We're still human - for now...
- Dec 18, 2025
- 5 min read
Picture the scene. It’s 2am, my face is a glow from the blue light of my iPad, it's sodden with my own salty tears, snot is streaming, and I am crying so hard my breathe keeps catching. I would like to tell this is a moment of real meaning or revelation in life. But I am too honest for that. And it’s far more embarrassing.
I am 41. I am an emotional Russian roulette and I have just finished the last episode of The Summer I Turned Pretty. Hidden away in the bedroom, trying to sob quietly so my husband - who thinks I was asleep 4 hours ago - does’t find me a) watching such garbage and b) being emotionally moved by said garbage. What have I become.
Rewind a few weeks and I was introduced to this series by my 13 year old daughter who wanted us to watch a series together. 14 minutes in I was appalled at how rubbish it was - base line storytelling, rich, overprivileged American kids and a girl who played brothers off against each other. Is this really the best we can do for TV?! Anyway, I refused to watch it with her and we reverted back to old seasons of Stranger Things.
But one night, Maisie had gone to bed and left on the appalling TSITP series, and it just played in the background whilst I worked through a VAT return. Every now and then I’d mutter how naff it was, or agree with Rich as he ridiculed it on his way past to the kitchen - but at no point did I turn it off. And that’s how it started. Before I knew it, I was hooked. The next few weeks was like a dirty, sordid affair. I’d slide into the office earlier than usual to catch an episode, or half of one, claim to have a headache and need an early night whilst hiding under the duvet to watch some of my trashy teen TV series. And after 3 weeks, I’d binged the whole bloody lot. When I finally admitted to my family that I’d finished watching it, I could barely sum up what the narrative was. But the bit that did get me - even when re-telling it days later - was the friendship between these two Mothers, a friendship that stood the test of time, the many quarrels, and challenges life threw at them - until cancer came knocking and one of them passed away. The deadly intruder that cannot always be fought off - not matter how strong you and your army are. God, it hit like a sledgehammer.
I thought about the series a lot after I finished it, not because I thought it was particularly revolutionary storytelling - it wasn’t - but because it had had such an impact on me emotionally in that moment. And it’s in moments like that, that you realise the power we have have as filmmakers, and how so many have wielded that power so brilliantly over the years. From driving change, instilling fear, inciting a deep rage, crippling you with love - or just allowing people a moment of deep emotional connection (like me sobbing into my PJ’s) in a space that is manufactured, and therefore safe and far from the maddening noise and horrors of real life.
I find feeling anything about the state of world at the moment so overwhelming and deeply confusing, it can be hard to know which emotion to engage; Anger? Plenty of that! Sadness - yep, that too! Confusion - hell yes! Love - in abundance. But you cannot spend everyday flitting from dwelling on one emotion to another - well I certainly can’t - there is life to do! Businesses, jobs, kids, house, etc etc. So when a TV series or film engages just one of those feelings fully, it’s great to succumb to it and go with it.
In the light of the ongoooooooooing AI chat, this is one thing we as humans have as a superpower. The ability to evoke and feel true feelings. Nothing makes you feel more alive than feeling! No matter what the emotion.
As we head in to 2026, and reflect on 2025, this is at the core of what we will be focusing on, and to be honest, has always been at our core as a production company and creatives telling stories through film. You start with the feeling - and work back from there. And this is important, relevant and key to every single project we do. From the informative corporate talking heads to the powerful charity film - the whole of point of making anything, is to inspire and provoke a feeling.
We have certainly found hard hitting emotional films easier and less complex to forge. Humans are quite easy to make cry (I am the perfect example). Many of our projects to date from our short film Sylvia, based on grief - that has brought grown men to tears in the comment section on YouTube, to a recent film with Priors Court touching on the challenges of raising profoundly autistic children - the opening statement from Mum, Suzanna, is a gut punch. These topics are emotionally charged and many of us can relate to them, which in turn opens the doors of empathy and emotion. As filmmakers - and for our clients - this emotional engagement is what we want. It leaves a lasting impression with audiences and they are more likely to engage and share.
But what was fun this year was making something funny! Oh what light RELIEF! It turns out, in a world that feels like iceskating with stilettos on - everyone needs a break and a giggle. What a great emotion to tap in to. Pure, unadulterated laughter. As I mentioned in my last post, we made a spec ad for WD-40 - it was cheeky and silly - it has also has now amassed over 32 million views, been shared 2.9 million times, translated into 5 different languages and apparently equates to the equivalent ad spend into the millions (you’re welcome WD-40). But the most important lesson from this project - is that people want to laugh, in fact, they are desperate to laugh, even just for a few seconds!
So with this in mind, we enter 2026 with a renewed, and possibly blindly optimistic, approach to the new year and we’re continuing on our mission to engage with audiences on ALL the emotional levels. AI can do one for a bit longer, we are here to make you ugly cry sad, Peppa Pig snort laugh, throw the remote rage, or hug your kids grateful, because until these billionaires insert their brain-chips - we still have the capacity to feel whatever the hell we like!
So be gone to the “Christmas Cupboard”, eat those mince pies, neck that Baileys and for a few short weeks, engage in feeling all the festive feels, because January will need us all back on form to make, watch, strategise and nail being human in 2026.
We wish you a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year ❤️
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