James sat alongside two of our favourite people today… Dave Buonaguidi from Karamarama and Curb Your Enthusiasm star, Susie Essman, in this extraordinary Advertising Week Europe-only Seminar on advertising & humour.

Hoot and Giffgaff are proud to present ‘The Chaos’, a new online comedy. The series about an indie rock band from Camden has already been described as ‘Spinal Tap for 21st century’ and features an all star cast including: Dan Skinner, Chris Kendall, Jeff Leach, Sammy T. Dobson, Tom McGarva, James Holmes and Rufus Jones. The Chaos was created and written by Hoot Comedy’s Ben Bond and James Rawlings and produced by Ben Thompson, Theresa Larche and Michael Beddoes. It was commissioned and is being broadcast by mobile network Giffgaff. You can find all five episodes here: http://www.thechaosband.com. Watch out for more new stuff from The Chaos through April 2013. Tell us what you think at info@hootcomedy.com

Hoot have been working alongside proximity to create character/rich content for the P&G supersavvyme website

Hoot have been commissioned to create and produce a new web series for mobile phone network giffgaff. Working alongside Blue Rubicon, ARM and Fallon.

We are ecstatic that Tooty’s Wedding has won the Best short film at the London Comedy Film Festival at the BFI, adding to it’s wins at the LA shorts, the Rhode Island film festival, the Aesthetica film festival and the Friars Club (amongst others). Great to win another one on home soil !

Hoot and ASOS have combined to unleash the Asossin on all those tired Christmas Cliches.

The Hoot duo of Ben Bond and James Rawlings have directed this commercial for Secret Sales. Produced by Park Village for agency Big Al’s Creative Emporium.

We are delighted to announce that our short film, Tooty’s Wedding, has been selected for the Milwaukee Film Festival. It will play at the event, which runs from the 27th September until 7th October, in the ‘Date Night’ shorts programme.

That’s a wrap! Hoot work with Lean Mean Fighting Machine and Emirates to deliver content for the new Cable Car spanning London. The content is available online, youtube, mobile app and in the Terminals south and north of the river.

The Real George Osborne has been shortlisted in this years BRAVE Awards.

The winners will be announced at The BRAVES Awards on 11 July at Vue Cinema in London.

Michael Beddoes – a young whipper snapper of a producer has joined the ranks at Hoot Towers. Michael will be working in the production team under the watchful gaze of Señor Rawlings. Good Luck Michael – You’re gonna need it! Here’s a lovely photo of Michael taken using the Justin Beiber App…

The digital agency Lean Mean Fighting machine has commissioned Hoot to deliver a series of films to promote the new Emirates Airline Cable Car.

LMFM will display the films in the new terminal buildings, emirates airline website and the new mobile app. Hoot have appointed Steve Gray, the D.O.P we’d previously worked with on the Sundance Film – Tooty’s Wedding to help bring this magnificent legacy & new landmark for London to life.

24/7 Social – Part of the Arena Media group of companies has commissioned Hoot Comedy to create an animation for one of their clients. Jim Le Fevre, Hoot’s BAFTA winning animator will deliver a comedy sketch using his low-fi wizardry.

Watch Hoot’s hilariously kitsch Jubilee film for Pizza Hut here: watch?v=XMtM8fvbiq4

Under the direction of Adam Shankman (“Hairspray”), New Line Cinema’s feature film adaptation of the smash hit musical “Rock of Ages” comes to the big screen. Win a trip to play air guitar at the London premiere and enjoy the promo produced by Hoot Comedy here: Rock of Ages

Hoot’s work finally gets a screening in our home town. Tooty’s Wedding will be showing at Sundance London at the O2 from the 26th – 29th April.

Hoot Creative Director Ben Bond has written episode 8 of Bafta award winning drama SKINS.

You can catch it at 10pm on Monday 12th March on E4.

SKINS EPISODE 8 'LIV'

HOOT’S promo for COKE ZERO featuring supermodel Bar Refaeli has officially gone MEGA VIRAL, racking up a staggering total market reach of 51,860,380 views. Woooo!

Ben Bond and James Rawlings are on a hot streak after their recent trip to Capetown to direct a new TV spot for luxury holiday bookers SECRET ESCAPES. The commercial has been produced by our friends at Park Village and it’s on Channel 4 now.

HOOT creative directors Ben Bond and James Rawlings have directed a new promo for COKE ZERO and SONY PLAYSTATION VITA, featuring super model Bar Refaeli. It’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it! The film is playing out all over North Europe and has had over 2 million views in the week since release. Get into bed with Bar and win yourself a new PS VITA before they’re even in store…

On 20th March at the ICA, Perrier Award winner James Rawlings, BAFTA nominated screenwriter Ben Bond and RTS nominated producer Ben Thompson, co-founders of Hoot, will discuss the importance of humour and drama in storytelling in a bravely titled debate – ‘advertising isn’t funny’

Parallels between writing comedy for advertising and broadcast will be investigated followed by some Q&A session with established comedy writers and performers, and some jokes.

The event will take place on 20th March at The ICA, The Mall, London, SW1Y 5AH. The event will start at 6.00pm with a drinks reception. At 6.40pm Hoot comedy will take to the stage followed by Q&A. The event will close at 7.45pm.

A busy day for Hoot’s Festival Team….

Tooty’s is off to Miami.

Tooty’s Wedding will be at the Aesthetic Short Film Festival – 4th-6th November 2011, screening details to be announced at the end of the week.

The Aesthetica Short Film Festival is a celebration of independent film from across the world. The Film Festival was created as an outlet to support and champion short filmmaking and developed from the Aesthetica Magazine Short Film Competition.

the festival is organised by the premier worldwide arts magazine Aesthetica.

Aesthetica engages with the arts both in the UK and internationally, combining dynamic content with compelling critical debate and pushing boundaries while exploring the best in contemporary arts and culture.

Tooty’s get its first outing in the Big Apple with a New York premiere. The Friars Club Comedy Film Festival (the most prestigious comedy institution in the USA) will screen it during the first Shorts programme at 1330 at the Clearview Cinemas on Saturday 15th October.

THE FRIARS CLUB COMEDY FILM FESTIVAL (FCCFF) is a star-studded celebration of the comedy genre in the heart of vibrant New York City. Known widely for its roasts and “100 years of antics,” members of the Friars Club include the industry’s top comedians and entertainers, from Frank Sinatra to Billy Crystal, and Whoopi Goldberg to Jerry Seinfeld.

And now Hoot.

Congratulations this morning for all involved with Tooty’s Wedding to date. An especially big HOOT shout goes to Ben WIllbond, Laura Solon & Fred Casella for their bold writing and direction. Hoooooot!

Hoot signed up Danny Capozzi this week to lead the design team for Hoot Animaton’s new children series in pre-production.

Danny Capozzi has been obsessed with drawing characters from the age of 6. He was the odd kid at the back of the classroom annihilating his textbooks with oodles of doodles whilst making sound effects.

Danny has worked in animation for ten years working as an illustrator, Production designer and Director on Series, short films, idents and commercials.

Aardman Animations awarded him a job as Production Designer on Chop Socky Chooks, a CGI series for Cartoon Network which won a Gemini award for Best Animated series 2008 and has just been nominated for a BAFTA 2009. Nickelodeon soon followed, commissioning Danny to direct and design Idents and branding for their global identity.

During this time Danny Capozzi has had the great pleasure of working with Aardman Animations, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Channel 4 and MTV along with a host of ad agencies based both in the UK and the USA. Danny’s Hershey’s ads have been running for the past 4 years in the US.

Improve your Schweppes Appeal with their very own master of seduction Guy Gadbois!

Wenneker TV – Our old friends in Amsterdam called on Hoot to help cast this brave little piece by Schweppes. Gerard Ban-Lavery is simply brilliant!

Schweppes Youtube Page

Schweppes on Facebook

Hoot Comedy’s Short Film – Tooty’s Wedding screens this evening.

RIIFF’s Opening Night Program will salute “The Road to the Oscars®”,” a signature theme for the Festival. Some of the best short films that the 2011 festival has to offer will be showcased. All films will be screened in High Definition Digital courtesy of the sponsorship of Sony Corporation, HB Communications and PMA Industries.

The films screened will represent an array of genres reflecting RIIFF’s unique status as the lone film festival in New England that is a qualifying event for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences “Oscar”. There are more than 7,000 total film festivals worldwide; only 65 have been granted this prestigious distinction.

RIIFF’s Opening Night screening spotlight’s the very best of our short film submissions serving to provide a taste of the breadth of subject matter, inspiration, and talent that is prevalent in the festival. This year’s opening night films are -

• Elfar Adalsteins’ Sailcloth,

• Frederic Casella’s Tooty’s Wedding

• Yan England’s Henry,

• Terry Gilliam’s The Wholly Family,

• Terry George’s The Shore,

• John Salcido’s Cataplexy, and

• Ahmet Tas’ Brot.

Rhode Island International Film Festival (RIIFF), August 9-14, announced the lineup for its 15th annual fest. This is the only Academy Awards-qualifying festival in New England.

This year’s 195 films include 18 world and 21 North American premieres. The fest will kick off with an opening-night ceremony and screening of Hoot Comedy’s short film: Tooty’s Wedding” directed by Frederic Casella, Written by Ben Willbond & Laura Solon.

Tooty’s Wedding – a short film produced by Hoot Films, written by and starring Laura Solon and Ben Willbond was been accepted into the LA ShortsFest featuring some of the best short films from the past year.

The film was screened at 3:15pm on Tuesday 26th July.

Season 2 Finale: The search for the new Victoria

A long distance romantic comedy in 6 episodes

Created by Hoot Comedy

Written & Directed by Ben Bond, James Rawlings – Hoot Comedy

Production: Wenneker TV

Agency: Tribal DDB. Amsterdam

Sometimes love is a fluffy teddy bear with open arms. Other times it is a board with rusty nails in it that smacks you upside the head. In Nigel & Victoria 2 ‘THE SEARCH FOR THE NEW VICTORIA” the love is somewhere in between.

The second season of the hit online comedy conlcudes – Will Nigel’s career crash and burn? Will Nigel & Victoria stay connected while on the move, or will their love experience a controlled demolition in the hands of Dan? Watch Series 2 of Nigel & Victoria and find out.

Nigel & Victoria on Youtube

Hoot Comedy on Go Viral Network

Steam scooped the Copywriting Award at the inaugural Institute of Promotional Marketing Awards. The Scrumpy Jack Scrumpyshire campaign was penned by James Rawlings, one of the founding partners of Hoot Comedy. The online Gazeete ran last year for Jygsaw Brands Ltd

The Scrumpy Jack campaign needed to stand out from the ‘over ice’ serve driving much of the category growth at the time and reach its core audience (AB male ‘career guys’). Aesop developed the campaign to incorporate ads in broadsheets and London-centric dailies, poster ads, a Scrumpyshire website, an on-pack competition for a luxury cottage break and a partnership with the Guardian.

All the elements used quintessential English humour and the Guardian website featured ‘Scrumpyshire’ content including quizzes and a travel report. The brand’s own website parodied a village paper, The Scrumpshire Gazette, with content updated regularly. The promotion ultimately drove significant growth in volume and value sales in the off-trade, while both websites had significant numbers of unique users and high average dwell times, due to the involving copy.

Links

Steam

Aesopagency

Scrumpyshire

It begins here! Tooty’s Wedding is the first comedy feature from HOOT FILMS! We recently shot a teaser in idyllic surroundings in Dorset. The film takes the characters of PETER & ALISON (who you can get to know via their micro-series on this site) and follows them as they attend the wedding of one of Peter’s old flames from university. Ben Willbond and Laura Solon star with Daisy Haggard and Matt Baynton. We’ll be shooting the full length feature next Summer but here are some of the production stills from the short version to wet your appetite. Follow the HOOT BLOG for more exclusive news, clips and features on ‘TOOTY’S WEDDING’ over the coming months.

As part of our ongoing partnerships Punkyduck have launched our comedy sketch, video community website.

The website functionality includes a full content management system that allows automatic upload and encoding of video for distribution both over the web and in dual formats for the iPhone to cover playback on both Wi-Fi and 3G channels.

With a concentrated PR effort and the buzz that already surrounds many of the comedy talent involved it is expected that Hoot Comedy will be a huge success. To this end, the video is stored across a fully expandable content delivery network to ensure the best quality of video is maintained at the lowest cost.

For more info please visit: www.punkyduck.com

Hoot Comedy in conjunction with Tribal DDB Amsterdam & Wenneker TV are delighted to be commissioned to write, direct and cast Season 2 of nigel and Victoria. More to follow.

Hoot Comedy will host a private screening of the short written by and staring BAFTA Winner Ben Willbond and Laura Solon at the Hospital Club on Thursday 17th February.

Directed by Fred Casella, the film also features Matthew Baynton and Daisy Haggard.

At ease.

Hoot’s latest viral ‘Love is in the Air’ for Virgin Atlantic has been written up in Campaign Magazine.

Our friend Graham Hodge, Director of Branded Content at LBI London had this to say: “Virgin Atlantic’s bold, irreverent brand gave us a fantastic opportunity to turn the humble app demo movie on its head and create something that’s funny and entirely fresh. We’re really proud of this piece and the way it enhances the online experience of the brand with high-quality, on-brand content.”

That is all.

Carry on.

Hoot’s recent work for Phillips – ‘Nigel and Victoria’ features in the branded content section of the latest issue of Contagious Magazine.

Contagious acts like a creative early warning system.

The quarterly magazine identifies the ideas, trends and innovations behind the world’s most revolutionary marketing strategies. The accompanying DVD showcases over 60 pieces of high quality creative work sourced globally. Each campaign is presented in a ‘challenge/solution/results’ format, which analyses the effectiveness of these innovative marketing solutions.

70% of entries shortlisted for Titanium & Integrated shortlist at Cannes Lions 2009 had already been featured in Contagious.

Hoot recently teamed up with LBi London to create a small 90 second viral for the Virgin Atlantic – ‘Love is in the Air’

The client wanted something a little dark and edgy referencing the army of keen plane spotters that loyally and passionately track their aircraft. The Virgin Atlantic Flight Tracker iPhone app provides useful information about flight status and Flying Club accounts. If that isn’t enough for you, the app adds some fun games and a handy global view of Virgin Atlantic’s whole network with real time flight tracking info available in real time

‘Love is in the Air ‘ features Alex Macqueen of The Thick of It, The Inbetweeners and In the Loop fame stars as a man in love with Virgin Atlantic plane Rose.

Please visit the Virgin Atlantic YouTube Channel.

The Phillips & Hoot bandwagon keeps rolling on…

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2010/10/08/the-new-broadcasters/

Episode 7 went live yesterday as ‘Nigel and Victoria’ ramps up to the big finale next Monday 11th. Episode 6 has had over 150,000 views on YouTube alone, fuelled by the great press the series has been getting – see below for a piece from this week’s Time Out London.

To see what all the fuss is about and to catch up on all the episodes click here.

Philips launch a new global online-only comedy series ‘Nigel and Victoria’ to preview a series of new lifestyle products.

The series follows the off screen romance between the sexy, gadget-crazy Victoria, who reviews Philips products in a very personal honest way; and Nigel, the loveable and very British, marketing manager from Philips who just can’t stop interfering. The show is a classic case of Boy meets Girl, Girl meets Boy. Boy loves Girl. Girl doesn’t love Boy. Boy embarks on endless ways to impress Girl. It is a love story told in three and a half minute episodes.

Shot in a mock-documentary style, each of the 8 weekly episodes will be distributed primarily through You Tube and available to watch on Philips.com from September 6. The project began with 8 product reviews, each of which has their own behind the scenes episode that forms the basis of the series.

Nigel and Victoria was created by Philips and produced by Hoot and online video production company Wenneker TV. The series is a first for Philips which aims to engage consumers with reviews about its products in fun, entertaining way.

Forrester Blogs

Marketing Magazine

Marketing Week

Building on the successful company launch and the website Hoot are proud announce a Hoot TV app for the iPhone is now available on the App Store.

The Hoot mobile app offers a high-quality viewing experience on the move, offering access to all original Hoot Comedy content. The new app has been created to take advantage of the simple fact that most of us are bored witless whilst on the move. ‘Hopefully what this will do is deliver some original content and fun to a mobile audience, extending the reach of British Comedy once more’ said Ben Thompson.

‘We are trying to be flexible to find new markets and to hopefully showcase the work of some amazing talent to a bigger audience’ He added.

‘British comedy is a cracking export, yet the amount commissioned each year is bite size in the overall schedule. We just need the studios and broadcasters to wake up to the fact that there is some amazing talent out there and to commission more TV. So in the meantime it’s about sticking to what we believe in and finding our own voice. The internet is a great place to play and to test out characters, some may make the grade and may be developed into virals for commercial clients or agencies, others may make the leap into broadcast, whilst many will fall by the wayside, – Overall shooting original short form comedy in our spare time could be considered narcissistic but it keeps us sharp and lets the writers stay on top of their game – plus we really do all have a great laugh. So lets just hope the global audience on their iphones think so too!”

The iPhone App is easy to use and allows users to browse the programme guide and to view the sketches for free.

Hoot Productions, is a comedy production company that works with broadcasters, studios and global brands to deliver original content featuring some of the best in UK comedy. The company directors are Ben Bond, James Rawlings and Ben Thompson.

Hoot Comedy for iPhone is available now from the App Store at:

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/hoot-comedy/id377710990?mt=8

Leading international comedy content specialists Hoot Comedy have teamed up with iLoader, renowned provider of mobile marketing and content delivery services.

Together we deliver the best bespoke comedy content and distribution services for your agency or brand. We’ll work closely with you to understand your market and create top comedy content on budget, on time, and on message.

We combine original and very funny creative with 360 degree production services, and advanced mobile technologies for marketing and distribution, making us a ‘one stop shop’ for your comedy campaign.

Hoot is already recognised as one of the leading specialist comedy destinations online, creating and showcasing short form comedy content from award winning comedians. It also has a growing reputation for exporting UK comedy talent and content internationally working across commercial, broadcast (adult and kids comedy), film and mobile.

Hoot work directly with agencies and brands providing a number of services from comedy focused copy-writing, consultancy and casting, through to scripting, directing and producing fully integrated campaigns. We have unique relationships with the most exciting British comedy talent and top in-house creatives in areas ranging from animation to app design.

iLoader is a leading provider of mobile marketing and content delivery services.

iLoader works for a wide variety of clients within the music, entertainment, e-commerce, retail and FMCG sectors. Their solutions are deployed online, on pack, in print and within live venues. Their systems deliver songs, videos, pictures and even apps to mobile handsets, using a range of innovative technologies. They do not discriminate between low-end handsets and sophisticated smart phones – their solutions work for everyone. The benefits to clients are clear and quantifiable. Viral marketing spreads from one happy mobile owner to the next. The result is large databases of customer contact information (name, email, and mobile numbers), incremental product sales, added footfall through stores and increased online sales – to name but a few.

www.i-loader.com

In 2010 Hoot Comedy commissioned Harry Cymbler & Hot Cherry to roll out a social media campaign to launch and promote Hoot Comedy across Europe.

Our campaign will help to promote a number of new comedy series including The Saint – featuring BBC2′s Home Time, Emma Fryer and ‘Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of the Turkish Spoon’. Directed by BAFTA winning animation director Jim le Fevre, the series follows Watson and Sherlock travelling the globe, taking as many drugs as possible to solve the mystery of the, er, Turkish Spoon.

Results: Hot Cherry’s social media campaign will roll out across 2010. To date, over 100,000 unique visitors have seen Hoot Comedy. The campaign continues to help raise awareness of Hoot Comedy among influential online communities, ignite positive word of mouth and drive traffic to the site.

For more info please visit: www.hotcherry.co.uk