The most recent issue of Campaign Brief took a look back over the year that was, inviting creatives and creative directors to pick their favourite work from the last 12 months.

We were touched to see our spot “Horsepower” got mentioned quite a few times by quite a few creatives. The compliments mean that much more, given they’re coming from people we so greatly respect. It was also an honour to be listed alongside the fantastic “Enjoy The Ride” campaign, directed by Good Oil’s Corrie Jones.

In addition to the compliments for Horsepower, we were chuffed to hear Meerkats creative, Kurt Beaudoin listed the Dipsticks campaign directed by The Penguin Empire’s Paul Komadina as some of the years best work. “Stupid done Smart,” I believe was the quote.

Here’s hoping we can keep up the momentum this year!

So apparently its happened again. We’ve been too busy to update the site! Whoops!

As evidence of how busy we are, I present one of our more recent commercials – Apprenticentre: “Window Shopping”.

This is probably as appropriate a time as any to send a big thank you to the guys at Rare Creative Thinking and the girls at Training WA. Was a pleasure working with you!

2012 is officially here and its already kicking butt like Chuck Norris.

The big news is The Penguin Empire’s feature project “The Rot” recently received a new round of development money from Screenwest.   The money goes toward the creation of the project’s third draft and other development materials – like the concept art you see above.

This image was created by the insanely talented Perth lad Simon Boxer.  You can check out more of his insanely awesome stuff on his insanely awesome site.

Speaking of the insanely awesome, The Rot is blessed with an insanely awesome creative team.  The Rot is written by Michael Lloyd Green, based on a story by Green and Penguin Empire director Grant Sputore.  The project’s Executive Producers are Australian-film-industry legend Sue Taylor (The Tree, The Shark Net, Last Train to Freo) and Academy Award winner and all-round nice-guy Ed Saxon (Silence Of The Lambs, Adaptation, Philadelphia).

Sue and Grant are scheduled to travel to America in late February to meet up with Ed and Mike who are based in LA.  If you want them to bring you back any American candy, send an email.

Here’s hoping 2012 is every bit as exciting as 2011!

If you’re reading this in the blog view, you will find above a rather adorable picture of a dog wearing glasses.

If you’re not reading this in the blog view, you should really head on over – he truly is a dashing looking pooch.

The photo doesn’t really have anything to do with anything, but seeing as Grant Sputore is currently away in New York and was unable to be photographed at the PADC awards accepting his director of the year prize in person, a spectacle wearing dog photo seems as good a replacement as any.

Along with collecting the Director Of The Year Prize, The Penguin Empire was acknowledged for its involvement in handful of other spots that were listed as finalists or took home some metal on the evening.

Grant also took home a “Best Of Category” for his editing work on one the AA commercials.

We wanted to take this chance to send out a big thank you to everyone who helped out on any Penguin projects over the last twelve months and to the agency’s who gave us so many great opportunities to make great ads.

Thanks again.

The Penguins… and a spectacle wearing dog.

So we’d seen the commercials and we had our suspicions, but working with him for ad agency 303 confirmed our theory – Dale Alcock is a really nice guy.

He’s the kinda guy that, if he really likes the ad you’ve made him, he’ll go out of his way to courier you a carton of beer with a hand written card.

The card was touching, the beer was tasty and the courier must have been expensive – so thanks Dale!

He also builds the best homes in WA and, now, thanks to some ingenious creative and strategy from 303, he may have the best homebuilding ad to go with it.

Thank you to everyone involved, in particular: the crew at DA Homes, the kids at 303, Last Pixel (for the ad’s seamless effects work), The Office Of John Cheese, Soundbyte and Nylon for the awesome music track.

Apologies in advance if the song gets stuck in your head.

Two magazine covers back to back.  Anyone would think we’re one of the stars of Twilight.

Sadly we can’t claim having a rock-hard six pack or a newsworthy on set romance but we can say we’ve been on the cover of Campaign Brief for two issues in a row.

Earlier this year Campaign Brief put The Penguin Empire on their cover following our Alcoholics Anonymous commercials winning Best Television Campaign at the Campaign Brief Awards.  The headline was “What Next For The Penguin Empire?”  Fortunately for us, what came next was a brilliant script by Guy Howlett and Nathan Teoh for rail safety in South Australia.  The finished commercial – Horsepower – has been incredibly well received nationally and is now getting some additional PR on the cover of Campaign Brief’s latest issue.

Thanks again to all involved and in particular Guy, Nathan and Marketforce for the opportunity.

Also we need to say a big thank you to the guys at Campaign Brief!

Watch this space for Horsepower news as it comes to hand… and any scandalous on set gossip (we’re still working on the six-pack).

Its been MANY months in the making, but The Penguin Empire is happy to announce their latest TVC is now ready to be unleashed on the world.

The Marketforce campaign, directed by Grant Sputore is entitled “Horsepower” with good reason. The shoot itself involved 40 horses that were trained explicitly for the production and that number was then increased in post by the talented lads at Last Pixel.

Check it out, but be sure to turn the volume up!

So things have been a little crazy in the land of Penguins.  We haven’t posted in a while, but it is with good reason. We’ve been busy!

There’s some exciting new commercials coming down the pipeline that we can’t wait to talk about and show off.  Because we fear lawyers and agency producers we can’t do that just yet, but stay tuned.

In other Penguin news our new edit suite is up and running. In fact we’ve already cut seven commercials on it! If you’re interested in taking a look don’t be shy! Drop us a line and drop on by! There’s a beer’s in the bar fridge with your name on it… assuming your name is Stella Artois.

If compliments were currency, Campaign Brief’s national blog listing SHAME as one of their picks to be recognised at The Cannes Lions this year would have made us millionaires.

In the lead up to this year’s awards, Campaign Brief are showcasing the work they hope will impress the judges and we’re very pleased to announce Shame made the cut, alongside some of the year’s best Australian advertising.

Shame, part of the Questions campaign for Alcoholics Anonymous was created by Gatecrasher and directed by The Penguin Empire’s Grant Sputore.

The Questions campaign has already been a finalist at AWARD, won Best Television campaign at the Campaign Brief awards earlier this year and Shame specifically was nominated for Best Television Commercial – single.

Winning would of course be nice, but we aren’t holding our breath, simply being acknowledged by Campaign Brief leaves us feeling warm, fuzzy and like metaphoric millionaires.  The metaphoric drinks are on us!

If I’d only had the dreams of a 15 year old girl, I could finally die happy – I’ve been on the cover of a magazine.

The industry rag Campaign Brief was kind enough to feature The Penguin Empire on the cover of its latest issue.  If you take a look inside you’ll see there’s even a feature about us, full of kind words from fabulous people like Adam Barker and the article’s talented author Martin Trevaskis.

With all this love flying around, its now my turn to say kind things about Thom Perry – the photographer who took the cover image.  Thom is an amazing guy/photographer/owner-of-t-shirts.  You don’t have to believe us though, check out his amazing work for yourself.  His portfolio doesn’t really confirm the t-shirt thing, so you’ll probably have to trust us about that – unless you hire him to see for yourself.

We’ll try post the article online in the near future but in the meantime subscribe and get a copy!