Alka Sets the Horizontal Bar High in Laid Back Spot

The idea for ‘Laid Back’, the launch of Alka’s new horizontal packet, was instantly engaging for director Tom Wilson. The client was also incredibly collaborative allowing plenty of creative room to manoeuvre. 

The music video section, featuring a rapper, for example, could literally have been shot anywhere in any setup, so tom and DOP Bogdan Filip had the freedom to try out as many ideas and looks as possible.

Tom’s vision from the outset was for a really mixed media shoot, so he busted out his trusty Panasonic M50 and also shot on VHS, and pimped up the Black Magic Pocket with a wide-angle lens for the skateboard scene. He also used a 360-degree GoPro camera. An iPhone was used for the vertical footage. Photos were then integrated into the footage. The stills were shot on 35mm rather than digital and they also shot on the Contax T2 - one of his favourite cameras due to it’s distinctive look. 

Other cameras used were the Rikoh Mirai, which Tom describes as: “looking completely mental, totally unlike any other camera I've ever seen and he is also “got a chance to use the Arri Trinity - a hybrid stabilisation system. It's a cool piece of kit that helped us get lots of rotation shots. One minute we'd be shooting on the Alexa Mini with a Trinity operator on vintage Lomo anamorphic lenses, and the next minute I'd be running alongside skateboarders holding a 30-year old VHS recorder that kept threatening to run out of battery. So it was very hi-tec-meets lo-tec.” 

The planning of the shoot had to have periods of time built into the call sheet so Tom and his long time collaborator DP Bogdan could just do what they wanted. 

“On a regular TVC shoot you're so constrained by the call sheet that there's no time for having fun. On this one we made sure that we could grab a camera and an astera light and go shoot a cool idea with the skateboard kids that had just come to us. We were really lucky to have a client and agency that were totally behind this approach and gave us the freedom we needed to freestyle completely during the shoot and also during the edit. 

I knew we'd got the dream client for this job when Amir, the owner of the company Alka, started skateboarding with the kids we were shooting with! Turns out he was a skater back in the day…!”