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“It tends to bring the film alive,” adds Bone. “Unlike many short films there’s no twist at the end of Ant Muzak. It’s much more a slice of life story, it was more of a camera exer- cise for me and I really just took a documentary style approach to shooting it.” ■ ANWAR BRETT
Listening and Ant Muzak
were both originated on Fujicolor Motion Picture Negative.
Adam Ant goes shopping at 3 am in Ben Gregor’s Ant Muzak
In an era of glamorous cos- tumes, extravagant stage per- sonae and pulsating rock music even Adam & The Ants had to pop down the super- market for a packet of diges- tives. That, at least, is the premise of Ant Muzak, an intriguing short film directed by Ben Gregor, written by Tim Plester and shot by New Zealander Crighton Bone.
Impressively cast, it features Nick Moran as Adam Ant, with Mackenzie Crook and Mark Heap offering deft support.
“The storyline has them going shopping at 3 o’clock in the morning,” Bone explains. “It’s just about them going shopping and the awkwardness of them doing these everyday kinds of things. They argue over what to buy, and one of them gets lost in the supermarket before the security guard finds him.”
In a supreme twist of fate the secu- rity guard is actually played by Gary Tibbs, former bass player with The Ants. “The film has been played at some of Adam Ant’s fan club events,” adds Bone, “and we’ve been told it’s gone down very well.”
Shooting the seven-minute film in March, in a real supermarket near Heathrow, the crew had their work cut
out to get it finished over two consec- utive nights. For Bone in particular a key challenge was dealing with the dull flat light given off by the super- market’s fluorescent tube lighting.
“Our negative stock was the Reala 500D,” he explains, “which has an added layer that helped compensate for the fluorescent tube lighting.
“If we hadn’t used that I’d have had to colour correct it in front of the camera with a filter that takes out the green spike that these tubes had. I shot some tests and liked it so that’s what we went with. I was confident going into it and exceptionally pleased with the results.
“The only other thing I did was take a small package of kinoflos, which I gelled with green to match the super- market lights, and to supplement them. That gave it some fill and lifted it a lit- tle. But using the Reala meant we could use it under mixed lighting con- ditions which was great, because time is of the essence on films like this.”
Printed on to 16mm then blown up to 35mm, the effect of this gives the film an authentic 80s period feel. While not consciously referencing any partic- ular pop videos of the era, there is a fluid style to the film thanks to Bone’s hand-held camera work, much of which was done with him standing on a dolly.
A SLICE
Photos opposite page from top left: Cinematographer Alex Thomson BSC (left); Frances Barber and Paul McGann;
On location in Berkshire above right: Adam & The Ants (with Nick Moran as Ant) at the supermarket; above: Director Ben Gregor, cameraman Crighton Bone and crew shooting on location in a supermarket
A SLICE
OF ANT
OF ANT
LIFE
LIFE
focus on shorts