"Good times...!"

Whoosh! What’s that sound? Why, it’s only time flying past! 9 years ago (pretty much to the day) we had the world premiere of our debut family feature film – Who Killed Nelson Nutmeg? (WKNN) – at the BFI London Film Festival. A lot has happened since then, and we couldn’t have achieved anything else without our nutty little debut. Read on to find out how, why, who, and what we learned…

WKNN started off with modest micro-budget ambition. But with ambitious objectives at its heart: a live-action UK family film, led by an-all kid cast, with an original idea, not based on any IP. Possibly the most important factor: to have a good time. Production was spread out over 10 weekends, bookended by 2 full weeks of filming. Exactly a year later, we were lording it up on the red carpet with our own premiere at one of the world’s most prestigious film festivals. Now that really was nuts!

It was the start of something really special for me, Tim Clague and Jan Caston . We teamed up with Lyndon Baldock from Templeheart Films to make another film – Future TX (starring Griff Rhys Jones). And shortly afterwards, me, Tim & Jan made our very own children’s TV show – Dog Years – setting up a sitcom-style studio in a Poole warehouse from scratch! Our Nutmeg style seemed to be just ‘get up and get on with it’ as much as possible. It seemed to be working, and our ‘good time’ factor was always front and centre.

Future TX enjoyed a UK & US cinema release (and another world premiere for us, this time at Cinemagic Film Festival in Belfast, another blast!). Future TX is more ambitious and stylish than Who Killed Nelson Nutmeg – it’s a sci-fi adventure after all – but it’s still (impressively) bound by low-budget parameters. Above all, it was yet another original live-action family film, with kids in the lead roles. However, the good times were about to receive a blow.

Covid came along and scuppered our plans to make more episodes of Dog Years. But you can watch it now on Amazon Prime. Fun fact: it’s a massive hit in Sweden, streaming on the Jaramba platform. Trevlig! (Swedish for nice!) Good times were go again, and our Nutmeg adventures started to attract some industry attention. Over the last two-three years, Tim and I have made three TV romcoms for Reel One Entertainment , and helped produce a TV thriller for MarVista Entertainment . These were a bit outside our normal remit so we teamed up with our producer friend Adam J. Merrifield and BH Movies to help get these films in the can. Exciting! Did we have a good time doing them? OF COURSE.

This bring us pretty much up to the present day. And everything’s as busy and crazy as ever. We’re actively developing a cosy crime TV show (HeadCase starring Kimberley Nixon) and our next family film, a crazy action comedy called The Spy Who Licked Me (about a spy who bodyswaps with a dog for his latest mission). It’s all go, go, go. And it’s all thanks to a nutty idea we had to make our own indie family feature, and see where that roll of the dice took us.

Ultimate learn/advice: you got to back yourself, you got to commit to what you want to do, you got to focus on what you’re passionate about but be open to unexpected opportunities; you got to work with people you like, and, most importantly of all, you got to have a good time doing it all.