an ailing beast that's stood the test of time well

As many of you will have seen if you follow us on Twitter or Facebook (which you can do here and here at the click of a mouse) Mr Mike Kus recently did a nice job of re-aligning the innocent website along with a rather excellent time-lapse video of the entire process, we love a bit of time lapse and we love the fact Mike chose us as a case study.



Whilst we won't be sitting down with our assessment sheets or embarking on a four hour crit of his work (a la art schools the world over), we thought it a good opportunity to share his work with everyone who may not have seen it and also celebrate our current digital home.



Our website is nearly four and a half years old and that is no mean feat in a digital lifetime. Like anything that's been on 24 hours a day 7 days a week for as long as that, things start to break. Parts of it are held together with bits of string and paper clips and occasionally it needs a good neck massage and the odd kick up the backside.

It's fair to say our site is an ailing beast that's stood the test of time well and we love it to bits.

So in the coming months our current site will be sent on an intensive spa-day and under go some serious digital restructuring. The architects are in and the blueprints are being drawn up. Whilst this won't happen overnight we'll make sure we check in with you on a regular basis as to where we're at.

Hard hats and steel toe caps on site at all times please.

a special film makers' workshop

Saturday 19th Feb, 2011.

For many, this will go down as the day when it rained a lot, or as the weekend where they had a particularly tasty croissant for breakfast.

But for me, Sat 19th Feb will be marked as my favourite day at work. Ever.

A few weeks ago, we blogged a post inviting people to come along to a special film makers' workshop here at Fruit Towers. 60 soaked, but surprisingly chirpy, budding film makers came through the doors of the Towers on Sat for a very special workshop with Ben Wheatley - film director, funny man, and chap who made our advert.

  

With beanbags and biscuits, and a Wizard of Oz style presentation from up on the balcony, Ben shared some of his top tips for film making, ranging from how to use storyboards effectively to the importance of time management in directing.

We'll let you into a secret...the number 1 rule of film directing?

Never, ever sit down.

 

In the afternoon, our budding film makers were set loose to create their own 30 second mini movie superhero movie, armed with Ben's tips and a no expenses spared* film makers' kit.

 
*this may not be strictly true

They looked up for the challenge, so we threw in additional angle of artistic opportunity/anguish and gave them each a genre or theme for their mini movie, ranging from slasher horror to circus chic.

They spent a bit of time brainstorming...

 

...and then the magic started to really happen as the gaffa tape came out, the fishwire was attached, and a selection of Fruit Towers' finest random props were put to excellent use.

 

The result? 9 truely excellent films watched with lashings of popcorn that had us in stitches.

 

Check out some of the results, and find out how you can get involved in our mini movies competition here.

Thanks so much to those of you who came down for the day. We'll be smiling about it for a while to come.