Fabulous fantasy – so did you really go off to Thailand for a location shoot or was it all shot in green screen and in a Paris studio?
We shot it in Thailand. That was the best way to get the production value we wanted and to compile all the activities I wanted to shoot.
How did the narrative evolve?
While looking for an idea for this track, I was in my office in Paris watching the wintery grey skies. I was listening to this very cool summery track and simply wondering that question: when you’re working and stuck in the winter what are the alternatives you have to escape?
Obviously there weren’t any, so I imagined a sort of sci-fi device based on an augmented reality allowing people to travel, to have fun and to experience things without moving. A sort of holiday pack condensed. After that first draw, the narrative has quickly emerged with this wish to compile as many emotions and sensations as we could in a very short time.
My approach was to have a comedy tone and a good idea from the artist/management/label was to use the same character they had in his previous video for his track “I need u” which was perfect to create the humor I wanted contrasting between what happens in the reality and in the augmented reality.
What was the most complicated part of the production?
There were many challenges to make it happen but as usual one of the trickiest was to be able to find the right balance between money and time. As the idea is based on a compilation we needed to find the perfect place to do all the activities and not to loose too much time travelling from one place to another. We finally found a perfect spot to do it in South East Thailand. That was a great call.
Did you have the helmet specially designed and constructed?
There were two helmets involved actually: One for the story, the prop you see, and one for shooting to get that first pov effect.
The prop has been designed by Helen Mearns, our prop master. I had tons of references to work with, but my wish was to be able to get a device looking at the same time designed like a real product but still a bit homemade like a prototype. I’m looking forward to seeing a commercialised version of that idea 🙂
The second helmet, the one you can’t see in the video was used to have a dop with free hands with enough flexibility to look everywhere around him including his feet. That helmet rig was built by a grip working with a renting company based in the London. Ben Fordesman, our excellent dop on this job, made it modified a bit to balance the weight on his neck.
