How to clone an icon

A lot has happened in the 11 years since Imperial Woodpecker and Rogue director Sam Brown helmed Adele's Rolling In The Deep music video:

Elections have been won and contested, lockdowns have been entered and exited, dresses have been white&gold and blue&black, and a talented North London singer/songwriter became a global icon.

Collaborating again for her latest ditty, Oh My God, Brown, shooting through the Imperial Woodpecker office in LA, worked with Adele to create a complex, sumptuous virtual one-shot filled with intricate choreography and seamless stitching.

We caught up with Brown to chat about the importance of planning such an ambitious project, the potential pitfalls of its construction and what it was like shooting with the megastar once again.

How did you get involved with the music video? Had you maintained contact with Adele since your first collaboration?

I got a call from Phil Lee (her CD) out of the blue last summer saying: she’s got a new one and would like to talk to you. Adele and I hadn’t spoken since we left set 11 years ago, but that’s not unusual. I tend to be a bit private when I’m not working and she obviously is too. Plus she’s a megastar and I’m not.

The concept is bold and, we're sure, technically extremely challenging. Was it something you already had in mind or a challenge that was put to you?

One of the great things about music videos is that you can meander away from your initial inspiration and nobody’s going to tell you off or pull you back again. And often the further you wander the more interesting things get. You start joining the dots and a picture eventually reveals itself.

In my initial conversation with Adele she talked about the ‘emotional mess’ of this record, and I knew from the start I wanted to make something similarly all over the shop, like one of those kid’s drawings where you fold the paper and draw little sections and then unfurl it to see what kind of monster you’ve got. I wanted to see how much emotionally disparate imagery I could mash into one place, and what kind of energy would come out of it. It seemed like the most fitting way of interpreting her feelings. 

I wanted to see how much emotionally disparate imagery I could mash into one place, and what kind of energy would come out of it.

The one-shot was Polly, my producer’s, idea. From here everything clicked and I wrote it quickly. The scenes, the multiples, everything. When you have a solid framework it’s easy to hang things on it.

Adele is so, so smart. She greeted my proposal with unquestioning trust. I’m indebted to her, because a video can get compromised quickly if you have to justify things that you can’t even explain to yourself. You begin to doubt your ideas before they’ve even left your mouth. At the same time it’s a big deal for an artist give up their song to some person to slap images all over. So it’s a balancing act. I want to respect an artist’s intentions and listen to their ideas, but I also see it as my job to surprise them in some way. To have a point of view, and give them something they didn’t ask for.

What were the early elements to nail down? Was there a lot of prep required? We can imagine some serious blocking and choreography.

The hardest thing on a job like this is knowing where to start at all, because the task seems so overwhelming. The trick is to start small. I began with little paper models that I made and filmed on my kitchen table with an iPhone, to nail the ideas and the flow and the feeling. It’s amazing how much you learn this way. James Sindle at ETC then did a meticulous job of translating this into a CG pre-vis. He has, amongst many other things, a natural intuition for camera movement that I relied on heavily because we didn’t have time to program anything on the day. This render became the map for every single element in the video. 

The production designers, Nu California, measured and marked it all out with tape on the studio floor; the idea being that, if we did the maths right, the move we plotted on the computer model would line up exactly with the subject on shoot day. Remarkably, it did.

Every single element was shot separately, and Adele was never in the same room as anyone else.

The complication is that you can’t fit a camera move this long into any studio, you certainly can’t light it, and there isn’t enough motion-control track anywhere in the world to film it. So, as many have reasoned, it’s actually multiple shots stitched together. We’re using the same length of track many times over with the visual elements and the lighting reconfigured again and again depending on which bit we’re doing. 

Every single element was shot separately, and Adele was never in the same room as anyone else. Giles Cheetham at ETC comped much of it together himself, which sort of blew my mind. It’s like having Sir Chris Hoy fix your bike.

I’m also indebted to Roman Vasyanov who pre-lit everything based on nothing more than thousands of colour-coded markings on the floor, transposed in a maddening mess on top of each other. It was a sublime feat of cinematography. You can still see the tape on the floor. I liked how it looked.

Can you explain a bit about the process of shooting a film like this? Can much change when it comes to the actual performances or is there a rigidity that has to be adhered to?

You have to stick to the plan, and be very careful about the adjustments you’re making. Although there appear to be 160 people in this video there are actually only 20, replicated many times over (often in the same frame) and moving at different frame rates and tracking speeds. 

So the whole thing is like a mathematical problem. You need to keep close tabs on everyone’s movements and pathways so that nobody overlaps and the action flows. But there’s a difference between a shot that works technically and a shot that zings, and that’s where the expertise of my choreographers Megan and Taylor came in. They were able determine that the hundreds of individual movements they’d choreographed were working in harmony, without ever actually seeing it. 

Again, it’s sublime. I’m in awe of these people. I’ve no idea how they do what they do.

Were there any issues in the shoot that you hadn't anticipated? How did you overcome them?

None that I can think of. The idea was to eliminate any problems before we got there. Even the smallest issue could have derailed everything.

Adele has established herself as a charismatic performer. Was there much direction needed when it came to her appearances?

No, she’s a peerless performer with nothing to learn from me. I wanted a vocal that was a bit aloof and screw-you, but she was on this path well before I opened my mouth. She doesn’t fuck about. 

I haven’t worked with anyone who has such an innate understanding of where the camera is and how to exploit it in such an effortless way.

My only job was to create an environment in which she felt comfortable, though I failed in that by prising her into a series of torturous dresses. 

Shooting a vocal in small bits is also hard, because normally you want the whole song to get into the emotion of it. But she just turns it on like a tap. I don’t want to prattle on about it, but I haven’t worked with anyone who has such an innate understanding of where the camera is and how to exploit it in such an effortless way.

Editing and VFX must go hand in hand when it comes to stitching it all together. What was your involvement at this stage?

It’s really just assembling hundreds and hundreds of plates, because everything is in-camera and all you’re doing is piecing the puzzle together. 

We knew the best takes because, on the compressed timescale we had, when we get a good one we had to move on immediately. But it was still an impressive feat of editing make it all sing and keep the energy flowing. 

I’ve Sam Ostrove to thank for that.

Do you feel extra pressure when working on a project for an artist as globally famous as Adele? Do you think of the number of eyes that will be on the promo when it's released?

Yes, I do! Every waking hour. At times it’s crippling. But there’s a very helpful saying when it comes to making films, which is: the obstacle is the path. 

As a young director you’ve always got to have faith because you never know when you’re going to catch a big one.

There’s no way but the hard way, and if it’s all easy something’s probably wrong. I draw on this a lot, and it calms me down.

Flashing back a bit, how did this experience compare to the Rolling In The Deep shoot, 11 years ago? 

It was very different, because I’ve developed as a director, while she’s steadily become a global phenomenon. But it’s still just the same two people talking to each other. I found that part reassuring.