Production Manager

James Bolton

Rags to riches (to rags) story of the new pop duo that have nothing whatsoever to do with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. More like this year's wannabe Hoosiers.
Harvey is more used to doing straight pop performances, but he grabs his chance to 'break out of the box' and try his hand at a fantasy-comedy narrative with gusto.

Harvey B-Brown on making the video for The Yeah You's 15 Minutes
"Commissioners can't help categorizing you; they see your reel and then commission you to keep doing the genre of work that they can see you do, and that you have proved that you do well.

"My idea was to create a narrative for the song. As Andy Warhol said 'in the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes' and I told a complicated rags to riches story (and then back to rags again) in a very concise and condensed 3.28 mins.
"I had a limited budget, but buckets of enthusiasm as I could see that this was my golden ticket to break out from my box! I managed to squeeze and cajole my cast and crew into cramming in the entire storyline of what essentially should have been a two-day shoot into one day and on a shoestring.
"Nick and Mike from the band were very collaborative and we all enjoyed work-shopping ideas a few days before the shoot. I put all my energies into telling a fun story, and devising smooth transitions to take us from one scene to the next. Then every time I was asked to brief anyone from the record company, or my amazing art department or editor with the plot outline I was always faced with the same comment: "and you are gonna shoot all that in ONE day"
"But the shoot was a dream. It started off well as we shot Tracy-Ann Oberman's Talk Tonight show as our first scene at nine in the morning. She had brilliant comic timing that made us all laugh, and that set the tone for the day.
"I can honestly say I have never enjoyed a shoot so much - including the adrenaline rush of knowing that I couldn't afford to drop any set ups because that would then leave a hole in my edit. I simply didn't have time to cover more than the allotted sync to each scene. It was strictly an hour and then I HAD to move on.
"I'm very proud of this piece of work. From a personal perspective it is ground breaking for me as it is nothing like my other work."

Merge@Crossroads

Harvey Bertram Brown

Fran Barnes

Rawdon de Fresnes

James H

David Lamb

Brendan Robertson

Claire Eastman

Steve Ackroyd

Bob Brimson &amp; Tamara Brooks

The Yeah Yous’ 15 Minutes by Harvey Bertram Brown

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.

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."

James Bolton

Production Manager

Videos featuring James Bolton

2009 (2)

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