Super barbershop-set live action cartoon for the Spanish band Mujeres – commissioned by Diesel:U:Music – by new director Tom Kingsley, whose only just emerging from the tearoom/webroom at Blink but already looks a very promising talent.

Cleverly made and beautifully shot, the classic British barbers has rarely looked so good, or been such a source of enjoyable screwball visual comedy. 140 secs of bonkers fun.

Mujeres
Reyerta
Director: Tom Kingsley
Prod co: Blinkink
Producer: Patrick Craig
DoP: Tim Green
Art directors: Arthur de Borman and Sam Ludgate
Stylist: Tess Loe
Hair & makeup: Mizzie Logan
Casting: Beastall North
Editor: Tom Kingsley
Flame: Kamen Markov, Marios Theodosi at Munky
Online: Chris Bristow at Munky
Commissioner: Richard Holley at Diesel
Watch: Quicktime movie

Tom Kingsley on the making of the video for Mujeres’ Reyerta

“Diesel:U:Music has a competition for the best unsigned new bands, and this year they decided to fund a music video for each of their finalists. They came to Blinkink looking for an unusual video that’d feature the band but wouldn’t be your average performance video. EPs Bart Yates and James Bretton let me pitch on it, which was very kind because I just work in the office making the showreels.

“The video is a lo-fi way of doing those face-ripping effects in Mission:Impossible by using only the magic of editing. If you watch the transitions frame by frame, you can see that there’s no special effect – it’s just a match cut. Stop the camera, swap the guy in the chair, and start again – with the barber’s swift hand movement masking the jump.

“Every shot has to link seamlessly with the next shot. So once we filmed it, we wouldn’t be able to delete anything, add any cutaways, or shuffle any sections around. Which made the edit easy, but not the planning.

“Due to availability of extras, babies and band, we had to film out of sequence, which made it a bit of a head-fuck to get the shots to line up perfectly. On the shoot day we ran out of time and just had to hope it’d work. Luckily, for the most part, it did.

“We filmed in a real barber’s in Kennington, called Finishing Touch. I’ve actually had my hair cut there. And it was my first shoot with a proper crew. I’d love to say it went smoothly. But in reality, the baby burst into tears, the band flooded my flat and the extra with all the piercings and tattoos – who calls himself Prince Albert – announced that he really did have a Prince Albert, and so he needed to pee into a cup to avoid spraying everywhere. At 1am, while tidying up, we found his cup.

“Tim Green was the DOP, and lit it so beautifully we didn’t have to grade it. And while the face-rips were done in camera, Kamen and Marios at Munky did a great job removing the baby’s mum from shot, and making the singer’s face look like a mask when it bursts out of the floor.

“Huge thanks to tireless producer Patrick Craig, heroic 1st AD Ben Fogg, and Roger Low, who played the barber, and suffered a long day of people pushing him into the right position. And thanks to Diesel – who went with my idea even though the characters spend the whole video with their Diesel clothes hidden under a cloth.”

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