LACOSTE + NOVAK

In collaboration with the agency BETC, I directed, DOP’ed and Edited a new TVC for the iconic brand Lacoste. This was shot in 2 days during the strikes in Paris and edited on a train to La Rochelle. I travelled around town in a hired electric scooter with my camera in a bag. I do believe as a one man crew this was the most eco friendly shoot I’ve ever been on.

What was interesting was that the initial pitch was just for a post production company to come up with designs for a digital matte painting to integrate both the crocodile and Novak. The story board suggested a sequence shot with maybe one or two close ups but nothing more. The energy of the game of tennis was missing. It was considered that timing and budget would be an issue. This was all taken into account during the pitch process and instead of reacting like any normal post house, we turned the brief on its head, why don’t you shoot it? Not a natural reaction from a post house. But in truth the Mill isn’t just any post house, we have a production office too.

Having an integrated production team at the Mill helped solve most of the problem. The fact that I knew how to shoot and edit helped too. The last important point is that I love tennis and that I had a feeling of how the game should be re created between the iconic brand logo and one of the best players in the world.

What sealed the deal was a 15 second rough cut shot on an iPhone with a real match sound looped in. For those of you who are curious I added the iPhone version at the end of this post.

Below are some “making of” photos.

Enjoy.

Below is the rough iPhone edit version that was literally done in 5 minutes.