Article gallery: Soho Independent

Quantel Quality, Clipbox Power

Fri, 01 Dec 2000 00:00:00 +0000

“I'm amazed at some of our competitors. Rather than throw stones at us, they should sit down and think 'why is Liberty doing this?'” Mark Hewitt has been looking into his crystal ball. The MD of post-production house Rushes sees a future as little as a year away in which he and only two of his competitors will be so far ahead of their Soho neighbours, the others stand almost no chance of catching up.

Equal Effects

Mon, 01 Jan 2001 00:00:00 +0000

It's one of those commercials that gets everyone talking round the coffee machine the next morning. How did they do that? Was it make-up? Special effects? What? The Commission for Racial Equality is an unlikely source of such an advert, you'd have thought, but when their latest spot "Would I be better if...?", currently airing, features a white Mel B and a black Chris Evans among others asking whether they'd have been as talented (or as annoying in Evans' case) in their new guises, those conversations were almost inevitable.

The Editor with No Name

Thu, 01 Feb 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Somewhere in Soho is one of the UK post-production industry's unsung talents. He's worked with Sydney Pollack, Gwyneth Paltrow, Mike Figgis, Nicolas Cage, Meg Ryan, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman and Russell Crowe. He's sought after enough to be asked to edit top films like Michael Mann's The Insider and be able to say “No” without worrying. He's won awards for commercials, including the famous PlayStation 'Double Life' campaign. Yet despite all this, this pragmatic South Londoner is as anonymous as his name suggests - he's John Smith.

Noses to the grindstone

Thu, 01 Feb 2001 00:00:00 +0000

“When we first started, we had a few opening days. I remember standing in reception and thinking, 'S**t, is anyone going to turn up?'” It seems odd, in retrospect, that the MD of a company that is now the epitome of trendy post-production - the rock-and-roll effects house of Soho, if you like - should have had insecurities about how popular his company was going to become. But, eleven years later, The Mill is probably London's most famous and most popular commercials and feature-film post-house, and Robin Shenfield has little to be worried about.