Christmas No 1: Absolute’s Editorial Team on Their Favourite Projects of 2023

With just a couple of weeks ‘til the big guy arrives, some of Absolute’s editorial team dip into their stockings to gift us their number one project of the 2023 era. From a social media skit, to harrowing, crucial storytelling, to the love of sport, here’s just three projects at the top of the list this year.

Editor: Tom Higgins

Project: Kellogg’s Crunch Nut x What Willy Cook

It's quite rare that a script will take you from a laboratory - to a beehive - to a squirrel kingdom.  

Foodie influencer What Willy Cook's collaboration with Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut was something totally new and a little bit bonkers for me. I was lucky enough to be on set with Willy and Alex, the talent and directors, which allowed us to chat about the edit from the outset. The entire concept revolved around an earworm song about the ingredients of the cereal, so the shoot felt more akin to a music video than an advert. 

Just like any healthy diet, this project was all about balance. Obviously, the product needed to look appealing, so food-porn had to hold its own against comedy – and there were bowls full of comedy. The film was a combination of live-action green screen footage merged with hand-drawn animation from our in-house team. I got to have a lot of fun with the 'low-fi' look animations, whilst also spit-balling ideas with Will, Alex and animator, Christine, to really elevate the humour. 

If you know how far down the rabbit-slash-squirrel-hole a colleague can go with the animation, it's vital you give those sections the screen time they deserve. Overall – this one was the perfect mix of cereal and the surreal.

Editor: Ollie Burn

Project: Rise

It’s a shame this film had to be made in the first place, but I’m glad I was able to be a part of it.

Rise pays tribute to the #WomanLifeFreedom movement, celebrating and honouring the fierce women of Iran along with women and girls across the globe. 

It’s rewarding to be able to shape the narrative in short films through edit, especially when the content is so important. There’s also usually much freer reign to experiment, and this film was no exception. The rushes were so nicely shot that there was never any doubt that it would do the subject justice. But the challenge came in crafting it to tell a delicate, authentic story of what is happening in Iran, without either trivialising it or shying away from it.

There are parts of the film that were initially scripted totally differently, and it was only as I was cutting with the Director that we started to see other possibilities in the narrative through fleshing out the characters. I'd say the biggest challenge was cutting in a different language to mine. There were a couple of times when I had to be told exactly where to make a cut to make sure that the dialogue made sense. I'd say by about halfway through the offline was when I started to really understand Farsi...

Working on this was important to me as I have a connection to Iran and really wanted to give this film the attention and care it deserves.

Editor: Tom Boucher

Project: Mizuno – Crazy Love

How many golf gloves is too many?! Mizuno’s crazy love of sports was a fun one to put together.

I really enjoy adding audio into an edit, experimenting with sound effects and working closely with music to help elevate the visuals as much as possible. This project was a great opportunity to use sound effects to dial up the quirky comedic nature of the film and much of the SFX I used in the offline ended up going into the final mix.


It was a pleasure to work with the director Jack Bowden for the first time. As an editor, it’s the perfect scenario to work with a director who has a very clear idea of what they want, whilst remaining receptive to suggestions. We knew that we were going for an unconventional tone for a sports brand, so it was great fun to lean into that creatively, without any restrictions.