How B&Q built its latest campaign

The film is an amazing production feat; was this approach one you envisioned from the start? 

SW: For me, flipping the house in-camera was integral to the idea. It was either we build the set for real, or not at all. The set looks oddly similar to the original stickman sketch I drew of how it would work.  

It's a bold and ambitious concept; was there ever a worry the client wouldn't buy into the idea?

SW: Uncommon and B&Q have developed a great relationship over the last few years and there’s a real trust that exists between us. As soon as they saw the idea they liked it and were excited to see it come to life. 

Flipping the house in-camera was integral to the idea. It was either we build the set for real, or not at all. 

From that point on it was just a case of figuring out how we’d actually do it in reality. But it was a steep learning curve taking the production from stickman sketch to enormous, life-size revolving house. 

Above: B&Q Flip, used a set that was more than six storeys high.

Why was Oscar the right choice as director? 

SW: He’s brilliant at in-camera, visual tricks and amazing sets combined with beautiful choreography, too. I think the idea of doing it all for real, in-camera, was what attracted him to the idea straight away. 

There’s something more pleasurable about working with tangible, physical things. Everyone working on it all together also has a galvanising effect.

Right from the word go we had a very similar vision of how it should be. The handheld, long shot nature of the camera really adds an honesty to the clearly fantastical scene. 

Oscar, what were your initial thoughts when you saw the script?

OH: I was immediately drawn to the script. I get my fair share of scripts and this one stood out a mile, and it just looked like a lot of fun. It took a little bit of thought to decide on the tone and on the visual approach but it felt, quite quickly, that working with long sequences and keeping it grounded and real was the way to go, just to bring out the most of the effect of doing it for real, in-camera and building a big, double-sided flipping house.

What is it about this type of filmmaking that excites you?

OH: I’m always drawn to in-camera effects and I suppose it’s developed as a theme of my work, and I love doing it. The results you get from working that way are always superior to taking a post-heavy approach, in my opinion. Beyond that, it also just makes the process a lot more enjoyable. There’s something more pleasurable about working with tangible, physical things. Everyone working on it all together also has a galvanising effect, like a shared enterprise.

Above: Walker's initial sketch of the rig they would end up shooting on.

Can you tell us a bit about the studio/location set up and the challenges around that? 

SW: We actually struggled to find a studio big enough to fit a full size rotating house set inside. In the end we settled on building it in a sports stadium in Bulgaria. The final thing weighs around 24 tons, is nearly six storeys high at its most vertical, and is about twice the size of Stanley Kubrick’s rotating space ship set from 2001. 

Dan Betteridge (Production Designer) did an amazing job working with structural engineers to make the set as big as it needed to be. The house we ended up with was the maximum size we could fit into the stadium without touching the ceiling. They also had to figure out how to actually rotate a set weighing the same as 16 cars in a controlled and, most importantly, safe manner. Despite its enormous weight, the final set was so finely balanced it could only have six people on it at any one time. And it was this precise equilibrium that allowed three, surprisingly small, motors to turn the giant rig. 

The final thing weighs around 24 tons, is nearly six storeys high at its most vertical, and is about twice the size of Stanley Kubrick’s rotating space ship set from 2001.

OH: The design process for the set was quite a funny one in some ways because we had to launch into designing and costing it at an early point and, in order to do that, and before production and engineering had really got their teeth into it, I had to kind of guess how it would be done. The set was an absolute monster, and took a long time to engineer and build.

Above: The behind the scenes making of Flip.

How long did the shoot take and what was the most complicated aspect of it?

OH: We shot for five days, though it was a slightly blurry period as we had some rehearsal time that ended up merging into the shoot time. But the hardest part was trying to move the camera around the set. We’d anticipated that the biggest challenge was going to be getting the hero actor over the set but she took to it really well, but the process of moving the camera along the surface of a spinning world proved to the unbelievably challenging. 

The process of moving the camera along the surface of a spinning world proved to the unbelievably challenging. 

We burnt through different production approaches trying to figure out how to do it and ended up mostly doing it with the camera held in the hand of a stunt operator, or even myself in certain instances. There was an initial ambition to get the whole sequence in one shot, or at least feeling like one shot, but it proved to be near-impossible, though it’s still only really three core shots.

Above: Sam Walker, right, and Oscar Hudson, centre, on the set of Flip.

It's a physically demanding role; did you have to bear that in mind during the casting process?

 OH: We had to be very thorough in our casting process, trying to find someone who could carry the emotional side of the story but who was also, basically, a super hero, and I tend to like to look into the world of physical theatre and stage performers and we found Maeva who is a dancer/actor, who was wonderful.

Was the choice of Bowie's Sound and Vision a hard decision to get to?  

SW: We had a lot of tracks in the mix before we settled on this track. Bowie elevates everything he touches to another level. The confidence of the naked, sparse piano, coupled with Bowie’s iconic vocals seem to draw you in, connecting us with our hero’s story. 

There were a few bust ups and arguments, and then we ended up somewhere really good with Sound and Vision.

OH: It was a difficult journey, the music, for sure and I think that was for a number of reasons. The film itself contains quite a few different tonal qualities to it and it was interesting as we went through music, realising that different tracks brought out different qualities and aspects of that tone. And so, we found the film was very sensitive to the track we put on it. We need to find something that mapped the journey, as there weren’t many cuts, and we tried a huge amount of stuff; there were a few bust ups and arguments, and then we ended up somewhere really good with Sound and Vision. And that versions is lovely, a bit more emotive and sensitive, without being too saccharine or earnest.