A LOVE LETTER TO FILMMAKING

I spoke with our Creative Director, Martyn Robertson, on why he loves the work we do.

What made you fall in love with filmmaking?

I actually trained in a theatre background originally, and I loved directing live performance, but the longer I worked, the more interested I became in capturing real story in a recorded form. I think the power of real story can never be underestimated.

In terms of what we do at Urbancroft Films, we enable people to tell their own stories, and we support them to be on camera or tell their stories for them using film. That’s exciting to me. The idea that you can capture someone’s raw passion for their business or their project or their event.

That’s what we do every day, and it’s intriguing to bring a set of skills to the table that supports people to help them give their best shot at storytelling for camera.

We recently celebrated our 18th birthday as a company. After so many years, what keeps you excited about the work?

Working with people always throws up surprises and it always challenges you. The live moment is the most exciting moment and the response that you get to a question might not be what you’re expecting. So you have to be on your toes as a director and a filmmaker to make sure that you’re ready for the unexpected all the time.

I sort of see my job as providing the scaffolding for people to be the very best version of themselves on camera for whatever purpose that they’ve called us in for.

Then, that translates not only to production, but it translates to post-production as well, where your responsibility is to carry that material and then present the very best version of that material for the audience that it is intended for.

That’s what gets me up in the morning, I think.

When you’re going into a new project, how do you find the heart of the story?

It’s about responding to a brief. It’s about finding the heart of something.

Often a brief can be quite stale and quite formal, and some of it can be a kind of a given for me. Some of it can be like, “Oh yeah, of course we’ve got to do four interviews and of course we’ve got to see shots of business premises,” but actually, the moment that people remember in a film is where you get somebody to put their heart and soul on camera.

You’re always looking for where that moment might be.

That’s ultimately about personalities and encouraging personalities on camera as much as it is doing what the brief says. So while we always respond to the brief and always deliver on the brief, you’re always looking for that extra thing that brings through the passion or personality in the individual that you’re filming. That’s how films become memorable and serve their purpose.

What do you think makes our company so special to work with?

We like to pride ourselves in making filmmaking a non-jargon-based thing. We don’t want to make it overly technical. We just want to make it accessible, and we want to show people the power of using film as a medium to tell stories, and the power of telling stories results in all sorts of impact for people’s businesses, organisations, or events.

We like to make it straightforward. We like to be transparent. We like to do exactly what we say we will do and hopefully more. We want people to remember the experience of making a film with us as a positive one, and call us again in the future because they enjoyed the process, and they’ve seen a real value in the product.

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BBC Get Singing

Just a couple weeks ago, BBC launched Get Singing – the biggest nationwide music initiative in over ten years. We had the pleasure to help bring this concept to life.

From interviews with Advocate and Ambassador for the programme, Jacob Collier, to mutli-cam recordings of the BBC Singers, shooting this resource for teachers was a blast!

Not only did we get to film this project, but we developed it from its early stages: Researching the songs, bringing together singing and choral leaders to build the activities, souring a location where pupils would have the opportunity to feature in the initiative’s first films, and more.

We finally edited and sent off the films, wrapping up the first installment of the series. It couldn’t be more rewarding to see such a positive response to this campaign, which is already making a huge impact on music education across the UK.

Head to the BBC website to view the films, along with learning materials and resources.

A Moment in Time

The team spent a day filming in the beautiful East Lothian countryside, capturing the working practices of Matthew Draper & Andrew Heald for their Fidra Fine Art exhibition, A Moment in Time.

Check out the two short films and learn more about the exhibition.

ACL Rupture to Return to Football

This month, The Mackay Clinic released our mini documentary on footballer Gracie Holmes, who shares her journey from ACL rupture to returning to football following her internal brace surgery. We always love working with them to bring patient stories to life!

Head over to The Mackay Clinic Youtube to watch.