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Cassy 'Back' by Reza Dolatabadi

David Knight - 13th July 2016

Exceptional photography, and striking, even fearsome performances make Reza Dolatabadi's video for Cassy's Back an arresting piece of work. It also gives the audience the opportunity to project their own feelings upon what is primarily a display of emotion, some of it quite extreme, from the all-female cast. 

REZA DOLATABADI:

"I’ve noticed the kind of film, book or in general art that I enjoy most are the ones stay with you after you finish watching them, reading them or when walk out of the gallery. The kind that pushes its audience to think because they are required to project their own imagination back into the piece and try to fill the gaps. For Cassy’s ‘Back’ I thought there would be a good opportunity to explore this kind of approach, and make something that doesn’t try to be too artsy or outsmart the viewer, but something that would just give an impression of what it’s about or what it could be about. But most importantly it should be engaging to watch at the same time. I think it was also a massive help that Cassy and her manager Ben from Insanity were very much after something not mainstream and that we were working together very closely. This is a rare occasion in the music video world.

"I really wanted to give the film a photographic look, almost as if it was something out of history book. So Nicholas Eriksson our director of photography came up with the idea of shooting it on Double X 16mm film stock which is not very common and not often used these days. We also used a low shutter angle throughout the film to avoid motion blur, and this helped to keep the actions very crisp and photographic. This was another great idea by Nick. I think it really made the film look great and exactly how I imagined it. It works best throughout the struggle and violence scenes. The other thing that I think separates this video from anything else I’ve done or been involved in before is how simple I wanted to keep the shoot. We shot everything handheld, not a single steadicam or tripod shot. No light set up. Everything except one shot was shot on 14mm lens and we didn’t even use any slow motion.

"The cast were really great too, almost 90% of the dance performance is completely improvised and all of it is inspired by what the cast performed in the audition. My brief was to think of a situation that could make you very sad, angry or happy and express it out in your performance. Anything but sexy stuff. Daisy Smith our choreographer did a fantastic job on guiding everyone, and prepping them for the shoot.

"I had a thought that constantly came back to me on the shoot day and I mentioned it to a couple of people over drinks after we wrapped. I was constantly looking around at everyone running around asking me “is this the lens we should use?”, “is this the kind of performance, make up, location you want?”, etc and I was constantly thinking, wow, there’s not a word to describe how a director feels when everyone is there to just make sure your vision gets executed. You ask people to do weird stuff in front of the camera, and the answer is always: “okay sure”, even when they probably think you’ve completely lost it. That trust means a lot. I honestly don’t think there’s a word for that, I think ’trust’ or ‘support’ just doesn’t cover it. Whatever it is, without it I would have never been able to make the video it is today and most importantly I would not have enjoyed making it as much as I did. So thanks to everyone involved in this, it’s been a blast!"

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David Knight - 13th July 2016

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Credits

Production/Creative

Director
Reza Dolatabadi
Producer
Alasdair Mitchell
Production Company
Rumble
Executive Producer
Fritzi Nicolaus
Production Coordinator
Franzi Nicolaus
1st AD
Barbara Nanna

Camera

Director of Photography
Nicholas Eriksson
2nd AC
Julian Sharma
1st AC
Andrew Bradley

Wardrobe

Make-up
Lorena Carmona

Choreography

Choreographer
Daisy Smith

Editorial

Editor
David Higgs

Grading

Colourist
Toby Tomkins
Colour grade company

Commission

Label
!k7

Misc

2nd AD
Andrea Fachinetti
Camera Trainee
Catalina Velez

Other credits

Runner

Harry Prosser

Lab

Cinelab

Cast

ANNIE BROBBY, YVONNE CAMPBELL, MOLLY O’DONNELL, TIPPY ELGAR, GEORGINA EZUANYAMIKE, YANA LYAPUNOVA, LEVINYA PAGE-KRAMER, FAY MIARI, CRISTINA MASSARO, LORA MIRCHEVA,

RACHEL LIN, KATIE-ROSE SPENCE

Artist Management

Ben Molen At Insanity Group

David Knight - 13th July 2016

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