Sky One, and was directed by Vadim Jean whose show reel contains films including ‘Leon the Pig Farmer’, ‘One More Kiss’ and ‘Clockwork Mice’.
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Director
September 2006
‘First Person’
John Brocklehurst: The managing director of The Mob Film Company mixes business with pleasure
Mentor
My old PE tutor, who was a staff sergeant in the SAS. He was very supportive, a real motivator. And Howard Guard, a [film] director who was very creative. He was an inspiration for a young, working-class kid like me.
I lean on…
My finance director, Ian Sharples. He’s a non-drinking Methodist who keeps us on the straight and narrow-we wouldn’t be here without him.
Business milestone
A couple of great deals in the pipeline were set to double the size of our office and send turnover through the roof, so we opened a second office in Leeds. It was a good move, but risky.
Business nightmare
Making music videos. Music companies haven’t got a clue about production-they don’t know what they’re talking about. They want the world for very little money. We no longer seek that work.
Useful business reads
The best book I’ve ever read is a guide to Buddhism. I try not to be judgmental and take time to find my karma.
If I were prime minister…
I’d make it easier to open and run a business. Personal tax and company tax make it incredibly difficult to become an employer. People in the media industry are punished. Socialist ideals are good but in my opinion, the government’s lost control.
Best piece of advice?
Write things down.
If not a director…
I’d have been a midwife. I wasn’t cleaver enough to be a doctor but I love kids.
How do you relax?
I go to the gym in the morning (it clears my head). And I watch Coronation Street.
Leadership Icon
Patrick Hayes, chairman of Production International. He gave me my first job.
Best bits
Entertaining clients. We class 99.9 per cent of our clients as friends. I also get satisfaction from employing 20/30 people plus hundreds of freelancers.
Worst bits
The pressure. I’m never not working.
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Aesthetica: Contemporary Writing Art Music Film
August 2006
Article by Aaron Callow
Mob Films
Probably the most financially potent company on the list, Mob Films’ budgets are, by the standards of most independents, astronomical. Their commercial commissions mean that the infrastructure is there for Mob to keep making the films they love. “We’re a functioning business,” says founder and award-winning director, Vadim Jean, “but the most important thing is that we love the script.”
Jean also recognises the importance of supporting new talent. Mob gives slick young directors like Michael Williams the chance to explore their talents on various platforms. Williams directed that Pringles ad with the footballers, for example, but Mob also backed his short film and a documentary, which aired, on ITV.
Technical know-how, says Jean, is crucial for young directors, and the creative input of experienced filmmakers makes a big difference. Jean’s films have been winning awards since 1993 and, with Mob’s support, he and his colleagues will most likely continue to do so.
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BestAdsOnTV.com
August 2006
‘News’
Inside the head of John Brocklehurst, Managing Director of the Mob Film Company, UK. The Mob have worked on commercials such as Coca Cola, Playstation, Mercedes, BT, Smirnoff, Cadburys and British Airways.
bestads: the best scripts always come with the worst budgets .... True / false
John Brocklehurst: False.
You can get some great scripts with great budgets. However, you have certain brands such as Sony Playstation who realise that most young directors dream of doing one of these spots to put on their reel, and as prod co producer who has shot two of these ads then i know that the client and agency take advantage of this.
bestads: the smaller the idea, the bigger the effort .... True / false
John Brocklehurst: True.
I think that when a director and creatives have a very simple idea, they tend to want the best of everything to compensate for this fact. It makes them feel that they are being clever.
bestads: TV adverts are just like feature films, but more so .... True/ false
John Brocklehurst: False.
Absolute rubbish. An ad is selling a product or a brand, thats all it should do. Films help you escape everyday life and take you to another place in your head where you dont think about work, bills etc. Well a good film does anyway.
bestads: budgets are set in concrete, until the client comes up with an idea ..... True / false
John Brocklehurst: False.
A good agency and a good client will realise that a script is continually developing and sometimes there is a need for extra funds. I find that as long as you are honest and upfront with them, this is never a problem.
bestads: having a roster of directors is like having a large family ... True / false
John Brocklehurst: In the Mob Film Company this is absolutely true.
You all have to get on and when you are looking for new directors the first thing you think about after seeing the reel and meeting them is will they get on with the other guys. This is absolutely vital.
bestads: having a production co. that does TV, Film & advertising is like having a wife & 2 lovers (Im not sure which is which). They mustn't know about each other. .... True / false
John Brocklehurst: False.
Always be proud of your work!
bestads: the future of production is: scripts written & shot by the punters, edited & post produced on a laptop, the sound guy does the track in his bedroom, the clients wife is the research, & it gets sent out as a viral. .... True / false
John Brocklehurst: False.
Definitely need to have punter feedback and loose these ridiculous arty farty ads that nobody understands. i love ads that make me laugh and dont take themselves too seriously. For example, Sheila's Wheels, the one with the aussie bloke on the stage. Fucking brilliant, anybody you ask they know the tune, and the product and it makes them smile. Ads need to be produced to a very high standard, if a punter is watching 30 secs of tv then it need to look good. HD or film all the way. The great things about virals is you dont have to follow the ridiculous rules of the BACC, so therefore they tend to be much more creative and a bit risque. If they are any good then they will reach a lot more people in a lot more places for free!
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Shots.net
August 2006
‘On the Move’
Moves this week at Curious Pictures, HIS, Mob, Attik, Lightborne, Absolute, Lost Planet.
Mob Film has signed director Mark Knight for commercials. Knight made the ident for shots 83 and he featured in shots 95's feature on the North of England. He started out at blue post production before moving to Stink and then becoming a freelance director's assistant. He joined Elite Television in Leeds in 2003 and has shot for local bands The Dharma and Juma and DJ Blockhead as well as idents for Cobra beer.
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Adline
May 2006
Buy out sees Ward and Camponi depart PWLC
Two of the remaining founders of troubled Leeds-based agency PWLC have insisted that their decision to leave the company was “totally amicable.”
Rick Ward and Pete Camponi are leaving the company following a management buyout from the third remaining partner, John Longworth, last month.
The creative duo has now joined forces with production company Mob North in a bid to work on more television projects. The pair also hope to freelance for a number of agencies.
Speaking about the decision to leave the company Camponi, insisted that the move was something that all three had agreed on. He commented: “We felt that we had personally achieved everything that we could. We were never really at the forefront of the business anyway and found that actually fronting and agency is incredibly hard and it does take it out of you, particularly as a creative. Signing up with Mob North gives us challenges and goals.”
Ward added: “During our time with the agency we got heavily involved in making TV commercials and we wanted to more of that. It is an exciting and new challenge for us.”
The pair added that they were contracted to work with the agency until the end of last month, with the last campaign worked on before then being Skybet.
Meanwhile, PWLC has yet to announce the replacement of the team, although an announcement is understood to be imminent.
The development in a blow for the agency, which has in the past twelve months also witnessed the departure of founder Mike Phillipson to join Leeds-based agency Propaganda.
The move prompted clients Fox’s Biscuits and The Car People to move their accounts out of PWLC and into Phillipson’s new agency.
Meanwhile, rumours are still circulating within the industry and trade press that PWLC’s largest account, DFS, is on the move too.
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The Observer Magazine
May 2006
Phil Hoad
Rising Star: Michael Williams, Director
-Though the 30-year-old trained in graphic design and first made his name with ads for the likes of Playstation 2 and music videos for Roni Size, his current niche is as Mr Football.
-This World Cup, his campaign for Pringles features the likes of Steven Gerrard, Roberto Carlos and Freddie Ljungberg. He’s also directed two football-themed documentaries: What Rio Did, a 50-minute special about Ferdinand’s drug ban, and this summer’s film about Michael Owen.
-Having worked in music promos, Williams is used to amateur acting talent. Footballers are no different: ‘They’re not Bobby De Niro, that’s for sure. It’s best to go with who that person is.’
-Ferdinand was more than happy with his portrayal. ‘The situation was a bit tricky, but I think Michael shot a really objective film about where I was at the time,’ he says.
-William’s agency, Mob Film, is a practical place to work. ‘We don’t have the smoked-glass office in Soho. We’re more about putting it on film than shouting about it.’
-While the Blackburn fan is milking his current premier league status, next comes a feature film – a black comedy set in Yorkshire. No football? ‘It’s not really been by design, and I’m sure by June the football stuff will dry up anyway.’
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The Daily Telegraph
April 2006.
Andrew Cave
'Safari went wild for added value: Andrew Cave explains how filmmaker John Brocklehurst got into the big game by Thomas Cooking it’
Added value is a buzzword in the sales industry. For John Brocklehurst, however, the phrase has meaning. His best deal was a transaction where he was able to offer a costumer much more than they had bargained for at no extra cost. And he and his colleagues had a great time in the process.
Brocklehurst, 33, is managing director of The Mob Film Company, a producer of films and adverts based in Great Russell Street, London. “I fell into the industry pretty much by accident,” he says. “After a physical education degree from Liverpool University, I was coming down to London a lot to look for a job and stayed with friends of my parents.
“One of them had a TV studio so while I was looking for something I started being a runner, doing everything from making the tea to getting the cameras together. I saw everything that was going on and decided this was what I wanted to do.”
After working for that company and two other industry firms, Brocklehurst freelanced as a producer, working for Vadim Jean, the director of films including ‘Leon the pig farmer’. After a few years, he became a partner in The Mob, Jean’s production company.
Brocklehurt’s best deal came about while with The Mob when he was discussing a forthcoming advertising campaign for the travel group Thomas Cook.
“It was funny,” he says. “My best friend in the industry was hiring for a job and we were talking about the script. It was a campaign called ‘The World’s On Sale’ and they wanted to show different locations where Thomas Cook offered holidays.
“All commercials for holiday companies use stock footage and it’s really boring when you go through it all, find the shots you want and put them together. I asked about the budget, which turned out to be £200,000, and I said that we could shoot the whole thing on location for that amount.
“We shoot a lot of commercials and have a lot more spending power than other agencies. We rent film equipment, camera and lighting, always using the same suppliers. I said that we could film what they wanted for their script without any premium over the price for using stock footage.
“We could go abroad and film exactly what they wanted for the same price. We could do a much better job because no one really wants stock footage. We could film the scenes exactly as they wanted them.”
Having won the contract, Brocklehurst went on the shoot with film director Michael Williams and a production crew. “We did a safari from a ranch near Johannesburg just before Christmas in 2004 and then a night shoot of the Eiffel Tower,” he says. “It was probably the best shoot I have ever done in my life. We were flying around Cape Town in a helicopter looking at deserted beaches.
“There was one shot of an aeroplane coming into the airport that we needed and we could only shoot it from the shanty town next to the airport so we went in and suddenly we were surrounded by people with guns. There were 12 year-old kids with guns but we had someone who spoke the local language and it was all right. The people were very friendly and just wanted to look at our equipment. They were posing for film shots with their guns.”
Not surprisingly, Brocklehurst and his company chose not to use those pictures in the Thomas Cook ads but the three-week expedition yielded commercial benefits beyond giving him and his crew the time of their lives.
“Thomas Cook loved it and awarded us the contract for the following year’s campaign,” he says. “It gave them a full library on file and they sold all their holidays for that season. The figures went through the roof.” The deal reinforced several of Brocklehurst’s beliefs about sales in his industry. “It was lucky that I was talking to my friend there and then,” he says, “but it is all about relationships. If you have a good working relationship with someone, you can come up with these ideas. They were going to sit in a studio for two or three weeks, spend the same amount of money and come up with something a fraction as good as we gave them.
“It was a case of thinking of something completely different and proving that we could pull out all the stops to make it work.”
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Brandrepublic.com
April 2006
Sarah Woods
Directing Team Ward and Camponi join Mob North
LONDON - Rick Ward and Pete Camponi, the former co-founders of north of England agency PWLC, have joined recently opened Leeds-based agency Mob North's directing team.
The pair will be collectively known as RAP and will join a six-strong roster of directors at Mob North, a subsidiary of The Mob Film Company in London. The office in Leeds opened in August last year.
During his two decades in the advertising industry, Ward has risen from art director in 1985 to become co-founder and executive creative director of PWLC in 2001.
He spent four years at Poulter Partners in Leeds as head of art before setting up PWLC with Camponi, Mike Phillipson and John Longworth. PWLC's clients include DFS, Fox's biscuits, Skybet and the Rugby League Football.
Ward has worked for a number of global agencies including Leo Burnett and Publicis.
Camponi started his career at Saatchi & Saatchi and then headed up north where he worked for JWT Manchester.
He then moved to Poulter Partners as creative director and following a management buyout in 1998 from the owner, Camponi became executive creative director. He left and started PWLC with Ward in 2001.
Ward said: "Both Pete and myself are enthused and excited about joining the Mob as a directing team. "We're looking forward to the projects and challenges ahead."
John Brocklehurst, partner and producer at The Mob, said: "I'm delighted with RAP's addition to the team here at Mob North.
"Their inclusion marks a valuable addition to an already strong directing line-up and clearly indicates the positive direction in which Mob North are heading."
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Shots.net
March 2006
‘News in Brief’
Mob North-Intro Venture
Mob North, The Mob Film Company’s Leeds-based office, is collaborating with design agency Intro to represent directing talents for northern England. Intro’s directors include Kate Dawkins, Zanna, Julian Gibbs and Cook & House who have variously worked for brands and artists including Nike, Nescafe, MTV, Siemens, Dove, Simply Red, Brian Ferry and Elton John.
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Brandrepublic.com
November 2005
Julia Pearlman
The Mob Film Company strengthens team with new director
LONDON – The Mob Film Company has appointed director Steve Qua to join its team, having worked on numerous projects for Nike at Wieden & Kennedy, Karmarama and Channel 4.
Qua most recently art directed and designed logos for the Channel 4 series 'Max and Paddy's Road to Nowhere'. He was also commissioned to make a short documentary for Channel 4 about the worst table tennis team in London.
This year, Qua made a short film commissioned by the Design Council for the London Design Festival.
Qua graduated from Edinburgh College of Art and went on to join English & Pockett as a graphic designer working on television channel identities and title sequences.
In 1998, he left to join Channel 4 and became a freelance director as well as continuing to direct titles, identities and commercials.
In 2001, Qua joined advertising agency Karmarama where he worked on campaigns for Ikea, LivingTV, Selfridges, Liberty, Opodo, The Design Council and Emap.
John Brocklehurst, managing director of The Mob Film Company, said: "Steve fits in perfectly and his individual imaginative style is exactly what we value at Mob. We look forward to nurturing his talent and anticipate a successful working relationship with him."
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Brandrepublic.com
November 2005
Campaign
Movers: Appointed at The Mob Film Company
The Mob Film Company has added Steve Qua to its roster of directors.
Qua's commercial directing credits include spots for Nike during a spell
freelancing for Wieden & Kennedy. In 2001, he joined Karmarama where he
directed campaigns for Ikea, UKTV, Selfridges, Liberty, Opodo and
Emap.
Qua's career also includes stints at Channel 4, where he worked on the
idents for T4 and 4Later, as well as the Channel 4 daytime programming
launch and title sequences for Dispatches. Most recently, he art
directed and designed logos for Max and Paddy's Road to Nowhere.
