Fashion Insiders

Our Approach

We know that the challenge with films where the storyline features an academic is that their work can appear less filmic than that of ‘makers,’ that’s to say someone making a hat, sketching a fashion portrait or cutting a dress template.

With this in mind we were keen to explore a number of different locations to film at with Judith, including the wonderful MDM Props a company she has collaborated with for many years. This gave us the opportunity to see Judith against interesting backdrops in the workshop and also interacting with colleagues. It was a squeeze to fit more than one location into the filming day, so we were very focused on capturing a selected number of shots before we made a unit move across town to the London College of Fashion. Like at MDM, the director and the DoP had recced the college carefully to find a number of locations where we could shoot interesting set-ups: the archive room, a study and the library. As the light faded we filmed with the second unit on the gimbal on Oxford Street while the main unit packed up to keep us on time and on budget.

The Results

The success of a film, like any creative output, can on one level be judged against the resources and time available. As a video production company we are always working within certain restraints - temporal and fiscal - but often these are useful as they focus efforts by excluding innumerable avenues of pursuit. A sweet spot for a video agency is a good budget - in this instance that allowed for excellent cameras and lenses, a focus puller and a gimbal operator - and the helpful constraints of a format that brings focus to the execution rather than the medium.

We love the Fashion Insiders format and the challenge of squeezing everything possible out of filming day to make these portrait films as cinematic as possible. It certainly helps when the subject is as thoughtful, interesting and willing to play along with the demands of a film crew as Judith was.