Prime Focus London

Coldplay - Talk

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Prime Focus London completed full post-production on the promo for Coldplay's Talk, the third single from X & Y. Directed by Anton Corbjin and produced by Laura Kanerick, the promo is the first production of Anton Corbjin Ltd. as a production company. The black and white film which was shot on 35mm colour film, tells the story of the band arriving on an unknown planet in a space craft and coming face to face with a giant robot. The band steal one of the robot's dials and hide it in their drum kit, before leading him into an opening and performing the track in front of him. As the band begin to make their departure the robot realises he's missing the dial and takes his revenge. Using a mix of traditional models and high-end visual effects, the promo has a B-movie feel, which reflects the tongue-in-cheek subject matter perfectly. "I felt it was time that Coldplay did something a little more 'leftfield' with one of their promos," said Anton. "They'd previously mostly stuck to performance pieces and I was keen to stray from that completely. When I listened to the opening chords of track, they made me think of space, and the ideas flowed from there. As with my Killers video, this is again a story of redemption, but one that is delivered with a smile." After storyboarding the concept and breaking down the shots to ascertain exactly what was needed, the three-day shoot began. The promo was shot across two stages - one a full size set and the other – and identical model at a scale of 10:1. To ensure elements from both could be composited together later and to help provide a smooth workflow though to post-production, Prime Focus London’s James Allen supervised the shoot. Back at the facility James worked closely with Anton to establish the look that he wanted to achieve. Online editing for the project was centralised in Smoke with Ian Baker, who has collaborated with Anton for many years. The effects shots were handled across Smoke and Flame with additional support from the Combustion team. The Prime Focus London team spent more than a week working on the elements required. These included rig removal, sky replacements, complex compositing and clean-ups. "This project was a joy to work on," said James. "It was interesting because the look we were aiming for was a naturalistic and honest one, more reminiscent of effects seen in 50's Sci-Fi movies than seamless comps and CGI perfection. Working with a legendary image-maker like Anton was an inspiration and as the band and everyone involved knew, it was only ever going to be a truly original result." "Anton and I both bring our work to Prime Focus London because we know we'll get a dedicated service," said Laura Kanerick, producer. "They've always produced fantastic results for us and this job was no exception."

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