a photo an hour: on set for the Veronica/H-Dhami video shoot

Yesterday at 7:38am I decided to tweet a photo every hour to my twitter page (www.twitter.com/philmblog) from the shoot of the new video for Asian artist Veronica featuring H-Dhami. Being produced by my music video company BoxBot I came up with a simple but effective concept and then shot the hell of out it on two RED cameras. It’s also the first Bhangra video that I’ve directed - and it was great fun!

Thanks to the stellar team I had yesterday - as always! We made the impossible schedule of eight sets work in a one day shoot. My admiration and respect goes out to my choreographer and good friend Sarah England and her nine dancers who worked tirelessly (with sweat AND blood, no tears!) all day on a complex routine that they only had two hours to rehearse! Thanks everyone. Amazing stuff.

If you’re after a choreographer of any style or looking to have some dance lessons (Sarah teaches dance to all ages) then drop her a line at sarah@joebeans.co.uk. Plug! Plug!

Anyway. Here’s the shoot. A photo taken every hour.

08:59 - Finishing off the painting… 


10:03 - …then watching it dry!


10:55- The first set-up. The dancers have the floor.


12:27- Shooting Veronica’s sync close-ups and beauty shots.


13:10- Male dancers rehearse. Art Dept sets up behind.


14:56- A and B Red Cams. One on primes, the other zoom.


16:31- H-Dhami performing with the female dancers.


17:52- Me, camera assist Amy and DP Mike Costelloe.


18:25- Lovin’ the Red workflow. Comparing set
ups shot earlier in the day with the current.


19:29- Black BG set-up. The male dancers get ready.


20:24- Everyone together! Not a post effect. All in camera!


21:20- That’s a wrap!

21:54- Actually, now it’s a wrap!

I’ll post the video once it’s cut. Thanks again to everyone on the shoot. (I might do this posting a photo every hour thing again!) Follow me on twitter for more.

P

TV Series, feature meetings, music videos and moving house… it’s been a busy month!

You know, I think this is the first time I’ve been able to sit and do nothing for a past few months? And what do I decide to do? Get out my laptop and update the blog. I think I need professional help ;)

If you’ve been following the blog you’ve probably seen a load of random photos from different things I’ve been up to and maybe a few tweets (twitter.com/philmblog). It’s all I’ve had time to do - so a little explanation is probably needed!

Earlier this month, I started on Series 16 (16? I first started on 10… where’s the time gone!) of FIFTH GEAR for Channel Five. It came at the right time! After the start of the year was a bit of a non-event (damn Credit Crunch!) and a feature I was gearing up towards had it’s investment pulled, I really needed the work! So, I was happy to be back and be busy filming cars, traveling around and making telly for the next six weeks.

But then, the music videos came.

For about six months now, Oly Dempster (best mate and producer), Mike Costelloe (my main man!) and I set up BOXBOT Films (www.boxbot.co.uk) to produce high quality music videos for lower budgets than those London folks. We’ve been making low budget music videos to build our reel for the likes of A SILENT FILM and RICHARD WALTERS and it’s been great fun. We’re also exclusively shooting on the RED camera which gives us the edge.

Before FIFTH GEAR kicked off, I pitched for two music videos for a new and upcoming artist MUMZY STRANGER through the brilliant Radar commissioning website. We won them both! Suddenly we had two big promos to produce, shoot and cut alongside me doing FIFTH GEAR full time. Then, another video for TIGERS THAT TALKED came in. We loved the track and had a great idea for the video and (insanely) decided to do that too! We shot the TIGERS THAT TALKED video first on location in Blackpool (at the British Royal Legion) and we’ve just completed post-production on MUMZY’s ‘One More Dance’ video and it’s now been launched on YouTube. The third video will be shot in a week in Manchester.

They’re two very different videos. A indie band and a dance/r’n’b/pop artists. You can have a watch below. They were both great fun to make but considering I’ve been having an average of three hours sleep every night for the past month to finish them without getting in the way of my FIFTH GEAR schedule you could say I’m slightly relieved they’re finished! They’re both great videos for the BoxBot showreel and the clients loved them so roll on more commissions!

I’m in London at the moment having just done a day of meetings over two feature films I’ve been offered. (Seriously, what did they say about work and buses?) I can’t say much about them at the moment but I’m VERY, VERY excited about one of them. It’d be a nice BIG movie for me and I LOVE the script. Fingers crossed for that one. I’ll keep you posted when I can say more.

What else happened this month? I did a talk at Edge Hill University about the film industry which went down well… Oh, and we also managed to move house while all this was going on. It makes me tired again just thinking about it. :)

Enjoy the promos (below) - Let me know what you think. Oh, and FIFTH GEAR is on air from Monday 8th June at 8pm on Five. (Plug! Plug! Plug!)