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Retro Fizzy Drink - Silver Tongue Bandoliers

Fizzy drinks corporation STB is carrying out a photoshoot to try and sell their brand new drink “Donnie Pop”. Despite the model's best efforts, nothing works for the frustrated director and his attempts to capture the perfect image become more and more elaborate. Things are going terribly until a a bored lighting man has a moment of inspiration.

  • Callum Lloyd-James
    Director
  • Callum Lloyd-James
    Writer
  • Kian Vaziri
    Writer
  • Callum Lloyd-James
    Producer
  • Georgia Sidell
    Key Cast
    Skins, Precious Little Things
  • Anthony Portsmouth
    Key Cast
  • Kian Vaziri
    Key Cast
  • Project Type:
    Music Video, Short, Student
  • Runtime:
    5 minutes 13 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    May 7, 2017
  • Production Budget:
    0 GBP
  • Country of Origin:
    United Kingdom
  • Country of Filming:
    United Kingdom
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    2:35:1
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Feel The Reel International Film Festival
    Glasgow
    United Kingdom
    May 17, 2017
    Audience Award
Distribution Information
  • T. Knight Productions
    Country: United Kingdom
    Rights: All Rights
Director Biography - Callum Lloyd-James

Having started making films at the age of 16. Callum has gone on to graduate from New York Film Academy as well as the University of Surrey, achieving a Bachelors degree in Digital Media Arts. Amongst this he has also travelled to LP University, India to study Bollywood cinema and worked on artists such as Major Lazer, Ronnie Wood and Will Heard doing filming at live events. Whilst making music videos is where his true passion lays, he has also worked as a Director of Photography on several low budget films as well as directing and producing short films of his own.

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Director Statement

I remember hearing the song for the first time and thinking to myself "wow, now here's something different"; the song is so infectious and catchy, I knew straight away that I wanted to work on a video for it.

Having met Kian, the band's lead singer, at university I knew how talented he was. Around a year before I had produced a live gig as well as an interview session for the band and I got to properly hear some of their material. When I heard they had a new EP coming out I jumped at the chance to work with them again on something I am very passionate about.

The concept for the video was coined on a rainy afternoon in Brighton. Kian and I had very different visions for the video going into the project. Kian wanted to go very abstract, whilst I wanted to a do a piece focussing on social commentary with dating apps such as Tinder. We couldn't agree on anything. The final idea came when I asked "why is the song even called Retro Fizzy Drink?" Since none of the lyrics of the song actually relate to the title. It turned out that over time the song had evolved and changed and the title had remained from a previous version of the song. I wanted to bring some relevance back to the title and it was there that the concept of a photoshoot for a new fizzy drink was born.

We shot the video on a weekend a few weeks after the meeting, spending 22 hours shooting on the Saturday (8am-6am) and then another 6 hours on the Sunday afternoon. The original plan was to shoot all of the scenes with the band on the Sunday, however when Dylan and Joel arrived on the Saturday night it transpired that they both had work the next day and had to be back in Milton Keynes from London at 8:45am on the Sunday. It was then I knew we had a long night ahead of us.

I met Georgia Sidell when I was living in New York in 2014. She was a friend of a friend that I had asked to act in a couple of my films. Coincidentally we are both now living in the same part of England and when I knew I needed a female lead for the film I got in contact. I hadn't seen her in 3 years and in that time her acting skills had flourished more than I could have predicted. It's not always easy to convey emotions without the use of sound, however Georgia managed to nail this without overacting, not a simple feat.

It was through Georgia that Anthony Portsmouth became involved in the project. I had originally envisioned his character being played by a muscular, tank-top-wearing, self obsessed, jock but when I gave Anthony the character description he just went with it and created a character even more spectacular than I could have ever imagined. It's a real shame you can't hear the dialogue that he's saying in the film as it was really hilarious. His exchanges with Georgia had us all in bits on set. Its a shame that so much of what we shot had to be left on the cutting room floor.

Whilst none of the band members are trained actors, at points you'd certainly be left questioning that. Joel and Kian in particular have exuberance and sass in abundance which I think really came out in the work they did.

None of the people involved in the production were paid. The final result is a combination of many people's efforts to come together to create art for art's sake and it is a very satisfying process indeed. Seeing everyone come together and really focus on nailing their part of the piece is amazing, whether its the actors, musicians, director of photography, makeup or sound design. Everyone really honed in and tried to excel in their role and for that reason alone the film is a masterpiece in my eyes.