Alex Simpson Arrives at Nice Shirt

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14 October 2020

We at Nice Shirt Films are very pleased to announce the addition of Alex Simpson to our director’s roster.

Alex has been busy in her career to date making films for John Lewis & Partners, Barclays, the NSPCC, GHD and many more. Her contemporary style, attention to detail and innate sense of what looks good has meant a growing list of brands eager to work with her.

Alex’s award-winning documentaries also really catch the eye; Her most recent ‘The Fell Runner’ (a finalist at this year AOP Awards) is a joyful celebration of the niche sport that is a test of the mind as well as the body. And ‘Dambe’, shot on location in Lagos, is about an extremely violent world of bare-knuckle combat and follows a young Nigerian fighter called Taiwo.

She loves exploring and has a fascination with the big, difficult questions that we as humans sometimes find hard enough to understand, let alone answer. In her filmmaking she relishes human connections and delves into emotional subject matter. A celebration of the individuals who live near the edges and bold contemporary visuals are her twin passions.

Richard Martin Nice Shirt’s EP: “We love Alex’s work – she’s got a rare knack of – seemingly effortlessly – getting under the skin of her subjects and crafting films that articulate what it means to be human. She’s funny, thoughtful and fabulously self-motivated – which is helpful in these odd times. I think she’s going to do great things.”

Dunelm by Jesper Ericstam

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12 October 2020

Jesper Ericstam’s latest film is the first in a new campaign for home furnishing store Dunelm. A bold and heart-warming change in direction for Dunelm sees a light-hearted depiction of everyday dramas based on real customers’ stories. What really goes on behind the front door!

Crafted with Jesper’s trademark quirky humour and relentless attention to detail, it’s bound to raise a smile of recognition for most of us  – whether it’s the “everything drawer” where you stuff the unopened mail along with all the other little bits of ‘stuff’ that don’t belong anywhere else,  the “relaxing” bath shared with the kids and anyone else who fancies popping in, or the herculean task of trying to get the bloody duvet cover on – we’ve all been there…

Drive Smart by Jon Hollis

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4 September 2020

Most of us wouldn’t dream of drink driving but driving tired is potentially just as deadly. Jon’s latest film for Road Safety Scotland and the Leith Agency is a simple but shockingly effective representation of the very real danger of driving in a fatigued state. Jon designed a rig to capture the close-up of the driver’s eye whilst actually on the move to achieve the level of authenticity he always strives for. Then several days in Flame with Jon at the controls posting roads, the accident and visualising the tragic but entirely avoidable end result.

Matt Houghton Joins Nice Shirt

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19 February 2020

We at Nice Shirt Films are delighted to welcome Matt Houghton to our directors’ roster.

Matt is a prolific, multi award-winning filmmaker who crafts intimate human stories. His films often stand astride the line between fact and fiction. He has an eye that spots beautiful and poignant in the everyday and seemingly ordinary.

Matt arrives at Nice Shirt with a commercial reel containing  many famous brands, including Google, Volkswagen, Strongbow, Toyota, Smart Car, Axe, Red Bull, Camelot, Save The Children, Nikon and The Guardian.

His short film Landline  – relating the real stories told to a help line set up to support gay farmers – deservedly won the 2018 Grierson Award for Best Documentary Short and a VIMEO Best of The Year 2019 Nomination. Landline was selected as part of the British Council/BFI’s #FiveFilms4Freedom campaign where it was watched over 450,000 times in 12 days, also won the HBO Short Documentary Award.

Welcome to Nice Shirt,
Louis Hollis

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12 February 2020

We at Nice Shirt are very pleased to announce the arrival of Louis Hollis to our directors’ roster.

Richard Martin NSF EP and MD says:

“I don’t think I’ve ever been as gripped by a new director’s reel as I was by Louis’s. His documentary instincts are superb – he can smell a story a mile away and knows exactly how to keep out of the way just enough to let it unfold. His career trajectory since graduating has been meteoric – he’s already shot for us on five different continents and looks set to book a major feature length documentary that is going to be sensational.”

Such is Louis commitment to documentary making (even at family events) is that his mum calls him ‘The invisible man’. For an observational filmmaker that’s actually a pretty good compliment. We think…..

Louis comes to Nice Shirt with commercial work for Land Rover, Tesla, a BBC 3 commissioned documentary and has just returned from a 6 week, 5 continent, worldwide shoot for a project documenting the global fight against HIV.

Louis is also an accredited press ITV and BBC cameraman and seems to spend a lot of time in places that involve him trying not get shot at.

When we asked Louis what his aims are, he said; “god only knows what’s going to happen to this planet in my lifetime, but I think my underlying instinct is to want to be out there seeing it with a camera in my hands”. Our kind of human.

MSC by Stuart Douglas

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23 January 2020

Stuart Douglas latest film for MSC cruise ships is a thing of tranquil beauty. The film blows away the old-fashioned image of cruises for ever. As usual Stuart elevates the seemingly ordinary into another realm of poetic beauty, evoking emotion and delighting the viewer (and the client too).

NHS “Pass It On”
by Jesper Ericstam

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20 December 2019

We’ve all got to go sometime, and when we do, why not pass on the good bits that remain?

Everyday someone dies in need of an organ transplant.  So, from next spring the law around organ donations in England is changing – to enable more people to pass on their organs, to save more lives. This means that unless people choose to opt out (or are in an excluded group), they will be considered as having agreed to donate their own organs when they die.

Nice Shirt director Jesper Ericstam worked with Pablo London to develop the idea, and generously agreed to offer his services for free, as did all the key crew, in order to make the most of the available budget. We were overwhelmed by the readiness of people to help us to help the NHS. The result is this lovely, dreamy, sad but ultimately uplifting film.

H&M “Happy Christmas”
by Max Vitali

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3 December 2019

Warm and fuzzy – that’s us at Nice Shirt in a nutshell – a walnut, a hazelnut or Brazil nutshell,  as it’s Christmas.

And if you don’t get the warm and fuzzies from the latest H&M Christmas campaign then you’re a frozen turkey. 

Anyway, we are very happy to have humbly service-produced this fine campaign directed by our good friend Max Vitali. A mammoth production over 6 hectic days and nights featuring a cast from every walk of London life. 

In true Max style the films push the stylistic boundaries and benefit from having a client willing to fully embrace the wonderful diversity of real modern Britain – a land that, in our humble opinion, feels a tad less fake-snowy-Val-Donican-jumpered-medieval-cum-Dickensian-hodge-podge than that inhabited by some other stores…

It also includes what must be the most untrumpeted and understated appearance by a Premiership Footballer in all advertising. But a Sterling performance, none-the-less.

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