NANDO’S ‘THIS IS PERi-PERi’
It’s been a long time dream of mine to shoot something like this. Something edgy, energetic, punctuated with fast cuts & relevant music/sound design. A concept that elevates the taste buds visually, & shows that even with only 2-days of shoot coupled with perseverance, creativity & teamwork, we can get around to making things look magical & full of soul – pardon the pun. Working with Nando’s & TBWA/Creative Juice for the 3rdtime, Shootworksasia & myself took on this challenging shoot & dare I say, delivered an end product that we’re extremely proud of. Of utmost importance, was to get the right rigging expertise, & we looked no further than Harris, a reliable go-to art director/rigger if given the time & the right funds to work with. He studied what we wanted to execute with precision & having done his homework beforehand, things picked up speed during the shoot & shots that would seem to take the longest times, would be carried out with ease. With minimal set build – 2 walls, some paintings & picture frames & part of a table, plus the Client’s Griller, we set up the entire kitchen & dining experience in a studio. Shooting with multiple cameras; Arri Alexa, Panasonic GH5, Sony FS7, & 2-setups each time, we covered slightly over 40 shots. It was definitely a huge undertaking, but we pulled through with determination & tenacity. Of course, when it came to shooting the beauty Nando’s chicken shots, those consumed slightly more time as we had to get the look, texture & accompanying gravy add-ons just right. Imagine cooking the ‘butterfly’ chicken for a whole 4 hours… & that’s only 1 whole chicken. Thanks to our experienced food stylist, Yong & her assistant, we made the chicken look as good as can be. Kudos also to our 2 talents; South African John as our chef, & a local female customer – who had a full face shot at the beginning, only to be cut out at the very end as we wanted to keep things more focused on the chef & just the taste perspective. DOP Sean Loh created the right atmosphere once more, with Meccanica FX providing full post-production support, with freelance editor Vikster setting the pace of the edit.