Ruffells Director wins Southern Pitching Competition
Tim McInnes, director at Ruffell Productions, overcame strong opposition to win the Southern Pitching Contest held by Screen Canterbury and earn the opportunity to pitch his television series concept at the Screen Production and Development Association conference in Wellington. Tim's proposal involved a six-episode series that traces the journey of a Christchurch theatre group, The Loons, as they embark on an ambitious bid to take their highly successful stage show, The Butler, to London. At the SPADA conference, Tim will be one of six finalists striving to impress industry professionals and attract funding for his project.
As one of only two NZ travel companies granted official NZRFU mandate to organise overseas tours to watch the All Blacks' 2009 campaigns, House of Travel, through Wilson Advertsing, engaged Ruffells to devise specialised DVD promotional material. This covered three different tours: Sydney and the Bledisloe, South Africa and the Tri-Nations, and an extensive end-of-year European Tour. Ruffells wrote and produced the entire content, procuring Richard Till to front the sports-interview-formatted presentation, which featured extensive travel footage, rugby action, vox-pop clips with ex-ABs, House of Travel staff and previous customers, plus a variety of CGI special effects.
When Dairyworks new $2.5 million cheese processing plant in Hornby, Christchurch was officially opened by the Minister of Agriculture, the Hon. David Carter, Ruffell Productions were brought in to produce a three minute introductory video for the opening night launch. Footage of the production system - taking block cheese through the cutting, packaging and despatch process - was integrated with candid interviews of key stakeholders to produce video, parts of which were subsequently used on TVNZ's NZI Business programme.
Hosted in Lyttelton's eclectic Wunderbar, Ruffells are filming a year in the life of the Harbour Sessions, a bimonthly showcase for local independent songwriters. The documentary will feature 30 live performance clips from the various Harbour Sessions shows and 'exclusive' behind-the-scenes footage, including interviews with the performers and snapshots of the various characters and locations that make-up the Harbour Sessions community. These events are organised in a collaborative community spirit under the guiding hand of Harley Williams. Intended for theatrical release and DVD sales. Link to http://www.youtube.com/user/TheHarbourSessions
Ruffells produced an instructional DVD for the promotion of Ecobulbs use in the home for Energymad, who aim to lessen climate change through economical energy savings. The DVD was looped and played in Mitre 10 stores to back up promotional displays of this ecologically friendly product. A highly successful promotion ensued with sales figures exceeding expectations.
.................................................................................................................................................. Ruffells’ produced short film gets nod from Manhattan
The Game, a short film featuring a dark and watery underworld where two naked men play a bizarre board game to determine their fates in the ‘normal’ world, has been selected as one of 12 Finalists in the 2008 Manhattan Short Film Festival. Written and directed by Christchurch freelance creative John Cohen-Du Four, The Game was selected from 429 entries from 41 countries. It is the first film from New Zealand to become a Finalist in the annual event. ‘Although our stock in trade is more commercially based,’ says Sue Ruffell, ‘Ruffells have full production facilities and a great team of talented people who enjoy working on worthwhile creative projects. When John approached us with his concept for The Game, we were excited at the prospect of bringing his vision to fruition.’ The Festival programme will be shown in 115 cities spanning four continents during the last week of September. The Game will screen 295 times around the world, with winners being announced at the awards screening in downtown Manhattan on September 28th. A nice twist is that winners are decided by the popular votes of attending audiences the world over.
‘It’s a wonderful achievement by John to make this prestigious Festival,’ says Nick Mason, the Festival’s founder and director. ‘I think it is a great advertisement for New Zealand and New Zealand film.’ The Game marks Cohen-Du Four’s short film directorial debut, but he is not new to directing. He has worked as an award-winning copywriter and creative director in the New Zealand advertising industry for over 20 years, and regularly writes and directs TV commercials and corporate DVDs for Ruffells.
Ruffells have recently post produced a half hour Maori language DVD aimed at encouraging Maori language immersion for young children in the home. This project was directed by Miriama Prendergast, produced by Whetu Fala of Fala Media for Ngai Tahu Maori Language unit and Stacey Morrison was the front person.It was an exciting project to post produce. It involved us working on a dynamic opening title sequence, 3D animation chapter sequences and editing the DVD in a hard hitting fashion, reinforced with graphics and a strong colour palette
Ruffells has ventured into uncharted creative waters to produce a children's series pilot entitled The Adventures of Captain Poopdeck. Throw into the mix a large, hairy, eye-patched, slightly dim pirate called Poopdeck, Cabin Boy, who is actually a highly intelligent girl that runs rungs around her bumbling captain, the good ship Derek, Cookie the hyperactive cook, Neptune, assorted talking clams, a seagull called Desmond and you have Fraggle Rock meets The Young Ones. Conceived by Tim McInnes and Natalie Glubb, The Adventures of Captain Poopdeck is a thoroughly entertaining and educational programme aimed at children aged between three and seven years which gives amusement to adults while stimulating their offspring. It is being pitched by Tim to various commissioning programme agents in Europe with the aim of producing a series. Watch this space, me hearties!
