The Beat Is The Law

About Sheffield Vision

Sheffield Vision was formed by Eve and Richard Wood when Made In Sheffield (MIS) first premiered at the Sheffield Doc/Fest 2001. Its manifesto was to document music as truthfully as possible by letting the people involved tell their story as oppose to have a journalist or voiceover contrive the plot.

in 2002 SV released MIS locally and via the internet on VHS videotape. Within a year nobody was buying VHS. Shops only stocked DVD. So we had to produce a DVD.

In 2004 we managed to release the DVD to UK shops on the back of bigger publicity and critical press acclaim in Uncut (film 5 stars – dvd 5 stars), Mojo (4 stars) Q magazine (4 stars).
In 2005 Plexifilm became our American label and distributed the same DVD to Australia and Japan.
MIS has now been seen all over the world through film and music festivals, independent screenings, TV (surprisingly only in USA and Finland to date), DVD (there is a Japanese version out there somewhere).
It has received critical acclaim and entered the top 50 best ever music films.
Not bad for a very low budget film made solely with our own money. Some believe we had a broadcast commission as the film duration was restricted to 52 minutes for a TV slot. Well we should have ignored certain advice and gone for a good 70 minute cut.

In 2007 SV had ‘Nick’s World Of Sythesizers’ selected at the Doc/Fest. This was one of 4 mini docs made about a Sheffield band called Pink Grease which Eve had been following for 4 years since 2003. The band was touted as the next big thing in music but problems with the second album, the record industry and the Arctic Monkeys blowing them (and everyone else) out of the water meant that Eve’s film was ditched in favour of releasing a DVD profiling the band for what remained of their fans. (Shortly before the DVD was released the band were dropped by the label and went into indefinite stasis.)
Strangely one of the docs about Nick, the synthesizer player/machine inventor in the band had a certain surreal quality about it that the DocFest and other festivals in Europe and America have enjoyed. Unfortunately these places missed out on enjoying Pink Grease. Maybe one day they will return when everyone has had enough of Arctic Monkey fever.

In 2005 we had the idea to produce a sequel to MIS. So we shot one or two interviews and created a basic promo to shop around commissioners at festivals as we did not want to finance it this time with our own money. Nobody was interested except Finland.
So by 2007 we had almost given up on our own projects (what with the Pink Grease disaster) until out of the blue MIS was voted top 50 best ever music film. At that point we approached the city of Sheffield for financial support – after all Made In Sheffield was now a great flagship for Sheffield’s culture.
With an initial amount from a Manchester based company Urban Splash, who were contracted to regenerate the Park Hill Flats, SV organised a sponsor event for October 2008 to raise the rest of the money.
SV was awarded the Made In Sheffield mark for its quality and use of solely local resources in making its films. Martyn Ware kindly agreed to come up from London and give a keynote speech on how great SV and Eve were. Things were looking good.
Unfortunately the week coincided with the credit crunch and cash did not exactly flow our way except for Halliwells and The University of Sheffield.

Finally in 2009 we have managed (again with a very low budget but with the brilliant support of many people) to complete The Beat Is The Law Part One which will be released in cinemas and on DVD in November.
Made In Sheffield is also very alive and well 8 years after birth, having been shown at The Green Man Festival this summer to a packed crowd, and Stuart Maconie, the BBC music presenter/journalist has asked MIS to be screened at the Salford Film Festival also in November.

Of course we could not have got to this point without the generosity of all those people that have agreed to take a punt on us. We are very privileged to be surrounded by so much talent in this still very underrated city.

If you have got to this bit then thanks for listening. We look forward to 2010 with anticipation and hope you will be part of our journey.
Eve and Richard Wood, Sheffield Vision, 01.10.09