Wildwood abstract

Latest effort with my wildwood abstracts.
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Tags: kelvin tillinghast, abstract, photography, silhouette, trees, forest, wildwood, skyline, photogragh, drama, colorful picture, surreal

Shadow of the Archaeopteryx

A photo that I took that was quite literally the shadow cast by the stuffed Archaeopteryx in the national history museum.

See more in the photo gallery

Tags: abstract, Archaeopteryx, images, kelvin tillinghast, natural history museum, photo art, Photo Gallery, photography, visual

The Penguin story of ‘the’

While I was at DC interact we were asked to develop a Penguin online catalogue to replace their paper bound book catalogue that they sent to the trade. The paper editions were expensive operation because the content changed more frequently these days and digital provided an ideal solution. The problem was that this was the book trade the last bastion of paper against the tide of digital and acceptance and uptake was not going to be a digital walk in the park. So I came up with the story of ‘the’, an online/offline promotion that used an imaginative story about a word in the the book world that learns to turn her back on the traditional world of print and embrace the world of digital medium. It was to be animated online, accompanied by printed mailer to appease the traditionalists, while at the same time demonstrate that online has as much of an experience to add to a story as printed media. Sadly due to budgets and timing it never got developed; an interesting concept nonetheless.

Tags: animation script, books, creative director, creative writing, digital story, kelvin tillinghast, online catalogue, penguin books, sentences, story, the, words, writer

After the show

This was an idea for a piece of programming really intended for TV, but it has enormous online potential too. As the name ‘After the Show’ suggests it was initially intended to be a series of five minute films that that ran after a certain programme exploring what could happen after the previous show. So in the case of Antiques road show, what exactly happens to people after they have left the programme with the news that a certain item is now worth thousands or nothing? Although they have enormous online and viral potential I think it would be even more poignant if the short actually ran immediately after the actual programme itself. I felt it was something that could be opened to different writers and directors giving them the opportunity to explore the depths of television, from everything from X factor, Gordon Ramsey kitchen to Family fortunes and Newsnight.

For a more indepth explanation and other examples see here.

Tags: kelvin tillinghast, programme conceptor, short film, TV, TV programming idea, writer

Piggy in the middle

Now don’t ask me how you work this one out, but somebody somewhere has spent time thinking about where we stand in the big scheme of things, and evidently it’s bang in the middle.

That’s right, if you were to create a scale of size with the universe at its most macro state at one end and the micro world of gluons, tachyons, neutrinos or even perpetual motion particles at the other, and then plot the middle point, there you would find man, with a faint embarrassed smile on his face.

That’s right it seems we stand at the mid-point, the middle, median, medial, mean point, the centre, heart, focus, hub, or even the kernel if we decide to go nuts.

I’m sure it’s our egos that have put us there, after all we do lay claim to be able to destroy a planet, instead of just the life supporting layer that provides us with our home. There are probably other creatures, or things, that are close if not closer to this hallowed point of measure, with really cool names like the puma, nautilus or even the aye-aye.

But for now let’s go with the idea that we as a species are the chosen one to represent the mid point of measure. At latest count we number 6,749,596,284, so if we were to undergo the same detailed and exacting process we should be able to find the one person who stands at the middle point of our species. I’m no expert but I should imagine one would have to take a whole heap of factors into account and not just the bare basics of height, weight, muscle and bone density.

Of course in reality, given the ebb and flow of life, it is unlikely that this person would remain in ‘the mid’ for long. Our bodies, like the world around us, are ever changing and so there is a chance that at some point in your life you could have been, or will be, the very centre of the universe.

Maybe it was the extra helping of turkey or even the ‘waffer thin mint’ that tipped the balance; but one thing is for sure – given the enormity of the measure – you’ll never know.

Tags: average, balance, creative, discussion, macro, mankind, measure, mid-point, middle, opinion, over eating, population, science, size, universe, writing

My bottom drawer

An idea I came up for Jules Mumm champagne. It tastes so good people can’t wait for the appropriate moment to pop the cork and celebrate. Next a script for The Macallan whisky which features the AAA or ‘Angelic Alcoholics Anonymous’, inappropriate on all fronts but I like it. Then two scripts that were written for the Carling summer promotion, featured in my integrated work, called Bollywood and hot tub, plus another Carling script promoting Carling football site for the more fanatical kind of supporter.

Then there is a piece for a pitch on Becks featuring George Clooney speaking on behalf of men about women. I particularly like this because I feel I managed to capture Clooney’s delivery quite well.

Then we have another script board for a Four Roses script using a sketch I always had in my mind and the brief fitted it perfectly. A decorator goes into an art gallery to do a job painting a wall white. While in there he gets inspired by the abstract art around him and so paints his wall like one of those experimental artists would using his whole body and soul. The up shot of it is the wall is still white, the job has been done, but it was how he got there that, as the end line suggests, was trying life in full bloom.

Next we have a synopsis treatment for a TV campaign for Twinning’s tea, based on the adventures of two guys who travel the worlds tea plantations experiencing different teas, much like the film ‘Sideways’. Then we have a script for Unibet called the unpredictable can based on a scene from a Mel Brooks film involving a rather troublesome drinks machine, and a script for the Iron bed company that makes good use of a squeaking bed.

Next are four scripts for Nescafe: the first one from the arctic campaign where the guys find a mammoth frozen in the ice and decide to have a BBQ. Then two scripts for the ‘One thing leads to another campaign’ involving amorous coffee rings and a script about how a Cat gets the blame for the death of a canary. Finally a script that demonstrates how Nescafe helps morning prayer in the Far East.

Finally a script for Gintime and Greenhall’s gin that took Croquet to a whole new level. It had enormous online potential and had the capability of making Croquet cool and rebellious at the same time.

Tags: abstract, advertising, arctic, art director, art gallery, Becks, bottom draw, Carling, croquet, Four roses bourbon, gin, gintime, Iron bed company, Jule Mumm, kelvin tillinghast, mammoth, marketing, Nescafe, painter, The macallan, tv commercial, Tv scripts, Twinnings tea, writer

Birds are wild about Swoop

I was going through some old ads and came across these. This was one of those briefs that no-one wanted to work on, the client wasn’t prepared to spend any money but we had a lot of fun. Some where on an old umat I have a classic of me acting out a script that Kes Gray and myself wrote. It is an experiment to see if the Dodo really is extinct. It features me in a white coat, bottle top glasses, a dish and a pack of wild bird food. Speaking to camera I ask, ‘Is the Dodo really extinct?’ Then I fill up the dish and wait. I wait for about thirty to forty seconds, shuffling, moving the dish slightly, trying not laugh but of course nothing happens, so I turn to camera and say ‘Must be’. That was it. Simple really. All in the performance. I also had another script featuring the now dead Rod Hull, this time without emu on the end of his arm. He passes Swoop in the super market and his arm starts to behave like the mad emu and go for the packet of swoop on the shelves. Would have been fun if the client had been brave enough to make them and not go for some bland snowman animation rip off instead. Not that I was bitter at all.

Tags: art director, conceptual advertising, kelvin tillinghast, print advertising, swoop, TV concepts, wild bird food, writer

Book stuff

Here are some sample chapters from ‘Anonymous brown paper title’, about a photographer who gets a job shooting a porn calendar. Followed by ‘Love Meister‘ which I’m in the process of starting to shape into a film script.

Wildwood sky

Just been reading Robert Holdstock’s Mythago cycle. I felt that this photo I took of a large oak in the backwoods of Sissinghurst Gardens captures the feeling of power within the primeval trees of Ryhope wood.

Tags: branches, connection, Holdstock, image, kelvin tillinghast, Kent, Mythago cycle, network, photograph, Ryhope wood, shadow, silhouette, Sissinghurst, tree, trunk, twigs, veins, web of life, wild wood, wood, woodland, woodland scene

A word on bad breath

The other day while I was sitting around thinking about words (like I do), it occurred to me that halitosis is a word that has been specifically designed to demonstrate that the utterer is a sufferer.

Tags: bad breath, comedy, halitosis, human observation, humour, observation, words