Interview
with Carl Timms of Monkey Liberation Front, winners of the
Reader's Prize.
How did you go about making the video?
We decided from the outset that the jazzy beat of the song "Love At First Sight" would work perfectly in a jazz club setting. We liked this idea as it allowed us to simultaneously combine Paddy's live energy with a setting that
was on the surface very unusual for a hip hop band. The location was very important especially with the time constraints and we looked at a number of places but the one that made the most sense was the Runaway Girl. Not only did it have a great vibe but Justin, the owner, is a big fan of the band and so was willing to do anything in his power to make the video a success.
The rest of the images- the angels, the crazy imaginary situations- all developed from a combination of the setting and the lyrics. Luckily it was a great song to take literally. Much of Paddy's work is based on a storytelling style making it ideal for visual interpretation.
What was it like working with Paddy Orange?
They were all fantastic! Both Paddy and Sophie were up for anything we threw at them. The very first shot of the shoot was what we termed the "dungeon" scene where Paddy imagines himself naked and huddled in a corner as he is coming down. It was about 5 degrees and we were in the band producer Leigh's house in a dingy cellar and Paddy was wearing nothing but a pair of nasty green Y-fronts. I knew then that the video was going to turn out well as he just played so well to the camera.
Marcus, the band manager,
also helped out immensely in bringing everything together
and really made us feel like they weren't just expecting
to turn up and film. It really was a team effort. The icing
on the cake was when he managed to sort out the two cameo
role musicians who played the double bass and drums in the
video. At one point I was on stage directing and thought
"I'm stood here with the bassist of Simply Red and the drummer
from the Cocteau Twins- what must they be thinking of all
this?!" but they were great and seemed to have a good time
drinking and entertaining the crowd.
What was it like working to such a tight deadline?
The pressure in the first week wasn't too bad once we sorted
out the venue. Knowing we had the Runaway Girl relaxed us
as we were able to get on with planning the shots and schedule.
Once we had filmed we had 5 days to edit. The only problem
was that our editor Ben, a talented young guy I work with
at my day job, was based in Ilkley near Bradford and so
there was the difficulty of long-distance communication.
Things turned out OK though as the only major problem we
faced was when I realised that we were running off of different
versions of Premiere and had to hastily upgrade mine so
I could actually see the work that Ben was doing. He worked
really hard and quickly and was able to hand over to me
a 90% completed version on the Wed which gave me 2 full
days to finish the film off. We got it in with half an hour
to spare but that was only because I had been playing around
with the grading. I think the 2 weeks provided us with plenty
of time and never felt too stressed to be honest.
Please describe a little bit about your crew / creative
team.
The original crew was comprised of myself, my fiancée
Michelle who co-produced with me, Alan Tisch, a wonderful
camera operator I met at Hallam Uni and Ben Daure, who I
mentioned above. We then brought in some extra help from
Sheffield Hallam's Film Production course in the shape of
Laura Turnbull and Alex Wilson, both 3rd year students.
They were both brilliant, especially in helping light the
film as my lighting skills were certainly a bit rusty and
so they brought enthusiasm and technical skills that were
much appreciated over the weekend we shot.
Michelle had done a media A-level but nothing since but
is the most organised person I know. I knew she'd be great
in a producing capacity. This was the first thing I'd directed
for some time so it was great to know she was behind the
scenes as it allowed me time to work with the actors without
worrying too much about the producing side of things on
set.
Alan I met in 1996 and he has been my best friend since.
He won award
for cinematography at the National Student Film Awards for
his 3rd year film and has worked for Sky and Granada. However
despite helping in some of my other ventures and having
worked together on a number of corporate shoots, we'd never
actually done anything fun so we were really looking forward
to making this video.
Ben works for Webrom TV, where I am a producer/sales manager.
I'd not been with the company long and I'd seen some stuff
Ben had edited and shot so thought it would be a good opportunity
for us to get some experience working together. He was definitely
the wild card as I usually work with people I know or have
been recommended but it paid off as I think Ben did a great
job all round, not just on the editing but on the shoot
also.
Please describe how the competition's preparatory
arrangements (launch
event, seminar, etc) helped you with the plans for the video.
The launch event was great for two very different reasons.
Firstly on a preparatory level it gave us some much needed
advice on what not to do when preparing. Obviously at this
point we weren't sure what band we'd get and so on but advice
such as "don't shoot a guy walking the streets at night,
don't shoot in rehearsal room" etc really made us think
about how we presented the film and not going for the easy
option.
The second reason was a bit more selfish in that we entered
and won the
raffle which allowed us access to SIF's equipment. We were
actually quite short in that department so it was like manna
from Heaven! This not only gave us a much better camera
but lights and the studio, meaning we were really able to
use our imagination when planning. To have won the raffle
and NOT made use of the equipment would have been a waste
and probably an insult to everyone else who entered the
raffle so we felt obliged to make full use of it all.
What do you think winning the 2w2mi comp will do
for the members of you film team?
I hope it will help all of us to move forward in our careers.
I for one have
been looking to do a lot more creative work as I've spent
the last few years
working corporates and commercial ventures like sports DVDs.
This kind of film is so much more fun to make and if winning
allows Monkey Liberation Front to become more than a one-off
venture then that would be great. Laura and Alex are just
finishing uni as well so its certainly helped them taking
part.
When will you start making plans to make the video
for your prize-band,
Stoney? How are you going to approach the project?
We've already started talking with Inspiral and Mark Stoney
to arrange it. We'll have a number of listens
to the song, study the lyrics and feel and see if inspiration
hits. We'll also talk about the song with Mark and see if
he already has some idea of what he would like for the video.
We have all the equipment we need now as Webrom TV has invested
in a whole load of new kit including a JVC HD camera and
lights as well as a camera-mounted hard drive which will
save us hours in logging and capturing of footage so I am
excited about playing with all this new technology. I definitely
would like to shoot this one on HD!
What else is in store for your
future?
At the moment we're taking it a project at a time. I have
a few shorts I've wanted to make for a while so maybe I
can get one of them going but for now its day job and Stoney.
Watch this space!
Interview
with Christian Knowles-Fitton of Digital Ink, winner of
the Critics' Choice Award.
How
did you go about making the video?
Like
all the film makers in the competition, we didn’t
have a clue what type of video we were going to make until
we heard the track and met the band.
We had
already decided that the video would be performance based
with some cool element of post production rather than trying
to do a conceptual piece in such a short time frame but
other than that we pretty much had a blank page.
As soon
as we heard the track, both Dan and I got a good idea of
what the video was going to look like and what process we
were going to treat it with.
We filmed
each band member on green screen to give us more versatility
in post and pretty much got everything we needed in about
six or seven hours. Heavy eye makeup and hard lighting was
used to ensure that the results we got in post were as good
as they possibly could be and we had mapped out a pretty
complex storyboard to ensure we got everything we needed
in one shoot.
Once
we had all the footage logged and captured I started to
put together a rough edit and then exported various stills
for Dan to work out some different screen layouts. From
then on it was onto converting the footage to black and
white. We tried several different ways to achieve this but
they all looked really poor.
The
problem we were faced with was that we wanted the video
to be predominantly black and white and I was dead set against
using over processed footage to get the result we wanted.
The main reason that I didn’t want to go down that
route is because no matter how good you are with your post,
it can often leave you with amateur looking footage. This
wasn’t an option as we didn’t want to produce
a video that looked like it had been done with your mums
handicam and a ripped off version of final cut. (I’ve
done enough of that already with low production skate videos!!)
In the
end I used a new technique that combines several programs
to give you the end result which is true two color black
and white (not grayscale) footage. The result is ultra clean
and really worked well with the bands image and the story
behind the track.
Once
the footage had all been converted, it was a matter of tackling
it in After Effects and working in as many of the transitions
from the original storyboard as we could. In the end I think
we only managed about four or five transitions, which was
a shame as the original concept was to be one seamless journey
through the mind of Dorothy Millette leading up to the suicide
or murder (which ever it was) of Paul Burn.
Once
we organized the transitions, and got all the footage in-sync
with the track (we had a miss communication when shooting
and ended up with no audio on any of the footage we shot
–nightmare!) we added the graphic elements that Dan
had drawn up and spent the rest of the time working on the
graphic layout of the video.
That’s
pretty much it.
What
was it like working with your band, Screaming Mimi?
The
band were great to work with. They were really open to the
ideas we had and I think they appreciated the time we put
into researching the story behind the track. The fact that
they had good stage presence and were used to playing live
also really helped.
What was it like working to such a tight deadline?
Unfortunately,
we couldn’t get the band in to do the shoot till nine
days after the start of the competition and this did raise
the stress levels a bit but once we had all the footage,
surprisingly enough, the deadline wasn’t really an
issue. I guess we’ve got too use to working with clients
with unrealistic deadlines!!
Please
describe a little bit about your crew / creative team.
The
crew for the this project consisted of Myself (Christian
Knowles-Fitton) Dan Bedford and Johnny Carr. Dan and I co-directed
the video. Johnny filmed it, Dan did all the graphics and
I did all the editing and post production. We all have a
pretty close relationship as we have worked on quite a few
different projects together over the last 12 months.
Dan
Bedford is one of the best designers I know. His ability
to understand a brief and deliver world class work (sometimes
in a matter of hours) is unbelievable. Before the project
started we spent a lot of time watching new videos and discussing
what worked and what didn’t and this made sure that
we both had similar ideas in regards to style etc.. (Very
important if you have two directors on a shoot!)
Johnny
Carr is a brilliant photographer / cameraman. He has so
much experience and his knowledge of lighting and the post
production process is a real bonus! He is also a good friend
and really helped us out by letting us use his studio for
free. Thanks dude.
I am
a Director / Motion Designer & Post Production freak
so it was cool that the track fit the style we wanted t
Please describe how the competition's preparatory arrangements
(launch event, seminar, etc) helped you with the plans for
the video.
The
talks on the launch night (we only arrived at 7.00pm) with
Roo, The lady from Warp and last years winner were really
informative and definitely gave us some food for thought.
What
do you think winning the 2w2mi comp will do for the members
of you film team?
I hope
it will help us gain exposure to work with more bands and
people that we have met through the competition. Its hard
doing what we do in the north of England as a lot of the
work that is out there seems to stay in London but the competition
definitely showed that there is a lot of talent up here.
When
will you start making plans to make the video for your prize-musical-artist,
kate Rusby? How are you going to approach the project?
Haha
– we started in the car on the way back from the awards
ceremony! There is actually a connection to Kate already
as Dan has designed several CD covers for her some years
ago but until we hear the track and meet Kate then all you
can do is think of rough ideas that will go with her music
style.
What
else is in store for your future?
Wow
– we have a crazy year ahead of us. We have just been
asked to handle the total re-brand of a major TV station
as well as create intro sequences for several up and coming
programs that they will be airing in 2007.
Along
with that we have been asked to direct a “behind the
scenes look at Fashion week in New York, London, Paris and
Milan” for a top cosmetics company and we are in talks
with two agencies to start producing there TV ads.
To
find out more about 2 Weeks 2 Make It, email rob@syfn.org
