about

 
 

optimist was set up in 2004 by sebastian michael, when the sudden availability of a camera, a location and a leading actress turned a long-harboured intention of making a film into an immediate imperative:


twenty-six takes on life without allen, a half-hour short, was our first project, which screened at festivals in chicago, los angeles, padua, lisbon and london.  this was followed in 2006 by the study of bunkers & mounds in a temperate climate (relatively speaking), which was “highly commended” at the TCM classic shorts competition and entered the official selection of the locarno international film festival the following year. 


next came daisy’s last stand, which was written and directed by gary grant and produced by sebastian michael, and won the ‘best of boroughs’ audience award 2009.


our current film projects are THE HOUR OF LIVING, our first feature film, which was shot on HD in switzerland, cornwall, london and budapest in october 2010 and is now nearing completion, aiming for a festival premiere the first part of 2012, and SOHO, NIGHT 9X9, which is slated for 2013.


from the outset, we’ve shot everything on digital and we have no ambition to work in analogue film. the amount of control digital gives you, the workflow and its cost-effectiveness make it perfect for us, so shooting on digital is a matter of choice, rather than a necessity or a stepping stone towards film.


in fact, the whole 'optimist ethos' is defined by independence and flexibility. and although optimist creations is a limited company, we're keeping it deliberately small, with minimal 'apparatus' and virtually no overheads. so rather than as a production company in the traditional sense, we see optimist as a 'label' or even concept: as a creative approach aimed at realising projects in collaboration with other people who do what they love and love what they do. we hope optimist will always be working with other companies and individuals whose goal is to get quality work done with minimum fuss and maximum freedom.


while in the early stages we focused on film and video, we’ve since widened our scope to theatre. after a rehearsed reading of TOP STORY at the ICA london, our first fully staged project was a coproduction with arcola theatre and saw the premiere there of ELDER LATIMER IS IN LOVE in september 2009. and after a rehearsed reading of BAUR AU LAC in march 2010. plans are now taking shape towards full productions of TOP STORY and BAUR AU LAC in london in 2012.


if you want to know more about us, please drop us a line via the contact page; or if you just want to be kept in the loop on what’s happening, and take advantage of special early booking offers, then please join our email list here,

 

also visit:


sebastianmichael.net

the sebastian michael website




why ‘optimist’?


the point of living and of being an optimist is to be foolish enough to believe the best is yet to come.

peter ustinov


an optimist is the human personification of spring.

susan j bissonette


for myself i am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use being anything else.

winston churchill


obviously ‘optimist’ characterises me and what i do.  but the name is in fact directly inspired by the turin brakes: in the two or three months leading up to getting started, i happened to keep listening to their ‘optimist album’ with the result that when it came to choosing a name for my company i thought: this sums it up nicely.



why ‘creations’?


two reasons:

  1. •optimist isn’t primarily about production, it’s about creating work and enabling work to be created.  so we may be involved in projects which we don’t produce ourselves, and on some occasions we may be coproducers, or initiators of a project. 

  2. •we don’t want to limit ourselves in the types of media we work in and what platforms we use: the ‘landscape’ is continually evolving, also on a personal level: i started out as a writer, then became involved with video creation (which more often than not covers the whole process from idea to final output on a viewable format), then i started to write, direct and produce digital film, and i’ve always been active in theatre. the boundaries between disciplines, such as they were, for me have most definitely gone.



 

the story so far

the mission:


do we really need a mission statement? all right then: to create original work across media with artistic integrity and a defining aesthetic with the greatest possible independence. (or: to do what we want in our own sweet way...)