Grey & Smuggler on Directing Dance by Dawn

Grey's latest offering for Bose's QuietComfort 35 headphones captures the magic of dance and being lost in music.

Escaping the congestion of the city, one dancer finds herself uninhibited and freely dances through the city's unusually empty streets.

Grey's ECD Dominic Goldman and Smuggler director Jaron Albertin talk to shots about the trials and tribulations involved in creating the spot and how they overcame challenges as they arose throughout the production.

Grey London ECD; Dominic Goldman:

What was the brief from Bose on this job?

The work needed to reflect the environment the product lives in and try to entertain people while clearly demonstrating the benefit [of using the product].

Tell me about the casting process… did you have to see a lot of dancers?

We literally looked at hundreds of dancers from LA, London, Paris and New York - there's a lot of talent out there. However, Maeve [Berthelot] gave us something very different. With the technical eye of Simeon [Qsyea] and the team, we felt she moved with a real emotion and a feeling of poetry.

What were the biggest challenges on the job?

We never quite believed we would actually be able to lock down central London in such heavily-populated and high security areas. We used a helicopter for the ariel shots, which had understandably-strict airspace rules. We held back traffic and people for a few minutes for each take. This wasn't easy to produce. Most of this was captured in camera with minimal clean up in post. All shot beautifully on film in a variety of locations as our hero moved through the city from the gritty emptiness of East London to the heart of W1.

Smuggler director; Jaron Albertin:

What were you inspired by for this ad?

Two things; emptying out a major city and the movement of dance.

I love the visual of taking spaces which are rarely, if ever, seen without people and completely emptying them out. The city becomes an ominous graphic tableaux to be looked at differently.

Early on, there was a reference for an urban style of dance; like hip hop instead of something more balletic. I found this suggestion interesting and that it worked in contrast to the conceptual idea. We decided to strip out the idea of a story or a narrative, and just focus on finding the best dancer. Then putting her in some of London’s most iconic locations, which we’d normally associate as busy and noisy places.

How long did production take?

It takes a while to close down a place like Piccadilly Circus. You need permits at least six weeks in advance, so it was a process of picking our areas really quickly and just going with it. Then starting up productions a few weeks later. You also don’t really get to close down major streets in London, it’s impossible – you’d mess up the grid very quickly and the workers wouldn’t put up with that, especially for a commercial shoot. So we shot over the course of a few days with very small windows from 4am - 6am with short closures on a Saturday and Sunday. It was tough, but strangely it was the drunk people fresh from the bars and casinos, crashed out at Piccadilly early on Sunday morning who proved to be the most difficult. I think some PA’s persuaded them to shuffle off by delivering coffee and bacon sandwiches.

Tell me about the dancer; who is she?

Our biggest challenge was trying to find and define a character for her. You can always show a hype dance move, but really after a few moments, nobody cares. It was about pulling out pieces that gave her character. We felt that the random dance moments made it more interesting than just straight choreography. Our dancer was great because after a few takes she just started to do her own thing; we threw out the choreography and it felt more loose, and free. This however gave us lots of options in the edit, so it took us a while to find the right rhythm.