News archive

The Age of Stupid was sent to Cannes today.  Fingers crossed...

Who proposed carbon rationing 18 years ago

Franny and Lizzie show clips of The Age of Stupid, followed by an inspiring Q&A session.

We've got to be doing something right

.. & explaining to French producers how to raise £350K

The Age of Stupid team is seeking volunteers and work experience students to help us wrap up the final stages of production. Please send a CV and cover letter to sylvia@spannerfilms.net.

Watch clips and join Franny live now in Second Life or live on One Climate Island.

To join us as an avatar in Second Life: http://slurl.com/secondlife/OneClimate/128/128/26

Our drama shoot with Pete Postlethwaite made it onto Channel 4 News last night , alongside mentions of Leonardo Dicaprio and Al Gore's eco docs.

We're showing the film in London on Feb 25th. Any potential investors very welcome. Please contact Lizzie  07789 862 011

Composer Chris and our very own Age of Stupid Orchestra have spent two days at Devas Recording Studios (thanks Johnny ) recording a wonderful score for the film.

Double page spread about the film in a movie mag, with embarrassing photos aplenty.

Surely the most thrilling 24 hours of all time, filming an A-list actor in a carpet warehouse in Willesden.

Carpet warehouse + set builders, drivers, lighting crew, 10,000 pounds of props & two production designers = The Global Archive of 2055.

Location			Set Builders and Lighting Crew
Over-night Accomodation			Production Designer David
The props arrive			David
Last minute changes			Catering

Design, prepare and assemble set; tick.

London street artist gives his permission for us to include one of his pictures in our set.

Pete will use graphic designer Taiyo's interface design to watch 'archive' films from 2008.

Anyone want to buy a fibreglass Easter Island statue after the shoot?

Where should our old man of the future live? A disused hospital in Hackney or huge carpet warehouse in Willesden.

Location One: Hackney

Location Two: Willesden

Director Franny and Drama Production Designer David

The RNIB made a lifesize replica of Rodin's Thinker for an exhibition and have kindly agreed to lend it to us for our set. Also just heard that a certain fantastic modern artist might lend us an original painting.

Signed up Production Designer, David Bryan. Now got to find some Easter Island statues, Rodin's Thinker and a pickled Zebra.

Heavy Metal band meeting to write new track for the film.

Entertainingly embarrassing article in this week's Ham & High.

Signed up DOP, Lawrence Gardener, Camera Assistant Dan Shoring, sound man Ron Bailey and 1st  AD Paul Judges.

Carbon Rationing lesson from Franny's first boyfriend, who happens to be a carbon trading expert. Followed swiftly by a directing master class from Bruce, who is sadly now going to be filming a BBC drama in Jordan on our shoot day. Eek, who's going to direct?

Signed up costume dept Heidi Miller and makeup / hair Astrid Kearney.

Leeds-based Peter Richardson, fussy vegetarian Steve Cassar and East London rocker James Feeney are all fresh on the Crude team.

Signed up an internationally fabulous writer to turn Franny's clunky just-make-the-point script into a subtle masterpiece. But we're sworn to secrecy about his identity.

Screened the film to ourselves at the Curzon yesterday (thanks Rob) and even John agreed that we've almost cracked it.

Our first choice, A-list actor has agreed to play the old man in the future. Tell you who soon.

Weren't we doing this 6 months ago?

Franny signs up her old band's producer, Paul Sampson, to record and mix the Crude orchestra.

We're in need of another After Effects Compositor to join the animation team. See the Jobs page.

Location scout Kate Cook has found a cracking power station which allows filming. Click here to have a look.

Despite being a bunch of immigrants, Franny-excepted, and after weeks of form-filling, we've passed the Britishness test and qualified for a loverly fat tax break.

Decided to film The Archive in a real location, rather than making a digital world for our Old Man to live in. Signed up Kate Cook to scout something suitable.

Fantastic screening at Be The Change yesterday. Mostly cos of the positive feedback, but the cash will come in handy too.  

Ace political comedian Jeremy Hardy just so happened to be in the audience watching our rough cut at the Sheffield DocFest yesterday. As he was one of precisely two people listed under "Get Comedian" on our To Do list, we immediately signed him up to the stand-up comedy bit. (Stand-up comedy bit? Fear not, it'll all make perfect sense. Should we ever finish it.)

We, perhaps foolishly, showed the first 45 minutes  at a big industry do yesterday. A surprisingly pleasant experience.

Check out new boy Greg McKneally. He's got his own studio and everything. 

Lovely local actor Rob Inglis volunteered to be our stand-in Old Man In The Future. We filmed him reading the whole script tonight, but unfortunately missed the bit where he (accidentally) snorted coffee through his nose.  Immediately cut him into the edit and proved that Old Man is going to work tonnes better than Annoying Kids.

The Documentary Channel interviews Spanner Films' Franny as they're playing both McLibel and Drowned Out this week.

Franny's been banished to a friend's caravan by the sea to re-write the script.

Fascinating insights from George Marshall, founder of Climate Denial,   who's been studying the psychology of climate change.

"You think documentaries are made by fakers? Read the Crude Diaries and see that you're wrong (well, in this case anyway)." Channel 4's FourDocs hearts Crude.

The future of the species is in our generation's hands, said George Monbiot, in the interview he did for Crude today.  Blimey.

"Franny Armstrong is seeking a second capital injection for her latest global project. " Crude article in Netribution.

As is the way with Crude, any relatives with any relevant skills, are cajoled to join the Crude circus. So David-the-editor's brother Peter is now making us a 3D graphic showing the formation of oil.

Martyn floods London, sets fire to Sydney, melts the Alps, heats up the Taj Mahal and covers Las Vegas in sand. All in one afternoon. Now he has to smooth over the lines and find some compositors to add bits of moving video in to trick the eye into thinking it's real. Ish.

Our archive researchers' burrowing begins to produce results - we can use a clip from Walking With Dinosaurs in our evolution-in-20-seconds sequence. Well done Beth and Paul.

Fantastic young animator, Dan Haskett , fresh out of college and immediately signed up to make the wasting energy animation. There'll be no sleep till Xmas for him.

Drama script totally rewritten this week and now stars an old man in the future, rather than two annoying kids. Franny's dad roped in to play him in a test run. 

130 friends, family, crew and funders (most in two or more of those categories - Franny's dad in all four) watched the Crude rough cut on the big screen today. And then didn't hold back with their opinions. Very painful it was too. 

Funny little feature about the Crude equipment in Sony trade mag. Strictly for filmmaking nerds.

The Autumn edition of Positive Youth News promotes the search for Crude investors.

Got our boys installed on three computers at  Passion's workhouse in Soho today. They've got nine weeks to make nine minutes. 

Plane Stupid co-founder Leo Murray happens to be studying animation at college and is definitely the man to make our opening sequence. John Munro is onto designing The Global Archive, final storage place of all humanity's achievements.

The very same day we first meet, Martyn's sends his first photoshop efforts through. Looks like something you'd see at the cinema.

"The director of McLibel, is making a new genre-busting film. Crude is big, ambitious and probing." Friends of the Earth love Crude.

Yahey. McLibel  has been picked as one of only two UK docs in the BFI's  "Ten Documentaries Which Shook The World" season. The other being no less than Michael Buerk's Ethiopia report which led to Live Aid. The season also made it to the front cover of Sight and Sound. Very exciting for film buffs.

Has been proving tricky to persuade a top-of-the-pile animation director to work for three months for Crude slave wages, but Martyn Pick eventually fell for our charms. Or for the chance to get his work onto the big screen.

Wahey, Crude's first press article in the British Film Magazine. "Fingers crossed for the fund raising. Meanwhile, documentary fans wait breathlessly while, presumably, oil execs quiver at the prospect of a McLibel-type grilling."

They hesistated a while, but the BBC have now followed ITN's lead and given us access to all their archive for a ridiculously small amount of money. How we're going to wade through 10 squillion tapes, I know not.

July - September: Editor David and Director Franny lock themselves in a small room for eight weeks for the 7th editing session. Will they ever finish the film?

After three weeks of round the clock shifts - and with enormous thanks to the lovely Torchbox, who made it for free to support the film - Crude finally has a website.

Oscar Wright onboard as storyboard artist.

Franny and Lizzie spend three eventful nights in a tent at the Hay Festival, along with three eventful days running around trying to film interviews with Eric Hobsbawn, George Monbiot & Jeremy Leggett.  

Script problems alleviated by the arrival of Emily James, the filmmaker behind "The Luckiest Nut In the World".

Our documentary seems to have morphed into a documentary-drama-animation hybrid. As we have no idea how to shoot drama, Franny signed up her old pal Bruce Goodison to do the honours over a game of tennis.

Enthusiastic music clearance specialist Daniel Cross almost fell off his chair when we first showed him our  music wishlist. Shakira, Abba, The Smiths, Frank Sinatra, what could be easier? Bless him, he still took the job.

Extra-keen volunteer Sylvia's dreams come true: she will now get paid to file receipts, cycle round London picking up equipment, transcribe interviews, back up tapes, cook vegetables, empty the compost, feed Franny's cats and dress up as an environmental refugee.

Negotiated a brilliant all-in deal at The Farm today. They will do a whole month's post-production - conform, grade, record narration, tracklay, mix, even some special effects - for only slightly more than we paid for two days sound mixing of McLibel. Yippee.

Decided not to fly home and recuperate between filming trips to Nigeria and India. Less emissions, but far more stress.

One of our lovely stars accidentally suggested a new title for Crude mid-interview yesterday.  Whaddyallreckon? See our Q&A

Couldn't resist a New Orleans jazz club scene to accompany Al 's "consumerism aint the stuff of life" realisation. Good job we didn't think through the implications: two sound recordists, a steadicam operator, a trumpeter, a singer, a bass player, a drummer, a keyboard player, permission from the club owners, clearance from the composers and 45 release forms for the audience. But with Lizzie's organisational skills and Franny's dictatorial tendencies, we pulled it off. Two days later, it looks and sounds absolutely brilliant.

ITN Source want to get their archive into high profile feature documentaries so have agreed to an incredibly cheap all-inclusive just-for-Crude deal. Unlimited access to ITN, Pathe, Reuters and Fox archive. Burrowing here we come.

Piers (Mr Windfarms) and Fernand (French mountain guide) coincidentally meet on a glacier in Chamonix and we attempt to film them chitchatting about climate change after hiking vertically for eight hours with three tonnes of camera equipment.

I have a feeling there's one out there which will solve the animation/overall message question.  See the Q&A page to have your say.

32 long, difficult days in Amman, but we came away with a complete final story, starring our final characters, Iraqi refugee kids Jamila and Adnan .

Where's the biggest-maddest highway junction? See our Q&A page .

Anyone got any ideas for our latest conundrum...?  See our Q&A page .

After 6 fretful days in New Orleans, Shell paleontologist and hero of Katrina, Al Duvernay, became the 5th Crude character. Paleontologist and hero of Katrina , Al Duvernay

Signed up Tamsin Allen from Bindmans today. Her legal brain saved us from lots of trouble in the McLibel era, so thankfully she's up for doing the same for Crude. At much reduced rates, bien sur.

Nigerian wannabe medical student Layefa Malin

Full house at our second Funding Event. Screened the trailer, did some chat and raised £37,500. Should keep us going for six months or so.

First time round each "share" in Crude cost £500. Now they're £5,000. Does anyone have that kind of spare cash? Will they give it to us tomorrow?

An intercutting Christmas-day scene with all five of our characters would be good, yeah? So this year Franny is filming Fernand in France and Lizzie is with Piers & Lisa in Cornwall. Next year we'll film another two characters. Time off, who needs it?

 Climbing Mont Blanc on your 79th birthday?!? Took a while to find him, but Fernand is definitely our man.

Signed up McLibel editor David Hill for Crude today. Only problem is that he's very expensive. But explained the concept of all the crew owning shares instead of getting paid normal rates and he seemed to agree. 

Put an ad in the local Morzine newspaper looking for someone to go to our box on the ski slope three times a week for a year. Yvan was far and away the best man for the job.

Working on a tight budget, should we be trying to cut our costs as much as possible, or cut our carbon emissions?  See our Q&A page.

Seemed like we trawled through everybody working in the UK wind industry, until we struck gold with Piers & Lisa.

We love it. Two people fighting over the last £500  share. But they managed not to get physical - tossed a coin instead. Very civilised.

Jeh is planning to get a million Indian people off the trains and into the skies.

Been talking about the animation for, ooh, several years now. But today it started to become a reality. Tho there seems to be a hell of a lot of jargon to learn before we can get started.  Do we want 3D, 2D or two and a half D?

Only met the first star of Crude - our lovely French mayor - two weeks ago, but now we're off to film his daughter's wedding up a mountain.

Bought an HDV camera yesterday. Set off to Paris air show on first Crude filming mission today.

Moved out of Franny's front room today - into a spare room in her stepmother's flat. Is this progress? Or regression to childhood?

Lizzie whittled down 87 applications and chose Maya, James, Sadaf and Charlotte to be the Crude research team.

Looks like our cunning funding scheme might just work, as we raised 17,500 pounds at our Funding Evening last night. Got to be easier than six months kissing commissioners' asses. 

One Off Productions is up and running. Now, let's make that film.

After failing to get any of the 300 media jobs she applied for after arriving in England from New Zealand, Lizzie  stalked Franny on the internet, volunteered at Spanner for three months and then agreed to give up playing hockey and having any kind of social life to take on the job-of-a-lifetime: co-producer of Crude.

Signed up John Battsek as Producer today. Fantastic to have a proper industry type person on board. And an Oscar-winner to boot.

Franny thinks of an idea for a film and the next five years map themselves out alarmingly