Not all film-making achievements can be measured in Baftas, Oscars and other baubles. David Whetstone finds out about Engage Media

IF you were looking for a film company in Newcastle, the very ordinary blue door on a city centre side street is possibly the last place you would look. It screams “credit crunch” but this is actually the home of Superkrush.

Chris Taylor’s no-frills company is the antidote to Hollywood excess and the die-hard film world image of red carpets, stretch limos and fantastic pay cheques.

That’s not to say Superkrush Films hasn’t enjoyed its moments in the spotlight. Chris picked up a Royal Television Society (RTS) award earlier this year for a short film called Shank – and feature films are certainly on the agenda.

(Life Is Swede, a comedy about an attempt to break the world turnip-throwing record, co-produced by Ipso Facto and Moxiemakers, may yet win Chris an Oscar for best director, even though its title appears to be barking up the wrong vegetable.)

But if you press the buzzer beside the blue door and climb the stairs, you will find yourself at the heart of a mini-media empire where film is seen an all-embracing medium just as able to accommodate a group of disaffected teenagers as a Tom Cruise or a Julia Roberts. Superkrush is a company that reflects its founder’s background and ambitions.

“It was born out of a need to express myself creatively and leap forward in the industry,” explains Chris, who does not sport a Ridley Scott cigar.

“I’d already done an apprenticeship as an electrician and I didn’t want to have to serve my time again in the media industry.” Instead he did a course at Newcastle College, worked as a freelance for a while ... “and then I thought, let’s start a business and see where it goes.

“We started out doing corporate TV work, but we found we got more and more involved in community film-making. We started working with people affected by disability and that work grew into a separate entity, Engage.”