Wow!! What a weekend! :)
After only one week of preparation, and a couple of hours at Videolounge for gear check (thanks for the rental!), the weekend of shoot for the first single of the Planetary Assault album on Pioneer Unit started,,
Photo by Dplanet
First we went to Epping, at Bucks-4-Tyres rim, mags and tyres shop. Thank you so much to Eeshaam for organising the location and big thanks to Mr and Mrs Bucks for letting us invade their shop on the busiest day of the week! They moved around the rims, put spinners on 24” for us and polished chromes.
Photo by Dplanet
We got the shot wrapped under 2 hours and moved back to town to Mercury Live. Kevin and Morné kindly opened up the club earlier for us.
We had about 5 hours to set up and shoot some high energy footage for the choruses. Thanks to Eeshaam doing an outstanding and unexpected job as assistant director, everything went smoothly and I could concentrate on the setting up the shots and making sure it all looked outstanding. Eeshaam really has a way to explain what I have in mind to a crowd and get them hyper and excited about helping us out. He’s got such a way with people and is even telepathic!! ;) Exactly what you need on a busy day of shooting!
We started with some stage performance by Jaak and Konfab, followed by some crowd shots (THANK YOU so much to everybody who turned up and showed so much energy and enthusiasm for the shot!). We also got blessed by Ameen and his krump dancers showing off their sickest moves (and the best pairs of trainers I have seen in a while. Stylish!!). We also got blessed with a group of female dancers who had a special choregraphy for the track. We did some cameos in an unexpected location (thanks D and Konfab) and even got a visit by Mizi, Simone and Blacklez from Hype Magazine / Joburg. It was very nice hooking up and thanking them personally after they did a feature on the Go Against Us video in this June 2007’s issue. Thanks guys!
We then finished the Mercury Live shoot in the back office, as per the press release photoshoot, where we filmed Dplanet and Konfab performing the intro of the track. Once again, some startling performances by Konfab!
We ended up the day at Chef Pon’s on Kloof for some well deserved Asian food, then went home for an early night and a battery charging session.
We started the second day of shoot at Paarl at Jaak’s place. We had fun with a braai scene (I can’t wait to show you all the scene where Jaak holds the boerewors roll with pride and joy, I just couldn’t keep a straight face!!). Jaak also made a special effort with his costume and wore a very tight fitting pair of blue jeans, some takkies and white shirt. Apparently a very typical outfit from his birth place ;) Thanks for this sacrifice!! We also got very lucky with the weather.
Photo by Dplanet
By lunchtime, there was quite a big crowd watching the filming outside of Jaak’s house. (Btw, thanks to Jaak’s aunt for letting us roam freely around the house for such a long time too!).
Photo by Dplanet
Dplanet decided to use the kids for the wheel pushing shot. Eeshaam rallied all the kids at the crossroad and made them run down the street, chasing Jaak pushing his wheels. It was absolutely fantastic and so much fun to capture. I love this kind of unexpected action in shoots,, when things just fall in place and more than what you planned happens! Thanks kids!! We then made our way to Paarl’s hood where we got permission to shoot. We parked the car, I took the camera on my shoulder and off we went.
Photo by Dplanet
The place was really graphic in its architecture and colours, then the amount of kids surrounding us was insane. Everybody was enjoying Jaak’s track and joined in! We even had to ask everybody to form a circle around Jaak so I could see him,, The kids wouldnt let us go afterwards, they all wanted their photos taken, so we obliged for a while. We also left a couple of CDs behind as thank you gifts. I must say I had a little pinch in my heart seeing so many people sharing the same thing and showing so much love and support just like this,, it was awesome!!
Photo by Dplanet
We drove back to town under very heavy rain to Marvel on Long Street for our last location of the shoot. Linda did a cameo for Dice Life, throwing the dices on the pool table. Konfab and Jaak did some performance shots in front of the pool table with everybody playing foetsball in the background.
Photo by Dplanet
After that we crammed loads of the rappers on the Planetary Assault project in the tiny Marvel toilets and asked them to go crazy. The shots look like an undulating see of mad rappers. We did a few more cameos in the looks and finished off with the last cameos in the Marvel booths. Thanks Val and Yan for letting us use Marvel and getting the place cleaned up earlier for us :)
After packing up and Mike from Videolounge picking the gear up, we had a few drinks at Marvel to celebrate the end of a successful shoot!
BIG THANK YOU’s to (not in any order of any kind…)
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Dplanet for giving me the opportunity to make a video for him, for his patience, vision, support and sound advice.
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Eeshaam September for an outstanding and unexpected job as an assistant director, can’t wait to work together again!
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Konfab and Jaak, for their outstanding repeated performances, for their energy, professionalism and fun to work with
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Julian at Butan Wear for supplying clothing
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All the rappers from the Planetary Assault project who made it to the shoot
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All the extras who joined us on Saturday for the crowd shot, thanks so much for making these shots a success!
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Ameen and his Krump dancers
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Linda and the female dancers
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Hipe (extra thanks for the lift!), Nastie Ed, Mizi, Simone, Blacklez and all the other cameos
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Mr. and Mrs. Bucks at Bux-4-Tyres in Epping
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Morné and Kevin at Mercury Live
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Yan and Val at Marvel
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Jaak’s aunt in Paarl
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All the kids in Paarl
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Scott and Emilia for taking photos of the shoot
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Hassan and Eeshaam’s wife for their help in Paarl
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Tara for helping out with setting up, make up and playback on Saturday
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Nick at Lodestar for capturing the footage
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Pete at 10kilo for his technical advice and support
Massive thanks to everybody!!
For more photos of the shoot, check Dplanet’s set on Flickr and Spo0ky’s set on Flickr.
