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The Great British Ho tel M ar k s and s p e nce r By D aw n S h ad fo r t h 05/01/2015 2
How How
IS ee T he F i l m s M ar k s and s p e nce r T he G re at B r i t i s h H o tel
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The Great British Hotel
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MARCH 5
Three stripes of sun lit colour fill the frame : powder blue, shimmering silver, and glistening pebble. A bold title SPRING appears over the top. The aperture of an arched doorway slides into shot from above, framing the seaside backdrop. 4 elegant, female silhouettes sashay into view. They cross a pool of sunlight, spilling through a glass atrium. Jibbing off co-ordinated shoes, past a casually swung handbag to a waft of spring weight coats we are introduced to our British beauties. Lets give them some names for the sake of our story : A sizzling bombshell - Hot Robinson. An older sophisticate Cool Jackson. A crop haired androgen - Tomboy Brown. A grown up with rock-n-roll attitude - Rebel Smith.
of a classically British grand seaside hotel - given a sparkling fashion makeover. Mint and white stucco top, white pillars, an art deco wave-pattern adorns the furnishing and cherry blossom petals drift magically in the air. This new M&S world is magical reality, fanciful and chic. Then surprise! A 5th woman arrives, fashionably late. Cuteness and mayhem - Fun Jones. Fun yanks her suitcase and matching handbag while chatting animatedly on the phone. She turns to admire the elegant entrance hall bumping into a cute lobby boy, who has dashed to meet her. Fun apologises goofily, he can’t hide his admiration. She joins her girlfriends - a sea of smiles, pastel shades, billowing hair, twinkle and mischief. Watch out! M&S Spring has arrived.
This is essentially a fashion show. The runway is the lobby
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The group falls nonchalantly into a formation, in synch with the music. We track around the tableau, showing fresh summery outfits and accessories. Movements are naturalistic rather than dance. The women continue to talk on the phone, rummage in desirable handbags and accessories. It’s all choreographed, rhythmic and timed to perfection.
PING!
A group of lobby boys wheel a mountain of suitcases past camera, revealing a Donald McGill styled portly man and wife drinking tea at a little table. They start to nod head and tap their feet along with the music. Hot Jackson taps her foot to the same rhythm. Cool Jackson addresses the check in. She taps the bell on the beat.
The women head off in different directions. Lobby boys scurry after them pushing gold lift doors, framed in stucco surrounds. The lift doors and our women stop in synch. Tomboy Brown presses a button adjusting her silky blouse sleeves on the beat as she does. They all step through the doors. Inside a mirrored lift Cool Jackson and Rebel Smith pose with their reflections to the beat. The dance is starting.
A suited concierge snaps to attention as Jackson perches her handbag on the counter. She raises eyebrow straight to camera. Our concierge clicks his pen. She poses one way then the other, turning at the end of a runway flicks her head and walks away.
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A lift door is spun into frame. It opens revealing Fun Jones. We pull back to into a new set - a lusciously carpeted corridor. The girls now “cat-walk” each on a new runway, peeling off their coats in synch, to reveal a new array of spring/summer outfits beneath. In a high angle looking down into an ornate stairwell we see each of the girls each walking on a different level. In close up, one leans on the balustrade and pulls a cheeky face up at another. Now we follow the women into their rooms. The sequence could play out as follows. Ultimately it would be designed to work with the clothes: Rebel spins and flops onto the bed. Our camera is above her, as if looking into a dolls house, with the roof removed. We slide to the next room where Cool is also lying delightedly on top of her bed. She rolls onto her tummy shown off her fabulous legs and short shorts. In the next room Hot has an open suitcase with a riot of clothes spilling out. She
leans over in a sweet knicker and bra set reaching for the telephone. Whip panning, we cut seamlessly to Fun’s room. She leans on the window ledge sporting a cute short sleeved sweater and is framed against the blue sky, sunlight streaming in. Sliding next door, to the same framing on Hot, we feature a lush satin dressing gown, underwear set beneath. She crosses the room and flings open a wardrobe door. The camera pushes through the wardrobe and a riot of M&S print swatches, emerging, via a different wardrobe into a new room. Rebel, now wearing a gorgeous camisole set, chooses a floral dress. Entering the bathroom she hangs it on the door. As she leans into the mirror we track through the wall, to a different bathroom, where Cool, dressed in wide pants and a blouse, adjusts a hat.
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Moving on we find Tomboy, on her bed, dancing like noone is watching. Outside the door the concierge unable to make her hear him, no matter how hard he knocks.
We start to pull back, revealing room after room. The front of the hotel looks like an open dollhouse. Each room differently styled with a girl inside dancing.
We whip pan from the concierge’s back to a door further along the corridor. It opens to reveal Hot. She is half dressed in a sleek skirt and bra. She crosses the corridor to Tomboy’s room to share a big bag of make-up. The concierge turns, too late, he missed her. He turns back just as Fun tows the cute bellboy the other way across the corridor, shhhing him and giggling.
A close up of a umbrella holder full of colourful umbrellas. Multiple hands take out the umbrellas. The girls move to the front of their balconies and in one swift motion, a white, taut, semi-sheer, theatrical curtain drops behind them, closing off the rooms. Now the white stucco front of our “dollshouse hotel” is closed, leaving the women on the balcony and in the hotel exterior.
Cool Jackson looks quizzical, like she heard something. Shrugging she licks cake cream off a tea trolley spoon as she leans on the door pulling on her shoes. Tomboy Brown is also putting on her last shoe, she puts both on the floor and does a little dance. The camera jibs up past a swinging light fitting, through a floor finding Rebel Smith doing the same dance.
Our original group of women is joined by many more. The colourful M&S spring/summer 2015 collection is framed graphically in the bright sunlight and the delicious white stucco of the hotel frontage. The balcony is the final catwalk. A fluid camera mingles in amongst the girls taking in details of the clothes and this floor show set against the bright blue sky.
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Then the lighting shifts suddenly from blue sky and sunshine to dark clouds. Huge raindrops project across the surface of the building. The girls twirl with their umbrellas switching the rain drops and lights on and off as they dance. Take a look at this amazing rain projection example to get an idea of what we can do with this.
We end on a wide of the hotel. A glorious wedding cake of a perfect white stucco Britishness. Framed by sunshine powder blue sky and a perfectly synchronised projected flock of seagulls. The title appears :
The line of women walk back into the hotel. Models walking off stage at the end of a fashion show. Fun Jones disappears last, running to catch up and putting down her umbrella a cute smile as she poses and turns inside.
ONLY M&S.
THE PERFECT SUMMER LOOKS UNDER ONE ROOF.
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MAY 16
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We open on a perfect powder blue sky. A bold title SUMMER. A couple of seagulls, flapping in synch, fly through frame. Tilting with the seagulls we reveal Hot Robinson, cycling down the promenade. Cute pink dress, cardigan and bobby socks, she’s reminiscent of Emily Lloyd in Wish You Were Here. The ornate mint coloured railing rolls past beside her, and the distant pier is a beautiful model set. We cut to Rebel, in a floral dress standing centre frame on a perfect Victorian pier. She smiles past camera and waves. Cutting to the reverse we see an ornate white wrought iron entranceway. The pier leads out from the front of the Grand Hotel of the previous spot.
is running down the pier towards her. They fall into step. We track with them as they dance forwards. Passing a “What The Butler Saw” machine which Cool is peering into. For a brief moment we cut to what she is watching. A little black and white flicker reel shows a man in a top hat and tail coat dancing a tap dance, a little provocatively. Raising an eyebrow Cool joins her friends. Fun and Tomboy are sticking their heads through the head holes of a “peep through board”. The Donald McGill style drawings show one babe reclining in a blue and white striped deck chair, while the other beauty sits on a Donkey. The girls pout playfully and pull faces. They emerge, twirling into view, in the exact same dresses that were drawn on the board.
Gleaming white, stucco seafront architecture fills the horizon in miniature. A white big wheel turns sleepily. Hot
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Elements of classic pier architecture are moved like theatre scenery. They are pushed by our hotel lobby boys, now dressed in a fashion riff on Donald McGill : rolled up trousers, vests, braces and knotted hankies on their heads. A row of white benches and small arched windows roll into shot. The girls spin round wrought iron poles, and sit in tableau poses on the benches. Next we employ high metal chairs and tables and white arched windows of a pier top fish and chip cafe. The scene becomes a stylised riff on a recent Louis Vouiton campaign. The women perform a choreographed sequence of poses. Their pastel and floral dresses set against classic blue and white seaside palate. They share fish and chips instead of dainty french fancies. In another tableau they “buy� candy floss, sticks of rock and toffee apples from a kitschy booth. The sweets match their various outfits and they eat them in synch. Tomboy dressed in biker boots with her floral
dress twirls a huge lollipop with the words, I love Floral emblazoned on it. Rebel accessorises with jewellery bought from an exclusively M&S peer trinket display. She poses in front of a glittering window. As the girls pass camera we see a fast cutting sequence of close ups of the prints on their dresses as they cross frame. The stalls and architecture of the pier slide away to reveal open seas and those synchronised seagulls again. The background, all a projection, cycles past to illustrate their movement. The women accelerate, their dance now happening on a treadmill and the wind machine picks up. In editorial style shots, and slow motion action, the women catch garments that are flying past them, caught in the wind. Hats and cardigans blow past, the odd fish and chip wrappers too. A large suited man chases his newspaper past them. The women put the hats on their heads and assemble their outfits effortlessly and elegantly.
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All at once it stops. The sun comes out again. We cut to a wide shot of the pier from high above, it looks like a model, set within a painted backdrop. The sun rises in the clear blue sky. We cut to shots of Fun, Rebel and Tomboy on towels sunbathing, either on a flat grassy bank or a pebble beach. They perform a choreographed lazy roll over. One nods to the beat, headphones and iPod, one reads turning pages in time to the music. Rebel looks past her hand at sky, clouds roll over the sun and the world turns grey. Tilt down from the grey sky to Cool also looking at the sky. Standing at the end of the pier, she is joined by the rest of the girls. She distributes six swiftly opened umbrellas. Giant projected raindrops fill the scene. The girls twirl their umbrellas then close them again. The projected rain switches off. Fun throws her umbrella into the air but holds onto it with a long ribbon. It bounces along like a helium balloon as she holds the end of the ribbon, magically her feet leave the ground as she springs forward to catch up with the group.
ENDING 1 The umbrellas bob above all their heads like helium balloons, until Tomboy comes along with a pair of giant scissors and cuts the strings. The girls watch from blue and white striped deck chairs, as the umbrellas float away into the blue sky. The camera drifts away from the girls arranged in a circle on their deck chairs.. TITLE : THE PERFECT SUMMER DRESSES. FOR A SIZZLING SUMMER. The Blue Sky.. TITLE : ONLY M&S
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ENDING 2 As above only it starts to rain in the final shot. The girls jump up off their deck chairs and hold newspapers over their heads as they scrabble for cover. We cut to them huddled laughing on a white ornate bench under the white decorative wooden rain shelter. TITLE : THE PERFECT SUMMER DRESSES. FOR A DRIZZLING SUMMER. Grey sky with Rain drop projections and floating multicoloured umbrellas. TITLE : ONLY M&S
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The
NEW M & S Fa s h io n F I l m D DD N NN A A A
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These scripts are incredibly exciting to me as a director. They offer the opportunity to create something that is authored and fantastically unique. This is the next step for M&S as a fashion brand. I’d relish this brief, to create an instantly recognisable, unique, stylistic blueprint for the M&S fashion film. These films are complex but they shouldn’t FEEL complex. They should feel, dizzying, dazzling, effortless and wonderful. They need to make perfect sense. Like the work of Wes Anderson or Michel Gondry they are full of tricks and visual delights that make for compulsive viewing. Creating these
kinds of worlds is not simple, but, if done right, it is possible for them to be utterly wonderful. It requires fine balance between style, technical “know how” and creative flair. I would aim to make these films theatrical, but intimate and bursting with character. To combine elegant production design, playful visual effects and entertaining performance and create a deliciously fanciful, cinematic style, unique to M&S fashion. I’d wrap it all up with playful touches and the British humour that is part and parcel of M&S’s DNA, the M&S wink!
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The Fashion 29
For me it’s all needs to start with the clothes. Then it’s about the ways in which we elevate the clothes beyond their reality. Making something look beautiful in the right context is what truly cements those clothes in people’s minds in a way they will not forget. We want them to think… “That’s a GORGEOUS pair of trousers” …and so we need to create shots where it’s the clothes they notice. Shots that will propel the viewer off their sofa, out of the door, down the high street and into M&S. We SHOULD feature Limited Editions and special smalls buys alongside the key items, that will be in every
shop in Britain, which of course need to feature heavily. It’s the motivation to visit the store that is needed and for that we need the clothes to be utterly desirable. The collection should be central and inspire every creative decision but let’s give our stylist freedom to explore the entire collection, to elevate the brand and pepper our films with the very best of what M&S have to offer.
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Production Design 31
The
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Hotel
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Much of the power of this film will be how we seduce the audience with our world. They should want to LIVE in the world of the commercial. Entering our world should feel like opening magnificent deliciously designed fashion doll’s house. Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zizou, is a perfect reference for approach. The set is designed so we can at times pull back to and shoot from impossible camera positions revealing its “miniature” and theatrical feel. Stylistically we create our own unique feel. Like a white stucco wedding cake, set into a world of blue sky perfection, the whole piece should feel edible! Our interiors are designed with Tim Walker’s fairytale approach in mind. Each interior is a riff on the clothes which will be featured within. We will take the palate of the clothes and also of the British seaside and weave them through our sets and styling; blue, white, mint, candyfloss pink, coral, toffee red, stripes, paisley, chintz and stucco are all signatures here.
Theatrical curtains, floating flats and projected visual effects allow scenes to change seamlessly. Our cast will interact viscerally with their world. The set is choreographed and is dancing with them too. The exterior of the hotel will be created in two ways. The widest shots will be a simple model/matte painting, along the lines of the exterior wide shots of The Grand Budapest Hotel. When we are closer the girls perform in a more “theatrical” set. Stucco details of the outside of the building are painted/projected onto flat curtains which lower to conceal the inside of the hotel. The pier will be a set within a painted studio. We will use projections and some blue screen to create multiple angles and movement. The set will be extended in post production. There will also be movable set pieces that the cast will dance and interact with. Our style is that of a classical Victorian pier; wrought iron work, painted weatherboarding, ornate street-lamps painted signage in the seaside style and fairground motifs. The palate; mainly blue and white, mint with splashes of bright candy colours. 34
Pier Pier Pier Pier
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The British Seaside
Patterns
We Brits have huge affection for our seaside towns with their quaintness and shabby chic charm. So a quintessential Britishness is important. For me here it’s about the authenticity of the detail that will sell this to a knowing audience. It’s the familiarity they will love. In this film, however we definitely view that quaintness through rose tinted fashion goggles. It’s stylised and elevated to a huge degree, an idealised feminine fantasy of a British seaside hotel and pier - no frumpiness. But the Britishness and charm remains.
As well as integrating patterns to compliment the clothes I’d like details in our decor and landscapes to become a rhythmic choreographed element. Birds, buildings, sea and clouds roll across the frame occasionally forming patterns which loop and choreograph to the rhythm too. It’s always all about the detail. When layered adds to the delicious eye catching effect of the whole.
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Camera 37
Our camera won’t solely be there to capture the action, it will be part of the show. Using whip pans, and perfectly timed tracking shots the camera is active, another performer, dancing with the cast.
of the sets and that brings an added sense of realism and intimacy. So the language of a more improvisational style is used as a cue for the audience even though the camera’s movement is still highly choreographed.
Certain lenses make the audience feel like they are a participant, inside the world of the film. I love shooting like this. Having the camera closer to subject will draw the audience in and connect them intimately with our cast. I’d like to inject a fluidity and energy into our scenes and the camera work. To sometimes shooting handheld, to work in a way that is counter intuitive to the heavy stylisation
I also love the idea of shooting the same piece of choreography multiple times with different characters in different spaces. By cross cutting between these similarly composed and choreographed scenes we can capture personality and spontaneity yet through movement retain the feeling of each edit being expertly designed.
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Lighting In every scene we should feel the sun, whether it’s delicate rays creeping into a room or the bright summer sun on a balcony. Even though we are in stylised environment we should not sacrifice the realism and authentic warmth that sunshine brings. For this we will sometimes need a touch of atmosphere, dust or sparkle in the air to catch the sunlight and make us “feel it. With my DOP I’d like to create an editorial/photographic look with sunshine as the main “character” in the lighting. Subtle and tasteful with a high fashion sensibility.
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Choreography Evolve d Catwalk Catwalk
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Although there will be moments when we see “dancing” this film will be more about a clever and elaborate performance by the camera, set and the cast. I see this entire piece as an evolved fashion show. We will create choreography that is a riff on the whole idea of modelling. So the movement style mixes naturalistic actions with the idea of modelling clothes and posing. For instance - three handbags are proffered to camera in synch, or a catwalk turn is performed to camera, in a corridor. There is a definite wink in all of this.
actually dancing. When they do actually dance our women have all the cheek of the Lanvin fall 2011 fashion film featuring Karen Elson and Raquel Zimmerman. Personality and humour shines, rather than perfect execution. Our use of choreography will allow us to weave scenes seamlessly and with great energy. The flowing of multiple elements brings a sense of excitement and momentum to the films. Each glimpse of a desirable garment or texture or setting flows seamlessly into the next and leaving the audience wanting more.
When it develops and we turn the nuances of real, natural movement into a dance. It’s as if they are all dancing to the same track on the radio, subtly at first then until they are
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Cast &
p e rfo r m ance
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Casting will be key. We want to remind our core customer that is what M&S is all about. We do this by showing women who not only beautiful clothes horses. Each woman should feel like a real bonafide character with bags of energy. This should be a cast who the M&S customers, old and new, can connect and identify with. I’d love to revive an aspect the old Twiggy/Noemi/Erin commercials got across really well. Where it was not just the casting, but the way they played it. Our models should collude with the camera and the audience in a way that “breaks the 3rd wall”. It’s very knowing but also has a translucence. The viewer feels the process and that these women are really having a
good time making a film. The camera is never voyeuristic. Obviously is much more appealing to a female audience. To achieve this, casting comes first, the characters must be right. I’d suggest broadening our search to actresses and dancers as well as models. After that I like to create a fun and collaborative atmosphere on set. I roll during rehearsal often for some naturalistic happy accidents. For our extra characters I’d love to cast actors. A M. Gustave type the Ralph Feinnes character from The Grand Budapest Hotel. Lobby boys will mainly be dancers but for one who has a romantic role, he will be and cute and quirky actor/ model. Some hotel lobby and pier extras would be cast and styles based on similarities to Donald McGill postcards.
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Cast
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The Music The The Edit Edit Sometimes, if you have a lot going on, a cluttered track can make it harder to “SEE� the images. I love the idea of using something that starts off quite sparse and that builds in subtle layers. Nothing too full in production, so that we allow space to cut fast with the images and still let the film breathe. It would be great if our music gives our films an arc. A track that builds will allow us to really create a story and a sense of excitement and euphoria.
The edit is where we can really push this into the realm of a fashion film, playing with frame rates so the edit is ultra musical and rhythmic. I would only use this effect in specific places. For instance in creating a graphic flicker book type effect when our camera enters the wardrobe, or when the models cross our frame on the pier, and we cut fast between prints and patterns from the collection. These are the touches which could ultimately become the trademarks of an M&S signature.
I even love the idea of finding a classic of musical theatre, a great song, and giving it an upto the minute cover by a great contemporary artist. Ed Sheeran perhaps? Just an idea. I would also mention my love of Paolo Nuttini and the track on his current album entitled - Fashion.
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To Sum Su
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Iconic ads are made through very singular vision. I can really see these films. I know how to make them: How they should take the charm and individuality of the British seaside and elevate it into something magical, sparkling and dreamy. How they need exactly the right balance of chic and cheek, that iconic M&S wink. I firmly believe it’s possible to create a film that feels very high fashion and that will still be able to resonate with the core M & S audience. I’d love to opportunity to create them with you. Dawn
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