Jenny Ash teams up with Sean Bean

Channel 4 commemorated this year's Remembrance day with a series of short films, featuring some of Britain’s finest actors reciting war poetry. They were commissioned as part of a 'Remembering World War I' season on More4.

 

Emmy nominated director Jenny Ash, who is represented by Great Guns globally, shot the series of idents.  They feature Sean Bean, Gemma Arterton, Stephen Graham and Sophie Okonedo reading poems from Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon and Rupert Brooke. The films punctuated More4’s schedule throughout the weekend, and took prime place on Channel 4 around Sunday's minute of silence; they were also posted on both the Telegraph and Guardian websites.

 

Remembrance Day trailer:

 

 

Wilfred Owen's ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ performed by Sean Bean, went viral within a matter of hours, with many turning to social networking sites to congratulate Jenny on what is being described as a powerful, moving reading.

 

'Anthem for Doomed Youth':

 

 

The idents were shot on location in a historic building in Clerkenwell, with DOP Ula Pontikos, who also worked with Great Guns director Olly Blackburn on his award winning spot ‘Hope’ for Erbitux earlier in the year.

 

John Hay, Commissioning Editor for Channel 4 comments: "We're proud of our rich archive of World War I films at the channel, but we wanted to do something extra to tie this special weekend of programming together and make it feel like a single event. Jenny more than delivered - the shorts are subtle, modern, beautiful and powerful. They've got us all excited again about what short-form content can do."