STYLE

We all have a story.

We all have a story. From the stranger sat next to you on the bus to your closest friends and family, everyone has a compelling experience to share. Film-makers and media companies love to help people tell those stories. But what makes the way you share people’s innermost truths, confessions, highs and lows really stand out? Style. If you can apply your own unique style to telling an amazing story, it can elevate the story into something groundbreaking.  

At the Tusko office we’ve been really inspired by the combination of great storytelling and style in RawTV’s heist docu-drama ‘American Animals’. The film revolves around the true story of a group of students who decide to steal the valuable books from their College library’s collection. It deftly blends ‘fact’ and dramatisation, featuring the real people behind the story along with actors bringing the story to life. We were impressed by the seamless transitions and stylish vision.

RawTV have a reputation for stylish storytelling. Their tagline, “great stories told with style” says it all, and they’re able to apply their vision across a number of genres. Along with working for clients such as BBC, CNN, Discovery, Channel 4 and ITV, they have won several awards for their efforts. In a similar vein to Tusko, they have given a voice to unique stories and under represented communities, also sharing the stories of Women in Prison, people with rare medical conditions, and what happened when triplets who were separated at birth were reunited.   

Fictional stories are just as important, and are often a great place to experiment with style. A company who have recently shaken up fiction’s capabilities are House of Tomorrow, the company behind hit Netflix show ‘Black Mirror’. Set up by writer Charlie Brooker and producer Annabel Jones in 2014, House of Tomorrow, owned by Endemol Shine, reflects our current experiences with technology, media and politics through fictional short stories with boundary-pushing creative and unique style. ‘Black Mirror’ creates chilling visions of a dystopian future that all create a similar gripped-yet-unsettled feeling for the audience.

Told in an anthology style inspired by ‘The Twilight Zone’, each episode is a unique story that has a distinct style and length - one is a feature length dark Star Trek parody, another starring Maxine Peake is shot in black and white and runs at 37 minutes. Yet despite being so visually different, they share a core style that fans love. The bold production values and confident storytelling synonymous with House of Tomorrow gives them a creative edge and deserved reputation for great style.

The folks at Pulse Films are able to apply their signature style to all of their projects, which span multiple genres. Vulture Magazine described the characters of ‘Skate Kitchen’, Pulse’s coming-of-age drama about teenage girls who find a love of skateboarding, as “[having] style to spare, and might be the coolest people you could hope to catch on a Sundance screen this year”. But they don’t just look cool - the story they tell has plenty of substance to back it up.