Films & Scripts

I love writing scripts and have done it for a wide range of clients including Barclays, Network Rail, CAPCOM, the Premier League, The FA, Arsenal, Sky Media, Old Mutual Wealth, the ECB and Umbro to name just a few.

I'm happy working from a brief and coming up with the initial idea, or taking somebody else's initial thought onwards - either way, I love writing scripts!

You can see more of the films I’ve worked on by visiting my Vimeo page here.

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Barclays - anti-fraud films

Over the years I've written a suite of films to help arm people against common scams, ranging from those targeting ATM users, to ones targeting the CEOs of large companies. Throughout, my aim has been to create films that entertain while they educate. The thinking is that if people enjoy the films, they're more likely to share them, therefore helping the message of the films reach far and wide.

Each film paid homage to a different style of film making, including the Peep Show look of The Courier Scam, CCTV stylings of The Distraction Fraud and the monologue style of the CEO Impersonation fraud.

This anti-fraud film challenged the viewer to play detective and spot the crime in progress. This ensured viewers stayed engaged, and by learning how the crime was committed, protected themselves from it. A reveal at the end helps those people who didn't catch all the finer details of this scam.
The battle against scams and fraud continues. The script I wrote here turns the camera on the fraudster, and highlights that they're organised, determined and professional - exactly what you'll need to be to avoid becoming a victim.

The Premier League

The Premier League was looking to tackle ticket touts (say it quickly three times!). We realised that for people looking to get tickets to see their team, the risk/reward balance was skewed. They would blindly take financial risks for the promised reward of Premier League tickets.

I came up with the parallel that touts were trying to trick fans out of their money. This soon led to a series of films starring TV magician and prankster Ben Hanlin, who pretended to be a Premier League official checking tickets at some very big fixtures - a way to demonstrate how easy it is to trick somebody when they're unprepared.

To maximise views of the films, we also visited Liverpool's training ground and got some of the players involved too.

 

Sky Media - Argos case study

Working with a designer, we were challenged to come up with an engaging and exciting narrative which could frame a story about a revolutionary new approach to media sales.

Sky Media and Argos had worked together to cross-index Sky’s viewing panel with Argos’ online sales data. For the first time, a brand could see the direct link between TV ads and sales.

The concept we came up with and the script I wrote told a story that stretched from initial TV-ad viewing through to final home delivery. The dynamic journey was powered by stats and facts, delivered by a combination of voiceover, graphic overlays and even Argos products themselves.

CAPCOM (featuring mainly zombies)

Resident Evil is one of CAPCOM’s leading franchises (and one of my own favourites) so I was very pleased to not only come up with a concept for this iteration of the game’s campaign, but also to create content across all channels, including material which became part of the Resident Evil canon.

A disgruntled employee of Umbrella (the game’s villainous corporation), had hidden sensitive material about the company and needed the online community’s help to recover it and bring Umbrella down.

Each week this ‘insider’ would release a video clue about a piece of info. Fans then had to find it somewhere on the web, using real sites and specially-created ones, avoiding red herrings and detection. Each clue led to a code, which players entered on the campaign’s website for in-game and real world rewards.

One of a series of video clues I wrote as part of a huge multi-channel online treasure hunt to promote the CAPCOM game Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City.

A video clue from deep into the campaign for this game. Would the community be able to find the answer hidden somewhere online?

 

For Dead Rising 2, I helped create a whole world including survivors and their ongoing blogs, a city’s worth of reviews, fake product ads and a YouTube TV show.

The Bacocopter - part of a series of films I wrote to promote Dead Rising 2. The series focused on four friends trapped in a basement in the middle of a zombie outbreak. Going stir crazy, the four came up with a range of homemade zombie-killing weapons, and tested them. Why? Because creating weapons with tools and tape is the focus of the game itself. Much mayhem ensued.

Animations

A catch-all title that lets me group a whole set of other films together. On each of these I worked on the concept, the script and the storyboarding - but not the illustration. I can't draw at all!

A film I wrote for Barclays to help excite its teams about an upgrade to their content management systems. The concept was that all these diverse content streams would converge to become something that was much simpler to organise and manage. And that gave me the excuse to use the Tron lightcycles as an inspiration!

 
One of three light-hearted animations created to appeal to a new and younger Facebook audience. The idea was that if you weren't seeking financial advice, you may as well be catching bubbles on your spoon, finding spiders or smiling at bats.
 
The forgotten side of the railway - freight.
 
The frightening reality that at this time, 94% of digital interactions were going unrecorded. Microsoft Advertising had the answer.
 
A voiceover for an animation that warned cricket fans of the dangers of over indulging. Jonathan Agnew provided the clout the film needed, to show that it was coming from the cricket establishment, not the fun police. The film played at grounds during The Ashes, and was seen on Sky Sports' coverage.