Depeche Mode covered by The Saturdays might be a hard pill to swallow, even if it is for Comic Relief. But this will sweeten the pill considerably: a very well executed take on the classic 1940s pin-up style by Harvey Bertram-Brown and his team.

And as Harvey point out below, the look is quite timely. What’s more, the Saturday girls wear that austerity- chic lingerie at least as well as Katy whatsherface. And you can always turn the volume down.

The Saturdays
Just Can’t Get Enough (Polydor)
Prod co: Merge@Crossroads Films
Representation: OBmanagement
Director: Harvey Bertram Brown
Executive Producer: Trudy Bellinger
Producer: Francesca Barnes
Production manager: James Bolton
1st AD: Jay Arthur
Art director: Tom Gander
Wardrobe: Frank Strachan
Hair: Nick Peters
Makeup: Celena Hancock
Choreographer: Kate Prince
Editor: Sam Jones at Cut & Run
Online: Aman Kang at Golden Square
Commissioner: Emily Tedrake
Watch: here

Harvey Bertram-Brown on making the video for The Saturdays’ Just Can’t Get Enough

“Taking influence from artists like Gil Evgren and Alberto Vargos, I set about creating the ultimate pin up video for Comic Relief. Traditionally the pin up girl was a symbol of hope, a moral boost to the boys away from home and an antidote to the depression of the 1930′s and 40′s. Her glowing skin and perfect airbrushed form were deliberately designed to lift the spirits and make us smile. So, with five beautiful girls and a song designed to bring ‘comic relief’ and raise money at the brink of our recession, it felt like the perfect fit.

“The video was great fun to make. The challenge was to keep it “cheesecake”, light and provocative without getting too sexy. The styling and the attitude had to be just right and we spent hours in front of the mirror together practicing poses. Every time we struck a wrong pose one of us would shout out “hoochy” (or other quotes from America’s Next Top Model and Project Runway!)

“The girls are wonderful to work with and a lot of the good humour on set was kept in the video – Rochelle falling off her chair, Vanessa banging her head as well as the pranks the crew pulled on Una and Frankie by chucking popcorn at them or bombarding them with red noses.

“The art direction and styling were kept firmly in a strict colour palette, but the look really came together in the TK. We made the colours even more flattened and painterly, and then finished the look off with sharpened highly contrasted black tones.

“The final look was to make the images to feel printed on Calendars, and each image is even signed by each of the girls in homage to the original pin up artists of the time.”