Ethical Theory (2014)

A three part series of short educational films covering Meta-Ethics, Kantian Ethics, and Situation Ethics.

In many ways this was the toughest series to edit in a while. The challenge was to visualise complex philosophical theories - which are relatively straight forward to explain on the page in words - but which are very tricky to illustrate. However, we succeeded, and this time we also used specially commissioned artwork to help us bring these complex ideas to life.

Below you will find more information about the series, including video clips for each film.

Click "READ MORE" below to continue...

Life After Death (2013)

A five part series of educational short films covering the various philosophical theories and perspectives on the subject of Life After Death.

In part it was quite tough to visualise something which, generally speaking, you cannot experience in such a definitive way as to come back and tell everyone about it. Indeed, the nature of life after death - or if it even exists - is the subject of much varied opinion. The most interesting segment to create, for me, was a sequence detailing the story of the 'Enfield Poltergeist'. Similar to the third film in the Problem of Evil series, in which we shot a segment based on "The Brothers Karamazov" by Fydor Dostoyevski, we had to craft a piece in a short time with just what we had around us - and I'm very pleased with how it turned out.

Below you will find more information about the series, including short video clips from each film.

Click "READ MORE" below to continue...

"Sleb" is now available to buy!

"Sleb", my first novel, is now available to buy worldwide via Amazon for Kindle, or the Kindle App (for Apple, Android, and Windows Phones, Tablets & Computers - the App is free to download).

BUY ON AMAZON UK:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sleb-Nick-Thomson-ebook/dp/B00L7BV6R2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1403517455&sr=8-1&keywords=sleb+nick+thomson

BUY ON AMAZON US:
http://www.amazon.com/Sleb-Nick-Thomson-ebook/dp/B00L7BV6R2/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1403517591&sr=1-1&keywords=sleb+nick+thomson

Or visit your local version of Amazon and search for "Sleb Nick Thomson", but please note that "Sleb" is currently only available to read in the English language.

Want a taste? View the video trailer for "Sleb" here:

Music by Alex Vegas.

Or preview the first three chapters when you view the Amazon links.

Click "READ MORE" below for more information on "Sleb"...

Currently working on "The Racket"...

Over this dingy, dark, winter period, one of the projects I'm currently working on is editing a new documentary called "The Racket". It's kind of a tie-in to this year's 100th anniversary of the start of World War One, but looking at the conflict - arguably the first war to be fought on an industrial scale - from a financial and political perspective. While good men were fighting on the battlefields, who was enabling (and paying for) this endeavour behind the scenes? "The Racket" explores this topic.

Check out the official website HERE, and watch a portion of the film.

"Brother of Mine" (2013)

"Brother of Mine" is a short dramatic film in which Sean Connell ("Skinner") plays Thomas, a man seeking revenge in the long-running wake of a family tragedy.


Click "READ MORE" below for more information on the film...

The Problem of Evil (2012)

This five-part series of educational films, aimed at 16-18 year old students of theology and religious studies, discusses some of the complex ethical issues surrounding one of the biggest questions: if there is a God, why is there evil in the world? Examining various theodicies linked to the topic, The Problem of Evil has one central evil at the heart of it – to help tie everything together – and that is the Holocaust, represented sensitively-but-honestly with stunning archive film.

 

The main four films (which I shot and edited) provide the in-depth starter knowledge to help inspire and sustain informed and passionate debate within the classroom, while the fifth film (for which I wrote the script and edited) provides an optional brief history of the Holocaust, from the election of Adolf Hitler, through the end of World War II, and beyond to the present day.

 

Editing this series provided some interesting creative challenges (as evidenced in the third video clip below), not only in continuing to produce visually-arresting educational films that didn't resemble the staid affairs I remembered from my own high school days, but also in sensitively dealing with tragic subject matter – most specifically the Holocaust. The main four films all exhibit sequences relating to the subject, but the key was to not push too far with the footage, while maintaining an honest and educational approach to the material.

 

However, we also felt that it was important to provide an optional extra on the DVD – the aforementioned The Holocaust: A Brief History – which fully lays bare the horrors of those events in a truthful manner that avoids audience manipulation. It isn't required viewing in a class room, but teachers have been provided with the choice to show it, or alternatively utilise the script (provided on the DVD with comprehensive teacher's notes).

 

Once again, by working on an educational DVD, a challenge was offered to create strong and interesting visual representations of the complex theological issues and ideas being put forward by the narration. I was able to tweak and improve upon previously used techniques, as well as try out some new ideas across all the films, to keep the presentation fresh and absorbing.

Click “READ MORE” below to watch preview clips of all five films featured in The Problem of Evil, and see what people think of the films themselves...

Obscura (2012)...

This experimental short, about someone who may, or may not be, a Crime Scene Photographer, was inspired in-part by Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 film Blow-Up, as well as the book Another Way of Telling by John Berger and Jean Mohr.

The main theme of the short is the idea – as proferred by Berger and Mohr – of the clash between the photograph, and the memory of the moment that the photograph resembles, as well as the connection between the camera lens and the human eye.

 

 

The film is pieced together from a variety of disparate fragments of footage and photographs that I have gathered over many years on different formats. In addition to newly shot footage and images, there are pieces of footage originally shot for other projects from years passed by, as well as photographs (and light-sensitive photographs) dating back to 1999. Stylistically the film is a sort of 'visual collage', that combines the new with the re appropriated old, which speaks to further themes of the short – namely the idea of fragmented memory, how a picture is not viewed in the mind's eye as a whole, but rather in individual elements that make up that whole picture. For example – an alleyway is broken down into key images: the height and close proximity of the surrounding buildings which created the alleyway, the old exterior light on one wall, and the tangle of steel and barbed wire atop the locked entrance to the alleyway.

 

 

The idea for the film initially came about when I dug out from a drawer, an old stills camera that belonged to an uncle – a Zeiss Ikon Contina I from the 1950s. I drew intrigue from the classic styling of the device, as well as the mechanical consistency of the lens, shutter, and winding operations, which ultimately fed not only into the editing of this strange little experimental short, but also the underlying ethereal plot.

 

 

View the film embedded below, or directly via my YouTubeChannel HERE.

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Abortion: Ancient & Modern (2011)...

This project (three films between 15 and 20 minutes each) was a chance to further build upon my previous experience with educational DVDs, and what I've done with them in the past. Being on the topic of abortion, which is a difficult thing to represent on-screen, due to its controversial nature but also in terms of a concept - it's incredibly hard to be literal about it (due to a lack of footage, but also not wanting to get exploitative and visceral), so I had to develop a more metaphorical and ambient approach to the visuals.


On previous educational DVDs we used a lot more Public Domain 'Public Information Films' (PIFs), but here it wouldn't have worked, so combining modern day stock footage and photos with more ethereal elements such as water, smoke, and light, in our own established style ("video collage" as I often put it), proved to be a successful way to present the subject - both visually and as a topic of discussion and information for Sixth Form students.


Below are some examples of feedback that we have gained, as well as sample video clips. Visit www.ethicsonline.net for more information about Abortion: Ancient & Modern.

"I congratulate you warmly on this production, well balanced and full of fascinating history. Well worth screening outside classrooms too."
Lord David Steel, Architect of the 1967 Abortion Act

"A brilliant resource. All three films are extremely thought provoking and material is presented in a sensitive manner."
Sarah Hopkins, Religious Studies Subject Leader, Bishop Hedley High School

"These films are of an exceptionally high standard. They are well-researched and ideal for discussion. Highly recommended."
Tina Hollingsworth, Westminster College

"Very insightful and challenging.... really good."
Beth Aston, A Level RS Student

Back to the 80s (2010)...

This was a project that was similar in many ways to Hereford's Got Talent (2010). Not only did it also take place the Hereford Courtyard Theatre, but it was also a single camera project - and being single camera, it means you have to be keep as focussed as possible on the camerawork as it's basically going to be two 80 minute takes cut together in the edit.


I've done a few of these sort of demanding shooting gigs now, and they do have their limitations (you are rarely afforded the ideal position from which to film, low light, some audio issues, and you have to treat it like one big take throughout - unless you're working on a two-man-two-camera team), but despite the challenge it is always quite rewarding to do. The only thing that actually bothered me was having to compress the quality of the video to fit onto a DVD - the drop in quality isn't overtly apparent, but was necessary due to the length of the edit, which was 138 minutes!

Back to the 80s was an epic musical set in the American 1980s as performed by the Year 6 pupils of three local primary schools - Year 6 being the final year of primary school; Year 7 being the first year of high school. Like with HGT, the project allowed me to have a good play around when it came to the opening and closing titles, the central conceit being to use various fonts from 80s TV and film (e.g. Blade Runner, Back to the Future, The Terminator, and Teenage Mutant Ninja (Hero) Turtles).


All in all it was a fun (if somewhat limiting) project to do (which came to me at the last minute - on the day of, in fact) and it's a good way to strike a balance between not being overly intrusive into the performance (visually speaking), and maintaining the audible sense of audience participation that those who partook would naturally want to re-experience.

Just War (2010)…

This is an educational film about warfare, from Augustine and Aquinas to Afghanistan and Iraq, covering the history and development of Just War Theory as well as its implications for armed conflict today. I used my experience shooting and editing (especially the latter in this instance) previous educational films extensively on this project, learning from past mistakes or things I’d like to change, both in terms of the edit itself, and how I edit.


Out of all the educational films I’ve put together, I feel this is my best work to date (at the time of writing). I improved my editing style, use of Non-Linear Editing software, and – as always – took care to edit tight from the get-go. I dislike cobbling things together and then doing extensive re-working – I always do a tight edit from the out-set, because if you can see how something should appear on screen straight away, why waste time getting there?


Past educational films I’ve worked on have been praised for their visual style (in addition to content), which has proved engaging to teachers, students, and festival audiences alike – and so with Just War I continued to explore new ways of making the film look (and even sound) striking. I’m very pleased with how the final product has turned out – a film that, for me personally, pushed me to further enhance my editing and organisational skills. The final film is informative, visually and aurally exciting, and sports an efficient pace.

Hereford’s Got Talent (2010)…

This was a charity talent show – inspired by the likes of Britain’s Got Talent, and The X-Factor – with the DVD creation & sale side of things handled by The Naked Creative (www.thenc.co.uk), who got in contact with me to do a ‘single camera shoot & edit’ job on the project.


Designed to be straight forward coverage of the evening’s events (a range of budding rock bands, dancers and singers from local primary and secondary schools), the project still presented its own challenges. Being a single camera shoot it is imperative that you maintain smooth camerawork throughout – quite simply because you cannot cut away to another viewpoint in the edit – but you can’t just set the camera on a tripod and film a flat shot for an hour. You’ve got to smoothly add movement and a range of shots to the camerawork as the performance takes place.


Ideally you’d have two cameras (or even three if you wanted to indulge yourself) to cover everything, but projects like this are never a walk in the park and rarely provide filmmaking luxury. Fortunately over the years I have gained valuable experience at a variety of these kind of events, that allows me to react in the moment (with little-to-no prior preparation) as unexpected things happen – and provide smooth, visually attractive coverage throughout.

The Inevitable Decomposition of Zombie Man (2010)…

In the summer of 2006 I shot a daft, off-the-cuff zombie comedy called I Am Zombie Man. In spite of its roughness it found fans in the online zombie community due to the sardonic titular character.


A sequel followed six months later that stepped up the look of the film (as I was now armed with a DVX100B) and advanced the character into realm of the “celebrity zombie”. I re-cut IAZM2 in 2010 (taking out 7 minutes), as the original 25 minute cut is a bit indulgent.


We intended to shoot IAZM3 in December 2007, but due to career developments for both Gareth and I, we didn’t get around to it until December 28th 2009. The delay allowed me to bring an additional three years of filmmaking trial, error and experience to the project. My camerawork, editing, writing and directing had all improved a great deal, and it was about time to close the Zombie Man trilogy once and for all.


Staying close to the DeadShed “literally no budget” style, the only money spent was on a few props. Further to that the shooting window was as tight as always, shooting the entire film (except for stock footage from my archives) in four hours on the only clear day during a harsh winter. I am adept at ‘run & gun’ filmmaking (particularly useful on various Arts Council projects I’ve done), and the skill certainly came in handy.


The editing process afforded me two key creative opportunities – to try out new software skills and editing ideas, but most importantly to stick religiously to a strict 10 minute time limit. Said limit really made me focus on what was absolutely necessary (and indeed unnecessary) in order to tell the story, establish scenes, and provide the visual comedy with a constant, assured beat to the cutting. I succeeded in meeting my 10 minute running time, producing a film that I’m really quite proud of, which boasts an efficient and water-tight pace.


Gary Ugarek and Brian Wright (fellow filmmakers who were behind American indie zombie flicks Deadlands: The Rising, and Deadlands 2: Trapped) very kindly composed the vibrant musical score, which put the cherry on top – boosting the visuals, propelling the film forward, and even acting as its own character.


I’m very pleased with the final product, and we achieved more than could reasonably be expected with what we had at our disposal, and in such a tight shooting window. The quirky character established in 2006 remains, going out on a darker, but no-less sardonic note, presented with camerawork and editing that boosted it far beyond its predecessors. The idea with every new film you make is to hone your skills and try new things, and I feel I succeeded on both counts with this, the third and final film in the I Am Zombie Man mini-trilogy – something which began life as a slap-dash bit of fun in the summer of 2006.

View more images (in full size) on my Flickr photostream via the embedded player, or the links list, on the right hand side of this blog.

Watch the film on YouTube via this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-45h8eDda-M

Doing Our Bit (2009)...

This was a quick project that was put together for the One Minute To Save The World competition that ran in Autumn 2009 ahead of the Copenhagen summit on climate change. Filmmakers were asked to put together a one minute long video about the environment.



Our video was based on the theme referenced in the title - the little things that everyone could easily do to all help towards the effort of making our society more fuel efficient, less throw-away in nature, and involved in recycling.



In the end our video didn't get chosen for the final selection, but there seemed to be a significant controversy during the process of picking the videos that caused many of the involved filmmakers to lodge their protest. I never really found out what that was all about, but in the end we've still been able to show this short film at public screenings and the reaction to it has been positive.


The style of the video was one part inspired by old public domain information films, one part inspired by old music show countdowns (such as Top of the Pops in its heyday), and one part inspired by the film High Fidelity. The project also allowed me to advance by filmmaking skills across several areas - conceiving a brief and sharp idea, shooting in a controlled manner to get footage that could then be edited in a snappy manner, and finally in terms of the editing process, where I further honed my skills at saying the most with the least amount of footage, inside a very tight time frame.

You can watch the film on YouTube by following this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZY55AMbyYI

Skinner (2009)...

I got an email from an actor friend of mine on a Monday (Sean - who also starred in 2008's "Signing Off"), who was going to be back in town for a week, wondering if I had anything to film. At this point I had been cooped up at home recovering from an operation, and was very eager to make a new DeadShed short film.



As such I used the Robert Rodriguez mantra for indie filmmaking - what do I have at my disposal, because it's going in my movie.



I had a few props lying around which were at the time unused (bought for another project), so that formed the basis - a gas mask, boiler suit, and two horror props (a skinned head and arm). I had a title suddenly - "Skinner" - and then I thought about how these elements (additionally a plastic sheet, garden implements, Christmas tree lights, and a dark garage) could go together.



Within 48 hours I had the script knocked together - it was going to be a horror noir - influenced in the back of my mind by the likes of Se7en and Dexter, as well as a list of exploitation horror flicks I'd been re-watching back-to-back while laid-up in bed recovering from the aforementioned operation. Added on top I placed a noir-inspired voice over (think Sam Spade meets Max Payne (the videogame that is) meets the horror genre), laden with grisly descriptions and tired-soul musings.



Come Sunday, we filmed the short (I decided to plan my shots quite clearly in advance, in a way I hadn't done before) quickly and efficiently, and then I was able to edit it together at my own leisure in moments of spare time.



"A forensic detective attends the latest in a long line of grisly, unsolved crime scenes - murders committed by the titular serial killer whose modus operandi remains so varied and vague that those tracking him have been unable to gain any traction on the case. It is here that we see a gruesomely festive tableau set aside for the detective - a tired-eyed, noir-like protagonist - replete with a note left at the scene; the product of a diseased mind that continues to goad those who seek to bring him to justice."

You can view the film via the YouTube link below, also available in High Quality:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QA0gD60edHI

N.B. Click the images to go and see full size versions, as well as the rest of my Flickr Photostream.

Gaia and Genesis (2009)...

Following on from 2008's Sex & Ethics, this educational DVD focussed on the environment from religious, philosophical and scientific viewpoints - covering five topics over five films (Gaia, Genesis, Stewards & Slayers, The Rapture, All Things Are Connected), with a follow-up group discussion with A-Level students for each of the main films.





This was a great opportunity to expand and improve on what we achieved with Sex & Ethics, and I am very proud of the final product, which we also cut together in a feature-length format for festival purposes.





I acted as editor and lead cameraman on this project.





N.B. Click the images to go to see full size versions, and to see the rest of my Flickr Photostream.