about

 
 

optimistcreations was founded in 2004 by director/producer sebastian michael, when the sudden availability of a camera, a location and a leading actress turned a long-harboured dream of making a film into an immediate imperative:


twenty-six takes on life without allen, a half-hour short, was the first optimist project, which was followed in 2006 by the study of bunkers & mounds in a temperate climate (relatively speaking). 


our current project - SOHO, NIGHT 9X9 - is set to become our debut low-budget feature, which will be shot on HD:


"digital is absolutely the medium for me. the amount of control it gives you, the ways it allows you to work and its cost-effectiveness make it perfect for me, so shooting on digital is a matter of choice, rather than merely a necessity."


in fact, the whole 'optimist ethos' is defined by independence and flexibility.  and so although optimistcreations is now a limited company, we're keeping it deliberately small, with minimal 'apparatus' and overheads: 


"rather than as a production company in the traditional sense, i 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.  so optimist will always be working with other companies and individuals."


and while in the early stages we were focusing on filmmaking alone, we are now starting to widen our scope to also pursue projects in new media and theatre.


if you want to know more about us, our projects, or to join the mailing list and be kept up-to-date with developments, please use the contact page.

 

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, really.



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 started to write direct and produce digital film, and i’ve always been active in theatre.  the boundaries have most definitely gone.



the ‘mission’:

to create highly individual, original and engaging work across media with a defining aesthetic and artistic integrity.

 

the story so far