Newsreel revival?

Lee Jenner’s Enterprise Shorts may have started out as a spoof but are now set to become an overnight internet sensation.  As Lee explains: ‘I’d recently come out of college having finished my Media Studies degree and wanted to create a number of short films that parodied the patronising, nanny-knows-best style of the old Pathé newsreel, you know what I mean, white, middle class and stating the obvious.  These old films represented a golden era in British cinematography.  At times they were obviously propaganda but somehow they got into the psyche of the average working man and woman.  They were a much loved tradition in their heyday and I wanted to use a similar sort of medium to highlight the overbearing nature of what it is like sometimes to live in modern Britain.’

‘My first two shorts were entitled ‘Mind your Ps and Qs’ which drew attention to the dreadful spelling in some shop signs, followed by ‘An empty shelf sells nothing’ which highlighted the poor merchandising in many of our smaller outlets.  They were filmed in grainy black and white and a friend of mine helped me out with a particularly plummy voice over.  Once they were finished I posted them on YouTube and that was when interest in them just seemed to take off.’

‘I wasn’t sure at first whether or not people were taking them seriously, if they could see the joke or not but when firms started to offer me money to make some more it was an opportunity I just couldn’t turn my back on.’

Since then Jenner has produced a further three short films, all of them focussing on the relationship between shop staff and their customers and all filmed to meet a specific clients requirements.  ‘Chewing gum lost the sale’ and ‘Are you really sorry for my wait?’ have both reflected on the way some counter staff treat their customers whilst ‘Hello, please take my money’ highlights the questionable practice of stacking shelves and checking stock while customers are waiting to pay.

‘It really all started out as a laugh’ adds Jenner ‘but it seems that there is a real market for this kind of nostalgic imagery.  I guess there is something comforting about being told what to do in the best Pathé voice.’

So what comes next for the surprising start-up?  ‘Our order books are full’ continues the young graduate.  ‘It’s just a matter of keeping up with production.  We are filming a couple more as we speak and, while I don’t want to give too much away I can say that their working titles are ‘Do you want fries with that?’ and ‘Will somebody answer that phone!’ 

People of Britain, look out for these films at a workplace near you.