Calum Macdiarmid is off his trolly
The Great Guns director helms a fun promo for singer-songwriter Jack Savoretti in which the laid-back crooner commandeers an unconventional chariot.
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Credits
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- Production Company Great Guns/UK
- Director Calum Macdiarmid
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Credits
powered by
- Production Company Great Guns/UK
- Director Calum Macdiarmid
- Executive Producer Tim Francis
- Producer Tom Morgan
- Editor Karel Van Bellingen
- DP Max Witting
Credits
powered by
- Production Company Great Guns/UK
- Director Calum Macdiarmid
- Executive Producer Tim Francis
- Producer Tom Morgan
- Editor Karel Van Bellingen
- DP Max Witting
It's a testament to the coolness of singer-songwriter Jack Savoretti that he can bring charm and style to chillaxing in a shopping trolly.
Directed by Great Guns' Calum Macdiarmid, the gently surreal promo for Savoretti's track Secret Life sees him on a journey from the aisles of a supermarket to a field in the English countryside, all from the comfort (?) of a magical shopping cart.
In order to create the magical trolley effect, the team came up with three solutions. The first was a specially-made remote control trolley with tiny wheels - requiring very little work to paint out in post. With producer Tom Morgan working the controls, the crew used this trolley for slower scenes, as well as shooting in 12fps to speed up any of the action when necessary.
The second trolley was mounted on an AGITO dolly system, offering the team the pace they needed for scenes on the runway and the ability to use it with track - helpful especially in the field scenes. Finally, they also used a regular trolley with fishing wire, not only avoiding any unexpected electronic failures, but allowing them to get mid shots of the trolley with all the wheels working unaided.
“We essentially figured out that the direction was pretty much ‘chill out and look cool’," Macdiarmid comments. "I was trying to capture the mood of truly not giving a fuck - it’s such a great sensation to feel and give to an audience. As I explored moments of my own life when I managed to achieve that attitude, one particular memory that sprang to mind was in my teenage years, being drunk and pushed around in a trolley. Then I wondered what it would be like if the trolley wasn’t being pushed by anyone else, but was actually magic.”
“The funnest part of this shoot was working out the remote control system for the trolley," he continues. "I remember testing it out on the street and watching a passing Deliveroo driver seeing this trolley moving about the place on its own - I could see from his face he was wondering what on earth he was looking at. With the locations, we wanted a sense of this being an epic journey, which made the shoot into one giant road trip with 20 crew members constantly driving to different spots in England.
"On the motorway, you could usually tell if you were going in the right direction when you saw a car with a shopping trolley strapped to its roof up ahead.”
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