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Final Summary Statement

The Project:

A short film promoting the events of the week and the Glitch products and Locker Room branded space.

Submission Elements: 

Adidas Glitch Wrap/Short film and Director’s Cut 

Things Learned:

- Dealing with a professional client

- Hiring other videographers to help achieve the final outcome 

- Acquiring the software to Glitch footage

- Audio Engineering/Manipulation

- Making multiple drafts to the specifications of the client 

Opportunities to show work to professional practice: 

Whilst working on the project, I was receiving feedback from Julius, Theo and Elle-Jay from the Glitch Team. Throughout the project, I also showed it to peers in order to gain a second perspective on my edit.

Ways in which this project will help you in the future:

This project has been very insightful, it was my first time working on a commercial project with a big company like Adidas, so there were mistakes I made during the filming process that I can easily iron out for future projects. My final major project has taught me that I need to make sure to be extra organised with the ways in which I approach a film project.

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AWGE: A Creative Agency created by A$AP Rocky

Everything about AWGE, has been extremely inspirational to me this year. I’ve been on a journey to find my voice as a director throughout the year outside of uni, and people like AWGE and the way they work, have been instrumental in the creative choices I’ve decided to make for work like Sam Wise - Do or Die, or Tokyo - Newly Rich Kids

AWGE choose to work in a fashion that is authentic to themselves, hence why there projects hold a certain energy and reflect the culture that they themselves live in.

What I especially love is their AWGE DVD Vol1 & 2

They took the old home video aesthetic that rappers like DMX, Puff Daddy and Nas and so many more had in the 90s and early 2000s and mixed it together with DSLR footage and live show footage to make volumes of lifestyle documentation. 

Although I find this all so very cool, AWGE is extremely niche, they have a cult underground following due to the fact that their visuals have a very in your face and non-apologetic, raw and from the streets feel to it, which to be honest, not everybody can handle. I love it, because I can relate in so many ways, but what I take most from AWGE is the energies, and their I don’t give a s*** attitude when it comes to creating their work.

Because of this, like when they did their breakdown of Plain Jane by A$AP Ferg on Genius Breakdowns, their work makes usage of special techniques that they themselves have formed. I like the fact that you can tell that their work is literally off the top of their heads and that they literally throw whatever they feel makes sense in the moment into their work. As bad as it sounds, their videos work, it hits their audience and they soak it all up, so it must be effective.

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Tokyo The Producer - Newly Rich Kids

I was commissioned to Direct a video for Newly Rich Kids, a track created by an artist called  ‘Tokyo The Producer’.

Click here to read the whole treatment 

Above is the ungraded version of the music video.

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Lee Jeans x Jordan Rakei Ad BTS

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FMP Evaluation: My Direction

The thing with this project is that it required that I do what I feel like I do best, which is adopting a run and gun style and in post making the best out of what I get, even more so than required, it forced me to do so, I say this because there weren’t many points at which I could actually step in and ask the people I had in front of me to do that one thing they did again.

Despite that, there were many highlights throughout the week, for instance (see the video below)

This whole segment here, where I asked the subjects to stand on the mirror that had the glitch logo printed on it, whilst wearing a Glitch boot of their choice. It answered the part of the brief that required me to just make the boot look desirable and seeing people interact with the boots positively.

The brief specifically asks for ‘selfie’ moments, which I took as moments when people were reacting to the boots in a positive manner, like in the clip above. You can’t hear it because the track is overlaid, but in that moment, I had asked him ‘So how do you feel about the boots?’, obviously I did this because I knew I’d get a positive reply from him.

The drone clips you see at the beginning of the video are shot by XWMedia , a videographer I hired to shoot on the 3rd day. We originally hired a DOP named Caleb Samuel (@originred_) who we’ve worked with previously, but he pulled out last minute. 

Hiring a second cameraman was one of my better choices within the project, even though the video could have worked without the shots from the drone, I’m happy because it adds a wider perspective to the video as a whole, I feel like usually in my videos, I’m so focused on the minor details, getting detailed and cool close and mid shots, that I forget to get the wider shots that give the video more scale.

Following that, you can see, in the video above (Directing Highlights 3), that I had another chance to interact with the footballers on the pitch just before their games whilst they were warming up, I immediately jumped on the chance and made sure to get into the mix. My thought at these times, which I also did in the video below, was to get the guys doing some really notable football skills, as well as close ups of the Glitch merchandise. Statements like ‘Who’s gonna show out for the camera?’ and ‘Who wants to make the final cut of the video and be on the Adidas Football channel?’ are what I used to motivate them to actually do what I wanted them to do.

So, my direction, could it have been better? Yes, so much better in fact. What I should have done, is split the budget with XWMedia further, and had him with me for all 5 days of shooting, that way, I’d have a second person on set with me who I could assign a role to, that would then allow me to specialise the footage I am personally trying to capture. What happened was that I had to basically record everything and, as much as I have complained about not having enough footage in other projects over the past year, this is the first time I’m experiencing having TOO MUCH footage to work with.

Overall Feedback from the Glitch Team:

Below, is the feedback I received from Julius from the Glitch team.

Personally, I am happy that they liked me as a person and the work I was able to create for them, and the fact that it hit the brief. Unfortunately, the person I hired to help on one day of shooting, didn’t really help to uphold a professional image. There was a miscommunication from the audio brief I received and the written brief I received in the email which I initially found confusing. 

If I had more time on this project, in the pre-production phase, I would’ve definitely written my own treatment, had a shot list ready for the key days of shooting and made my own call sheets like I had done for my previous work, like D&AD. Personally, I think because this was one of my first big undertakings as a Director, there were moments were I made silly mistakes, which I am usually on top of, like not having the basics ready with me, like a treatment and shot list. But, the whole week of shooting and editing was a very good learning experience and a good idea of how I should compose myself for future professional projects. 

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Sound Editing

I was going for an intro voice that would help set the tone of the video. Similar to the style of Rollo Jackson and Zac Ella, I wanted the video to feel current and the slang in the sound clip was just what I was looking for. I ended up editing one of the sound clips from a video clip shot on our digital camera which we used to get all of the lo-fi shots. As you’ll hear if you play the tracks above, there’s a lot of outdoor background noise, other people chatting and so on but through the magic of sound effects, I managed to make it sound like the clip was in a corridor like you see in the opening clip of the film.

Click here to listen to the unedited/edited audio

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The Comeback

Click play to watch the 4th draft of the Glitch Wrap film.

I’ve done a complete overhaul, I’m actually over the moon at this point, for a second I really believed that it would be impossible to get the video to this point. I have to say that what gave me solace in this edit was the reference below.

So how did you manage to get to this point?

For a while, I kept thinking, I want the tournament section of the Glitch wrap film to be like a segment straight from Fifa Street, but, all the footage I had from the matches, were very straightforward games of regular football, there wasn’t much extremely skilful moves to capture, nor did I have a chance to get on the pitch and direct any shots of the footballers, because they were there, purely to play the matches.

 Regardless, watching this video (above) gave me a lightbulb moment. I could still create a feel of next-level football simply by having certain cuts of skills implemented into the video and then overlaid with glitch effects, to then be intersected with lo-fi footage from our digital camera, in order to achieve a certain pace to the tournament section of the video.

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Tasting Defeat

Personally, at this point within the video, I’m really not liking how it’s coming along. I love the first segment of the video where they’re in the locker room, it’s pacy, it hits with the beat, it’s got more of a ‘current’ feel to it. The way that I have structured the football tournament section of the film right now is so far from what I had in mind that it’s really throwing me off and causing me to procrastinate.

So what did I have in mind?

The video above, a Joga Bonito campaign aligned with Nike named ‘JogaTV’, is literally the exact feel and energy/aesthetic I was going for for the wrap film. Being shot in the early 2000s, which I like to call ‘The Fifa Street Era’

This era was a time that mixed so many different cultures and ideas together; Brazilian Futsol, Master League, Street Art, Graffiti, African Music, British garage and Electronic Music, Casual Football Oriented Fashion, Customisability. It’s the perfect conjunction of above the line commercials and marketing with an underground aesthetic and ‘grassroots’ flavour. 

The JogaTV ad has that very underground feel, they’re literally playing in a park under a flyover, it has everything that is fun about the game of football packed into it, the skills, the clothing (popular at the time) and the display of your abilities as an individual footballer.

Can I make a comeback?

I think where I’ve gone wrong is that I’ve rushed the edit at this point purely because I personally don’t like having to see big empty sections on the editing timeline, it’s daunting. Although I’m really not happy with this, in the back of mind, I know it’s temporary and at least I now have a foundation from which to work off of.

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Adidas Glitch Wrap Film: Track Selection & Correspondence

Above is the correspondence I had with Julius regarding the type of track to use for the wrap film. It was entirely up to me to decide what would suit the track the best.

Scrolling through Youtube, I managed to come across this beat, you can listen to it by pressing play above. I really like fact that the tape made by the producer ‘DixonBeats’ is called Glitch, that’s what drew me to the track in the first place. I really love the pacing of the beat and whilst listening to it , it was the easiest to imagine me editing the wrap film to. 

Because I mainly direct music videos (outside of uni) my personal style of editing is heavily dependant on musicality. So, the track selection was actually quite an important factor for me in the course of editing the wrap film.

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Getting into the flow of editing

Watch the 2nd draft of the Wrap Film above by clicking the play button.

As you can see, I’ve sorted out all of the things that Julius wanted me to as you can see in the correspondence I had from him in the previous post.

(The video cuts to black at 0:57 because that’s all that has been edited so far)

Touching base with Julius a second time, he was happy with the way I had edited the 2nd draft, I then let him know that I would start working on the football tournament section of the wrap film.

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Touching bass with the Glitch Team

I got a start on editing the wrap film, Julius from the glitch team wanted to see where I was at in terms of the edit, so I sent him a draft of what I had done so far.

Watch the first draft I created by clicking play above

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Camera Equipment

Alright, so firstly, the camcorder is a wonderful choice. Amazing zoom function, and just what I need for lo-fi footage. The Tamron is a really versatile lens, does so well in the day time, and was the perfect lens for shooting the football shots outside because I could zoom in as much as I needed to from far away, but, when shooting inside the Locker Room, it really couldn’t handle the lowlight. That goes for the GH4, in general it really isn’t good at handling low light conditions. I wish I had known prior that there wouldn’t be much light within the Locker Room, otherwise I would’ve rented out an A7S II for the entirety of the week of shooting. 

The shoulder rig was absolutely beautiful at capturing all of the tournament shots, it allowed me to be versatile with the zoom on the lens and I could toggle the focus as I needed to when the autofocus feature on the GH4 didn’t want to do it’s job.

The Zhiyun Crane, is always a handy piece of kit, the only issue is that I didn’t have a need to use it as much as I thought I would. Amazing choice when it came to shooting the shots within the locker room that spin around.

To be honest, I made mistakes in my choice of equipment for this project. What I should’ve had was an A7S II for the locker room, because it can handle higher ISO outputs. A prime lens with a much faster aperture, to help with the low light. A tripod, I definitely underestimated just how long a 90 minute match is, having to hold the camera for that long got very tiring, despite the camera being so lightweight.

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Adidas Glitch Wrap Film: BTS

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Agile Films Director: Zac Ella

Glitch have really been trying to put themselves out there a lot more. Despite trying to be out there a lot more, even from their style of advertising you can see that they are trying to go for a style that suits a more niche audience, something quirky, comical and ‘cool’. 

Zac Ella, the director of this Glitch Ad really went about this so well, the inclusion of Super Nintendo like game screens and 8-bit art (see below)

Are real artistic choices that have gone into making the Glitch Football boot seem more like something straight out of a game rather than something 100% football inspired like the Adidas Predator boot, which has a completely different style of marketing.

Ella makes the Glitch Football boot really feel like a product of the new digital age that we’re in, despite using elements from the early 90s, the style in which he’s directed the video feels extremely current.  

What I love most about Zac Ella is that his work doesn’t sit outside of his own character, he creates work that feels like you can hear him excitedly describing it to you in conversation, and that speaks to me personally. I have a similar ability, I feel like I can capture my own energy via my music videos or visual work that I create, and seeing other directors that a quirkiness about them self and aren’t ashamed to put that out their no matter what is really inspirational to me.

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References (Specified by the Glitch Team)

I love the effects within this reference.

I can tell that they have placed this here because they want me to get an idea of setting the wrap film up like they’re telling a story.

What I take most from this is the music. I think that using a grime soundtrack will help give the video a very ‘London’ feel, and will help me in reaching my audience better.

This is a previous project that the Glitch Team have worked on, they set up a Locker Room and had a music related event. Once again, a good reference for telling a bit of a story, like the brief asks, people coming into the venue, being in the venue, interacting with the product and reactionary shots and so on.

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Budget Breakdown

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Adidas Glitch Football WRAP Film Brief

This is what I received from Julius, a member of the Glitch team. Adidas Glitch is a sub-brand within the Adidas conglomerate, but, they work independently from the umbrella company, hence why they hired me to Direct the wrap film rather than doing so through a PR agency.