News
19/04/2013
Wow, it's been a busy week! Firstly, we bring the especially exciting news that our own lead creative Laurie has slammed his short film Mark into none other than the Cannes Short Film Corner! His busy pile of treatments-in-progress is joined by flight schedules and photos of dodgy hotel rooms. If you're reading this from the south of France, lock your doors and keep check on your daughters.
Accompanying this tasty sliver of joy is an unexpectedly lovely article from the folks over at TOPMAN, who've run a tidy little feature on Mr. Luke Monaghan. We're yet to hear his thoughts on being described as 'flame-haired', but it's a good read nonetheless. Have a look here (link).
On top of that we've had Vaughan's two-day shooting blitz for JOHN NEWMAN, which went mighty well. We're pleased to say that after about 657382271 plays through the song we're not entirely sick of it yet, which MUST be a good thing.
And to cap it off, Rohan's shoot for WILEY went ahead. Despite a few hiccups, they've got some sweet footage to work with, even if getting it meant an impromptu last-minute adventure chase up to Norwich to get that important artist shot.
Being exhausted never felt so good!
8/04/2013
The Rokkit wagon crashes into the start of another week with news that our loving stateside brother JORDAN BAHAT has scooped another "Vimeo Staff Picks" acclaim for his new promo for Jamie N. Commons. We'd love to put up a long, gushing quote from the man himself, but unfortunately it's 4:15 in the morning where he lives. I'm sure he's pretty chuffed though, as are we. WELL DONE!
You can catch Jordan's film right here (link).
28/03/2013
The week may be a day shorter but that doesn't mean Rokkit haven't worked JUST AS HARD this week, bringing you Luke Monaghan, who's blasted off to Amsterdam to start his tour around Europe with DISCLOSURE.
It might not be as dirty as Detroit, but judging by this snap it's just as hella cold.
Meanwhile back at HQ we've all been scurrying about in preparation for Vaughan Arnell's new effort for JOHN NEWMAN. We're not going to let much slip for now, but it involves a whole lotta Brylcreem...
And our trio of tales this week signs off with the depressing/joyous news that our darling KATIE is departing us. Naturally, her leaving party was an adventure, as Nicholas found out.
While her topsy-turvy schedule and curious lunch habits were a little odd at times, we're actually really rather sad to see her go.
Bon voyage Katie, you silly old spoon!
28/03/2013
DESIGNS OF THE YEAR (and some other things)
Rokkit's elastic band of merriment twangs over the heads of ELISHA and her I Want Muscle team this week, who popped over to the Design Museum where they were up against people like Anish Kapoor and Zaha Hadid in the DESIGNS OF THE YEAR awards. With enough free Dutch courage to float the Titanic, it looks like they had a great night.
Meanwhile, our seemingly endless attachment to the pop music powerhouse that is ONE DIRECTION continues, with our location scouts currently scurrying around Newcastle in search of an appropriate setting to shoot the ad for their soon-to-be-released perfume?! We can't let on too much at the moment, but we're glad to report that nobody has been beaten up. Not yet anyhow.
4/03/2013
Vaughan's Youtube hits are set to take over the the world!
We have just has a wee little count of Vaughan's recent videos. They add up to almost 400 million hits. He's had more hits than the total US population. That's powerful in anyone's book.
4/03/2013
This week Rokkit went to the National Film and Television School's graduate showcase. A big shout out to our own Louise Malin! Who Sargent Disc awarded Best Production manager for her work on her Graduate film at the NFTS. (Photograph by Roy Morris)
22/02/2013
DANCING HOBO TAKES WORLD BY STORM
Luke Monaghan's new promo for Disclosure dropped this week and we can somewhat safely say WE'RE STOKED. It cost both Luke and Tom K several days spent being sick, with Tom being stuck alone in Detroit for an extra night, but the film's looking sexy.
Returning with stories of being followed by armed homies and hooker/crack deals going on outside their sketchy motel room door, they've definitely snared a beast with this one. Thankfully, everyone else reckons so too, with Promonews featuring it more-or-less immediately, as well as Stereogum dropping it straight in at No.1 in their "Best Videos of the Week" feature.
With the track slamming in at the sharp end of the UK charts, we reckon you're going to be seeing a lot more of this.
22/02/2013
Vaughan Arnell's continuing his domination of pop promo land with his latest effort for Olly Murs' single Army of Two.
The post-production has understanably run up a huge coffee bill, but thankfully it paid off and the video looks delicious.
Here's what producer Astrid had to say:
"We shot Army of Two in the underground car park at the Excel Centre, Docklands. We chose this particular location as it is the longest underground car park in Europe! We actually found it by fluke on the way out of viewing a different location. We also had to drill in extra power to accommodate our endless line of lights required to light the length of ‘the set’. A Producer’s nightmare.
“The core VFX team from Framestore, London were involved from the outset which was invaluable as it took a good three weeks of full-on advanced maths collaboration between us, camera, grips and post production prior to shooting to time out each sequence to the last frame, last bar, last note. It was immensely complicated and extremely time consuming but necessary for the idea to work at all.
We pretty much shot it for real – we laid 600′ of continual track and customised a baby motorised dolly rig housing 2 cameras off-set left and right to save time as we only had a day to shoot. We shot Olly tracking back around 180-200 times at 130′ intervals, we then rotoscoped/soft masked and composited around 80 Ollys at 3K resolution.
“To achieve the camera moves we didn’t ‘pan and scan’ but panned the Flame camera around the 3K image, which produces a more realistic result. Along with that we countered the lens distortion before and re-distorted after to reflect the zoom lens changing its field of view. In short, once we had shot it, we re-shot it again in post.
“We basically mobilised the entire workforce of Framestore. London 24hrs a day for 6 weeks – it should have taken 5 months so of course, we are very happy with the results and eternally grateful!”
It's going down a treat with the public too, which is always good news. NICE ONE VAUGHAN!
13/02/2013
We're pleased to say that the new Rokkit-produced promo for NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS is now live and online.
John Hillcoat (of Lawless and The Road directing fame) was in charge and the whole thing was kept together by our own Tom B. It's a gritty film, shot over in East London and starring none other than Mr. Ray Winstone, who gives a typically-brilliant - if a little disconcerting - lead performance. Watch the video after the jump, but take note: It gets pretty NSFW towards the end.
7/02/2013
This is a little unexpected, but nonetheless quite awesome.
Oliver Murray's HENKA DANCE short has scored itself a nomination in this year's Music + Sound Awards! It's nominated in "The PRS for Music Award for Best Original Composition in a Television Program", which is quite a mouthful but equally really good news. It's in there alongside things like Sherlock and Downton Abbey, neither of which we can remember the music to, but both of which we love. Swathes of back-pats await Ollie, who it has to be said is slamming in the workloads lately, following on from his back-to-back promos for Chapel Club and Lewis Watson - watch this space for the latter.
THUMBS-UP.
