In the first years after we formed Seraphim Pictures my business partner and I decided (logically) that we'd diversify into a wide range of productions and production services. I'd had the word "diversification" drummed into me in school learning about Welsh farms having to diversify to survive. It makes sense not to keep your eggs in one basked, but spread yourself too much and you endander yourself of becoming a jack of all trades, master of none (I still see this in the film industry but that's another story entirely).
We initially sold ourselves as producers of short films, documentaries, music videos and corporate movies. We briefly flirted with new media videos but the technology wasn't right at the time (but if we'd stuck with it...). The challenge with corporate movies is that first you have to educate the client as to why they need it, and how they might use it. It's one thing someone approaching you saying they want one, but as far as we were concerned it was ethically wrong to take someone's money and produce a white elephant that they'd never use.
I was referred by one of our business advisers to go and see a candle-making workshop that was looking for videos to post on their website. It was a similar story to most: other companies were doing it, and getting sales out of their views. This was in the days before YouTube monetised viewing figures, which would've sweetened the deal a bit. In the end the company didn't have the money to fund the production that they wanted and there was no point in stringing them along with special offers or payment plans that would never see the production in the black.
What I did get out of it was the introduction to the Artie Moore story: the owner of the candle company happened to own the mill across the road - it goes back to the 1600's and it's been restored into pretty good shape. It's still a working mill in that everything works, but they don't use it to grind corn and sell the flour. The owner wanted to get heritage funding to open it as an attraction/museum but it had been rejected for some reason.
So there's this 17th Century watermill squeezed in between the village and a busy dual carriageway down this leafy green country lane, and upstairs in the attic it's been preserved in memory of Artie, with some equipment and (if I remember rightly) the original desk. There'd have to be some work to it to fully recreate the room as it was...I think that this is a photo of the room taken at the time , but I don't remember the room being big enough to house that set up.
Of course re-creating Artie's room is nothing compared to find a place to film the Marconi Room of the Titanic...
I remember some whisky connoisseur saying once about the no ice/no water rule which I always found odd considering most people drink it on the rocks.
