LUCIDMEDIA

Cool! I helped shoot that. Or Viva La Victorious: A tale of one entry in Coldplay’s video contest.

Written by Adam A. Donaldson Friday, 12 December 2008 11:20

Now when I’m not writing for Lucid Forge, I’m very active in the world of independent film. I’ve started my own little publicity service on the side, where in I can help friends and fellow artists get the support they need for their film projects, be it getting people out to a screening or finding some background players for extras. So I reached out to Martin and said if there was anything I could do to lend a hand, he shouldn’t hesitate to ask.

Having recently had enormous success in finding more than 150 people across the tri-cities to don zombie make-up for a project called 1:16 PM, I thought getting people out to play dress-up French Revolution would be a snap too. It wasn’t quite in the end, and things got off to a slow start.

A week later, Martin and I put our heads together via cellular telephone devices. How can we get a few more people out for this thing? The answer was simple, drop the ‘C’ word. We were making a Coldplay video.



Now, it’s amazing how fast the local mainstream media responds when you name drop a platinum-selling artist in the subject heading for you music video press release. Of course, you can almost hear the disappointment when they found out that Chris Martin and the Boys would not be joining us in the Royal City for a video shoot. Indeed, the intention of Martin and his crew at Black Fawn Films was to make the winning entry in Coldplay’s video contest for their single “Lost!” off Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends.

So it came that on Saturday, November 22nd, Buzora, his film crew and a small army of 50 actors in full period costume gathered on a farm off Wellington Road 34 to shoot their vision of Coldplay’s latest hit record. Sure it was cold. Even the costume trailer we had was cold, completely in spite of the space heater working inside, but at least it protected you from the wind. There was always the 10 minute walk to a nearby cabin to warm your toes, but for pure toasting, nothing said warmth more than gathering around the hobo-esque fire near the port-a-potty.

Most everybody started arriving shortly after the lunch hour and people waited patiently outside for their number to be called to get into costume. While they waited, folk chatted about movies, naturally. Others like Brian Martin, John Cross and Paul Nicholls, all of whom worked together on 1:16 PM,caught up with what’s going on in each other’s semi-professional acting careers. I even met face-to-face for the first time with a fellow Guelph politics blogger, with whom prior I had only traded some polite sniping online.



As the sun went down, the snow fall increased. The time was nigh as all the finely costumed extras marched down a hill and into the farmer’s field overlooked by the one, communal trailer on set. Around the 8 ‘o’ clock hour filming finally got started, as Buzora, wearing a steadycam, shot a marching precession of angry peasants, starring down across the field at the buttoned-up French soldiers. Toronto stage actor Peter Higginson is front and centre leading the charge. His character is an aging actor remembering his golden days as an award-winning actor on the set of his greatest triumph, the film Revolution 1789.

Again and again, Peter led his men across the field, giving a steely eyed stare to his film nemesis, actor Robert Nolan, and waving the French flag with a gusto some of the actors half his age would have difficulty keeping up with. After several angles with the steadycam, the camera was mounted on a crane for some tracking shots. Everyone went back to their ones (the position from which they start the scene), even the poor guy that had to lay down in the snow as a cadaver. As shooting went on, the snow became heavier, then lighter, and then disappeared entirely. And where was I? Out of camera range, snapping away on the pics you’re looking at while reading this article.

A few weeks later, I get the e-mail: the Buzora entry for the contest took second place, only being beaten by a claymation short by Paul O’Brien. Isn’t second really just code for the first loser, you ask? Not on your life! Right there, on Coldplay’s website, was a You Tube embed of a film I was a part of; a film a lot of people were apart of. The enormous pride admiration we have, as evident in all the messages we’ve been swamping, is a feeling unlike any other. Even my mother, who doesn’t know Coldplay from Snow Patrol, knew enough to be impressed.

So we’ve been spreading the word the last few days. And Wednesday evening I talked to Martin Buzora by phone to get his reaction to being, what really was, the best live-action entry.

AAD: It’s pretty amazing, huh?

MB: Yeah, I can’t believe it. I’ve been on this huge cloud all week. (Laughs) What baffles me is the response people are giving me on the You Tube page. Literally, every single person who writes says that we should have won. I went on [Paul O’Brien]’s page and people are like, “I like your video, no disrespect, but the Revolution guy should have won.” I feel bad for him…

AAD: Do you know where that guy was from? MB: He’s from Ireland. I think. You know what though, I know this is cheesy and clichéd to say, but I really don’t have any hard feelings. I’m really happy with the way this turned out. The only thing I really care about in the long run is people’s reactions. I mean, if you go to the You Tube page you will see that everyone’s reaction is pretty similar; everyone loves it. AAD: So, you were a big Coldplay fan before, right? MB: Yeah, I was a pretty huge Coldplay fan. AAD: And where were you when you found out about your showing in the rankings? MB: Well, I don’t know if I should say this in an interview, but let’s just say that I was not sitting by my computer hitting “refresh page” every five minutes (Laughs) No, I was here, at home, on my computer. AAD: How did you feel? Was it shock?

MB: Well, you know how they were going to announce it one the fifth and that day they wrote up a message saying, sorry, there’s been a delay. We’ll announce it on Monday instead. So, on Friday I was really nervous, I had so much pressure on me and I was expecting good things to happen. And then this delay came and I got this free pass for the weekend and realize that my entire life does not ride on this. It’s totally fine if someone else wins because we’ve made this amazing short that people love and that’s all that matters.

When Monday rolled around, I was more excited than nervous. I just wanted it to be over and see who wins. It had been an awesome run. I went on the website and refreshed the page and there was a brand new message - actually, I think I was the first one to see that message because I hit refresh and it appeared right away. So I opened up the link and there was Paul O’Brien’s short so I thought, okay, cool, obviously we didn’t win, but I’m sure this is an awesome little claymation.

So I watched it and then went on my You Tube page and some guy had already messaged me saying, “Hey, I told you you would win. Congratulations.” So I wrote him back saying, “What are you talking about? I didn’t win.” And he said, “No, you’re runner up, just scroll down the page.” So I scrolled down and sure enough…

AAD: …There it was.

MB: It was an amazing little surprise.

AAD: Do you get anything for second place?

MB: Yes. The PR lady for Coldplay called me and congratulated me and said that the band signed a lithograph for me, congratulating me on the short film and she’s sending it out to me. Hopefully, before Christmas. So I really excited about that.

AAD: Hey, it’s something.

MB: But you know what the biggest present is? It’s the 23,000 hits. I mean, I’ve never had this much exposure with anything we’ve done before. This is just amazing! AAD: What were you hoping to get out of this? Were you hoping for that kind of exposure? MB: Yeah. To be honest, I was hoping. The number one reason I got into this was to get exposure, and I’m more than happy with the outcome of this entire thing. It just shows people what we can do with very little money and ambition. AAD: Well, with a lot of ambition and very, little money. MB: Yeah, exactly. Like we really pushed our limits… I really pushed my limits anyway. I can hold up this little, short film and say, “This is the best I can do right now. I could not have tried harder and this is the product we came up with.” You can check out Martin Buzora and Black Fawn Film’s handy work on You Tube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSBT_oqIuhg To see the band’s web page for the contest results, go here: http://www.coldplay.com/lostcontest.html