Ollie Allgrove (executive producer) talk 

Today we had a special guest coming - Ollie, that works in the company called 'The Mill' (official website),  to talk to us about the industry of music videos and give us few tips when it comes to production of our own music videos. 

At first he was talking briefly what he is doing and what 'The Mill' is responsible for. 

• Ollie as a executive producer is looking after the whole production process 
• 'The Mill' is helping people to tell their stories
• 'We are artists, technologists and makers for all media, working at the frontiers of visual narrative.'
• In the whole headquarters in London there is 30 directors and 250 artists
• The movie 'Gladiator' got an Oscar award for the special effects that were made by 'The Mill' company.
• 'We make impossible possible'

As a first piece of work made by 'The Mill' Ollie showed us the advertisement for SSE company that supplies UK in gas and electricity. 

Throughout the whole ad there is an orangutang walking around in the amusement park. Ollie said that the animal was not real - it took them around 4 months to investigate the orangutang and then they made reference of the movement with impersonator.

How to begin?

Ollie also talked about coming up with an creative idea and creating the treatment. While creating the treatment: 

• It is important to think through how we want to get our idea across 
• The treatment needs to be like a voice - needs to express the passion about the idea, needs to inspire the artists and the director. 
• A lot of images needs to be included 
• Story boards are as well really important in the overall project 

As a first example of a music video that 'The Mill' created was a clip to the song by Jolene and the Jing Jang Jong. Ollie said the budget was quite small for this clip - but this is not what is important, it is still possible to create something fantastic without loads of money, the only thing that is needed is creativity. There are simple effects, moves, not as much props and it is quite short just a bit more than 2 minutes.

As a comparison Ollie showed us an amazing video for the song by Chemical Brothers called Wide Open.

It is an incredible piece of work, the idea is really modern and original. Comparing it to the music video for Jolene and the Jing Jang Jong it contains high tech effects and is innovative. Of course the budget was bigger and it is quite recent piece of work when the technology makes more things possible.