Right here's the pitch. A one-off sequence. The hero is a younger boy who cleans empty flats full of rubbish, offers with rats and mice. Even carries our bodies to the morgue. The primary episode is full of this monotonous monotony.
Then come episode two. The identical younger man is sitting in an Edinburgh espresso home. He's speaking to an older journalist. He talks about his life, together with listening to Nicola Sturgeon sing a track about poo, sending Tunnock's tea desserts into area, working with the NBA, collaborating with an English Premier League membership, making A View From the Terrace, and producing the Euro Present with Martin Compston and Gordon Sensible.
It's all wildly, splendidly absurd. However true. For Ian Greenhill, Lifetime of Grime has change into a type of Mad Males of Leith.
'Working with the council was horrible, the worst job you can think about, so if a consumer didn't like the color of the font I didn't complain. I believed: “No large deal”. It additionally gave me some perspective. If all of it didn't work out I may need to go down that path once more,' he says.
That is Studio One thing, a content material company that Greenhill and Jordan Laird began 10 years in the past. They met on the Leith Company, when Greenhill shed protecting clothes, ditched cluttered flats and took internships. Now she's within the enterprise of concepts.
Now a lot of that occurs on the sports activities discipline. However concepts can journey and Greenhill, at 35, has all the time been comfortable to maneuver on to new horizons.
Ian Greenhill has excessive hopes for his new TV present set to air throughout the Euros
Gordon Sensible and Martin Compston will host the BBC programme
Scottish star Lyndon Dykes to hitch present in visitor function
Work with large manufacturers akin to Tennents, Coca-Cola and Skyscanner has been complemented by modern work on subjects that must be ignited with inspiration.
'The Teacake was a part of a contract with Glasgow Science Centre. We needed to advertise science, know-how, engineering and maths. What higher method to do that than by dropping a bottle of Irn Bru in a bulletproof cowl from a crane? Or by sending a Tunnock's Teacake into area.'
The mentioned confectionery was positioned in a sizzling air balloon and launched from Houston. In Renfrewshire, in fact. It landed within the wilds of Galloway. It was all informative and entertaining. That's the Greenhill mantra.
As a good friend of the rock band Frightened Rabbit and a collaborator on a few of their video work, he’s closely concerned in tasks selling psychological well being. The band's singer, Scott Hutchinson, died by suicide in 2018. Greenhill's skilled work in psychological well being is pushed by deeply private strengths.
'I knew Scott,' he says. 'I do know the challenges of psychological well being too. I take into account myself a author and 90 per cent of the time I’ve doubts. You reside in your head more often than not and it may be exhausting. It could possibly take away from every part.'
Nonetheless, he’s often motivated by enjoyable. To deal with the intense topic of bowel most cancers he determined to jot down the Poo Music and carry out it in entrance of Sturgeon, then First Minister, and her ministers.
Rising, influential tv work has all the time been pushed by the notion: 'Why not? Let's give it a strive.' Studio One thing relies within the 14th-century Leith manse, and Greenhill and a craftsman had simply completed constructing an modifying room when the BBC commissioned A View from the Terrace, now in its seventh season.
'My first job on a tv programme was as an govt producer,' says Greenhill (under). 'I knew nothing about making a tv present and abruptly I used to be a producer on a tv present.' That is mentioned with quiet marvel reasonably than boastful bravado. He’s the residing embodiment of the try-hard spirit.
What he describes could sound laughably amateurish, however the world's greatest manufacturers have confirmed it to be true. Basketball big the NBA has approached Scott to provide a sequence on the game. 'It's referred to as the ABCs of the NBA,' says Greenhill.
Vicky McClure from Line of Responsibility can even seem on the Euros present
Trainspotting writer Irvine Welsh will likely be amongst quite a lot of superstar company
'We obtained this job as a result of an individual working with us was impressed with our efforts and advisable us to the NBA. The purpose of this sequence is to clarify the game and improve its recognition in Europe.'
As Brentford has damaged into the English Premier League, they’ve been very lively. 'We wish to inform the story of the membership by way of the followers and to the followers,' he says. 'One episode is a couple of supporter who continues to be alive as a result of he had a coronary heart assault subsequent to a steward who knew find out how to revive him. We reunited them.'
Work has additionally been carried out for Soccer Focus and the BBC has sought recommendation from them on find out how to improve fan engagement. 'It's loopy,' he says. The largest broadcaster on this planet is asking us for enter? We predict we are able to inform them one thing.'
Buddies Compston and Sensible would work together repeatedly with the Tartan Military
Scotland followers to look on BBC present after gathering in Germany
Greenhill has beforehand offered the BBC programme A View From The Terrace
A View From The Terrace was a gamechanger. It took a special have a look at Scottish soccer and it has firmly established itself. 'It's Marmite,' says Greenhill. 'Some folks adore it, some hate it, however I’d all the time choose to be concerned in one thing that divides opinion, reasonably than one thing that’s boring.'
The work on Soccer for the Euros is now increasing. Late Night time on the Euros with Martin Compston and Gordon Sensible begins at the moment on the BBC. The primary visitor will likely be Lyndon Dykes. Different company embody Irvine Welsh and Vicky McClure, Compston's Line of Responsibility co-star. Once more, it's all about enjoyable however the essence is hidden simply beneath. Even a skit concerning the journey to the Euros speaks volumes concerning the dedication of the fan, the significance of soccer to the person.
'I noticed that in Covid. My dad is a Hearts season ticket holder and lockdown took the axis off his life for some time,' says Greenhill.
Soccer is enjoyable, however it's additionally critical. That may very well be used as a mantra for Greenhill's skilled efforts.
“We work laborious to make issues that individuals like. It sounds corny, however it's what I consider in,” he says.
'The largest lesson I've realized is that every one the errors I've made have been based mostly on ego. So I take into consideration my favourite report, Pet Sounds by The Seaside Boys. Brian Wilson had concepts, however he picked the perfect folks to implement them. So we are able to have concepts, however we want the perfect folks to convey them to actuality.'
The long run just isn’t but created, not but written. 'Who is aware of?' says Greenhill. 'Now we have some fascinating tasks, we’ve some commissions that I can't speak about but.'
He repeatedly addresses the corporate's success with the road: 'If you wish to win each match, invent your individual recreation.' He has thus created a line-up that mixes an promoting company with a tv manufacturing firm.
The episode, which passed off in an Edinburgh espresso store, is now drawing to a detailed. Greenhill stretches, and prepares to get again to work earlier than heading off to Munich, the noise of the Euros and the Tartan Military and the phrases of Welsh, Dykes, Compston, Sensible and plenty of others.
'How did this occur?' he asks. 'Perhaps as a result of we're decided and chronic. Perhaps as a result of I don't wish to return to choosing up corpses.' Reduce. Cue the titles.
