Making Movies

I’ve been filming in London for a few days – both on location on the streets and restaurants of Fitzrovia and then in a television studio in Westminster.

I like filming. It’s not just fun doing it but it is also clearly a collaborative arrangement. I like that.

We have a large crew making our films – all experts at their bit of the operation that then, eventually, like some sort of magic turns into something very real on screen.

You’ll get a chance to watch all of our videos on the Mount Bonnell website – as well as on our YouTube channel. I’ll think you’ll enjoy them. Many of them are simply informative, but we hope they are also entertaining on their own terms. Some of videos are more about the journey Mount Bonnell, a journey we are still making.

The videos look at the process of starting out in business in the US. They talk about some of the practicalities involved in this. Above all they are a taster, an additional resource, if you like, of much that is already on the website. But we know some people like to watch a video before reading, I get that, and that is who this series is aimed at and for.

We also talk about Mount Bonnell Media on some of the videos. This is the work of the media wing of the company. We talk videos and podcasts, stories and ideas, the whole creative thing and what makes Mount Bonnell Media unique.  It’s there for our clients, principally, but not just them. We work in all sorts of media, for all sorts of people, to meet all sorts of needs. The one thing Mount Bonnell Media has is energy. Okay, make that two things it has enough ideas to cover the Atlantic from Galway to New York harbor.

During a break in filming, I took a walk around the streets of Westminster. Our studio was not far from the Houses of Parliament. Outside that venerable institution, these days at least, there are a lot of demonstrators. Brexit is in the air. It is a time of uncertainty – politically, socially but, above all, economically.

Entrepreneurs are not frightened of such uncertainty though. In fact, often we see opportunity in it. It’s not that we welcome this uncertainty. Don’t get me wrong. But we entrepreneurs are realists. We also know that there never was a good time to start a business. But we also know that there is never a bad time either. It all depends on the business, and the entrepreneurs who are surveying the situation.

You see entrepreneurs make their own economy. We set up our own eco-systems. We make our way on our own terms. That’s who we are and what we are. Nothing I have seen or heard today, either in Europe or America, has made me change that view. At the end of the day, entrepreneurs are a different breed. These men and women come from all nations and races, old and young, different religions, but they have a commonality. They look uncertainty in the eye every day. In their business lives, and in their lives in general, and yet still they continue to do business, to make business, to start businesses. So whatever is happening in the wider world – good, bad, or indifferent – it is not something new to the entrepreneurs or even something that frightens them because that is how they live each day, every day.

I thought of this as I watched the demonstrators outside parliament as they waved their flags and shouted their slogans – for the EU or opposed to it. I also watched as media companies interviewed politicians on the green across from parliament. There were a lot of words, a lot of noise, a lot of heat – as to anyone becoming more enlightened? I’ll leave that to others to decide, I had business elsewhere…

When I arrived back in the studio, the Mount Bonnell crew was waiting for me. Everything was set to go. It all looked and felt exciting, always does when I’m in a studio. I love the sense of making something seemingly out of nothing. The lights and cameras were ready to go and so now was I. In fact, I was more ready than ever. Determined, as I was, to once more help entrepreneurs expand their businesses to the new world of America. Determined also to help people realize their dream, the American Dream.