Blog / Latest News

Hello :) We're Pico Pictures, a London-based film production company. We've made 13 multi award winning shorts since 2008 and have two features in development with UK screen agencies. Producer Michael Berliner is currently on the Guiding Lights 2011-12 programme, being mentored by Warp Films CEO Mark Herbert. For information on our past work, and current collaborations, please check out the 'About Pico Pictures' link, top right - and see the project pages on the right for information, clips, trailers, photos, and in a couple of instances, the full films. Current news below.



11/4/12 - School Portrait up for a Webby!


The New York Times calls the Webby Awards "the Internet's highest honor", and SCHOOL PORTRAIT has just been nominated for a WEBBY, in the highly competitive viral category!

We're up for the People's Voice Award - voting is open, and closes on 26th April. Please vote for the film at http://pv.webbyawards.com/ballot/119 - and to doubly help me out / earn my love, please share the link on Facebook / Twitter! Thank you.



3/4/12 - Moviescope feature - Producer to Watch



Many thanks to Moviescope for their recent 'Producer to Watch' feature! Read it here.


13/3/12 - Support TRESPASSERS, our Indiegogo campaign!



Got to be a first time for everything - we're diving into the world of crowdfunding! I'm teaming up with writer-director-animator Jessica Ashman and producer Anna Odell - the amazing pair behind the 2011 Scottish BAFTA winning short Fixing Luka - on a crazy cool new project. We're raising money on Indie Go Go to fund TRESPASSERS: a new music video for fantastic Glaswegian band The State Broadcasters. The video is about moths, light and love - it's really sweet.

So, it would be AMAZING if you could donate a wee bit of money...and depending on how much you give, you'll get a treat in return! Limited edition postcards, hand made moths, copies of the Broadcasters new album, cake and a one off private performance...there's loads of perks to be had.

Check out our funding page to see writer-director-animator Jess, co-producer Anna Odell and State Broadcaster Pete MacDonald make fools of themselves for the sake of making something wonderful.

If you can't bring yourself to part with your hard-earned cash, please make a FREE donation to the cause by sharing this link and telling people it's amazingly cool. You will officially be a Trend-Setter, which is of course what everyone wants to be. Thank you! :)

2/3/12 | School Portrait - The Webby Awards, SXSW Screening



School Portrait was our surprise short film hit of 2011! Made for only £200 and released straight online, we didn't expect it to make the impact it has. Vimeo featured it as their Staff Pick for a few days in December, and we ended up with news articles in the Huffington Post, Gizmodo, The Metro, The Evening Standard and hundreds of other blogs, plus a million views in ten days.

We have two bits of amazing news to share. Ffirstly, the film has been shortlisted for a 2012 Webby (the Oscars of the internet) in the Viral category! Secondly, Vimeo have selected the film for their screening at SXSW! We're super excited about the film's continued steamrollering of the short film world, and look forward to bringing you further Webby and SXSW updates...

10/1/12



Some great New Year news - Painkiller has been highlighted in Sight and Sound's round-up of Bristol Encounters Short Film Festival, and gets some very kind words said about it! Watch the trailer for the film above.

"The full slate of films proved deft and intelligent, but it was Selina Lim’s Painkiller, directed by Mustapha Ksebati, that took its outsider perspective the furthest. The story of a depressed Chinese migrant (Benedict Wong) who scuppers a convenience-store robbery when he refuses to heed the armed gunman, Painkiller owes a debt to 1990s-era Tarantino and Kevin Smith; but the film transcends its influences with a dramatic rigour that makes the tragic-comic violence unexpectedly meaningful."

http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/newsandviews/festivals/encounters-2011.php

UPDATE 31st Jan - we've also had some fantastic press in the industry bible Indiewire, focussing on Franz Drameh and the fact that this is his first appearance in a film since his debut in ATTACK THE BLOCK! Read here.

2/1/12

We've got a big presence at this year's London Short Film Festival 2012 - check out some of our shorts there!

THE SEND OFF in programme 3, 12:00, 7th Jan

FRIEND REQUEST PENDING in programme 7, 13:00, 8th Jan

SKATEBOARDS AND SPANDEX in programme 21, 12:00, 14th Jan

6/12/11



BE THE STAR OF OUR NEW SCHOOL PORTRAIT FILM!

We have been so overwhelmed by the response to our film School Portrait (which has now crossed ONE MILLION views!) that we are offering you the chance to star in our School Portrait re-make and be insulted by our angry photographer, Jonathan Rhodes, who will be serving up fresh one liners for his new class!

We launching the competition on Twitter. Tweet your photos with the hashtag #schoolportrait to take part. We’ll post as many as possible and edit the best ones into a new film starring YOU. We’ll post the new film here and on the director's site, www.nickdavidscott.com, on Christmas Day!

To get in the spirit of things we’ve dug out some of our school portraits below! All of a sudden I feel terribly old!

Follow us at:
Nick: http://www.twitter.com/nickdavidscott
Michael: http://www.twitter.com/michaelberliner
Jonathan: http://www.twitter.com/_jonathanRhodes


L-R: Director Nick Scott; Producer Michael Berliner; Angry Photographer Jonathan Rhodes



If you've been hiding under a rock and hadn't already realised, the internet's currently abuzz for our comedy short SCHOOL PORTRAIT, written and directed by the amazing Nick Scott. After a feature on Vimeo last night as their top Staff Pick, it's had an avalanche of views and has been featured on blogs including the Huffington Post and Gizmodo, and has had positive comments and retweets from hundreds of accounts, including BBC Comedy and Armando Iannucci! Fingers crossed this great film gets even bigger in the days to come...




22/11/11


I have a Guiding Lights mentor! Mark Herbert, chief exec of Warp Films and producer of This Is England, Four Lions and Submarine, is my mentor for the next nine months. Hooray! I'm having my first meeting with him next month and look forward to osmosing genius out of him.




9/11/11

I'm incredibly excited to say that we've got our first feature officially in development! EM Media and Creative England have commissioned Pico Pictures to work with the as-talented-as-she-is-ravishing writer, Rachel Tunnard, on coming-of-age comedy, ANNA. Rachel is an editor cum writer; she participated on the Birds Eye View She Writes programme last Autumn, and was featured on the BAFTA Brits to Watch list earlier this year. Stay tuned for more after our first block of development!

14/9/11

Tomorrow (Thurs 15th September) from 1-4pm, I'm on a Guardian Careers Live Q&A Panel on getting into the film industry. There's amazing people on the panel like Ed Wethered from BBC Films, and Elliot Grove, founder of Raindance. Tune in here tomorrow, 1-4pm!

9/9/11

Last weekend, we shot PAINKILLER - a short black comedy commissioned by B3 Media and BBC Writersroom. Starring Benedict Wong (PROMETHEUS) and Franz Drameh (ATTACK THE BLOCK). Premiering this November.

"Street-smart Dominic’s armed robbery of a convenience store go wrong when he crosses paths with hard-working Jay, a taxi driver with nothing to lose. Mutual contempt soon turns into a kind of understanding, but not without some pain along the way."


9/8/11

I've been selected as one of five producer participants on Save Our Scripts - a fantastic Media and Skillset supported development programme for European writers and producers, run by The Bureau. I had an intense but incredibly useful time developing scripts and making friends at their Paris workshop last week - jet setting to Brussels next month to work on the writers' resubmissions. Also in September I shoot PAINKILLER - a farcical black comedy short funded by the CINEAST programme, run by B3 Media and BBC Writersroom. Written by Selina Lim and directed by my good pal and long-time collaborator, Mustapha Kseibati.



20/6/11



THE SEND OFF - a Pico Pictures short - screened on BBC HD on Saturday 18th July.

The film was commissioned by BBC HD and BBC Film Network; was directed by Jonathan Humphreys; with cinematography by Zac Nicholson, and editing by Rachel Tunnard. More information on the BBC HD schedule page, here.


30/5/11

Woo, my first post! I'm super psyched to have been selected as a participant of Guiding Lights 2011-12, an incredibly exciting high-level mentoring scheme. I'm off for my first training and networking day in Brighton next Saturday - can't wait to be allocated my mentor soon.

In other news..

... I co-produced with Emu Films a comedy short called FRIEND REQUEST PENDING, starring Judi Dench and Tom Hiddleston (THOR); shot in early May and currently in post.

... I recently produced a short film with my supremely talented Berlinale Talent Campus writer/director buddies Mathy and Fran, called THE LIGHTS AND THEN THE NOISE, in post.

... I'm currently applying for funding to develop a project and potentially produce a feature pilot with the talented and ravishing writer Rachel Tunnard.

... I'm potentially co-producing with Emu Films a £15k feature pilot, tentatively shooting in July. It's an exciting CG-infused, Monsters-style thrill-fest - watch this space.

... Aaand there's lots of other things that are much too embryonic to mention right now. Thanks for your interest! :)

michaelberliner@gmail.com