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MOTION PICTURE & PRO-VIDEO
CLARKS BOOTLEG
The latest ad in a successful campaign for the Clarks Bootleg range of childrens’ shoes aims to make footwear exciting, with a popular spy kit promotion offering an extra part of the appeal. DP Tat Radcliffe was the man charged with the task of helping bring the commercial to life. Anwar Brett finds out how he did it.
The idea for the commercial was what would happen if you had kids arriving at school on a helicopter that lands in the playground. This is Black
Hawk Down with the reality of Grange Hill. I think the great thing about it is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously,
“and there are elements of it that are pretty comic, which was good.
“We needed to try to combine the glamour of the helicopter shot with the feel of school without letting it get too dour. Bizarrely, every time we shot the helicopter the sun popped out and every time we shot the cut aways with the kids and their teachers it went all cloudy and English. So it worked.
“We decided fairly early on to shoot anamorphic, and used Hawk V series of lenses from Arri, and the Fuji F-64 Daylight which turned out great. It has tight grain and high contrast and produces fantastic blacks. I also decided to use graduated filters, which I rarely do, but I felt the com- mercial asked for that consciously stylised look.
“The location we used was an old ‘de-commissioned’ school in Sidcup. It was a real helicopter we were using and as we were in a built-up area, we obviously couldn’t fly over the local houses. We made up some plates and second unit went off and did the shots of the helicopter skimming over the rooftops in a field near by.
“We had a huge wind machine as well to emphasise the wind effect of what a helicopter would do. The noise
was phenomenal, and communication was quite difficult once the helicopter landed. Our AD Iain Patrick did a ster- ling job keeping everything in order.
“The pilot was pretty extraordinary too, landing within centimetres of where we wanted him. It was a pretty tight space. I don’t think there were many shots where we had to ‘comp’ helicop- ter and kids; we obviously placed it so they were at a safe distance.
“We did take some kids up in the helicopter, second unit shot some stuff of the two lead kids looking out of the helicopter. There was also some cuts of them picking up the pencils and torch- es and stuff that’s part of the spy kit that comes with this range of shoes.
“We had to do that on the ground, so we couldn’t have the rotor blades turning. The art department construct- ed a kind of windmill to put in front of the lights so we’d get a nice helicopter effect on the kids and their shoes which worked well.
“The final iconic shot is of the kids running to camera, and it looks really good thanks in no small part to my focus pullers Justin Pentecost and Alex Reid. It’s all in slow
motion, we shot it at 100
frames a second, and it shows
the kids getting out of the heli-
copter as fast as they can to
get to double geography. ■
Clarks Bootleg was originated on 35mm Fujicolor F-64D 8522 Motion Picture Negative
Agency: St Luke’s Production company: Exposure Directors: Jake & Jim Producers: Trudy Waldron, Juliet Larthe
Fuji Motion Picture And Professional Video • Exposure • 17
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