Bars & Melody - 'Hopeful'

Having watched the X-Factor and seen Bars & Melody perform live on tele its easy to see why they have become an instant success, obviously nothing to do with Simon Cowell though right!

So when I got the call to Steadicam for this I immediately knew who production were talking about, 'You know, those kids rapping about anti-bullying'.

However, the serious message of the song was met with a serious camera package. An Arri Alexa was to be expected but what I hadn't banked on was how big and heavy the new Cooke S5i's were. That on top of the usual accessories that are insisted be on the rig by the 1st AC, not to mention a production Matte box from the stone age that was forged from cast iron.

The Steadicam rig turned out to be a monster and almost bottomed out my arm, together with shooting inside on the hottest day of the year and having to wear somebody else's skin tight black hoody as we were shooting against glass for the first shot, really set me up for a sticky day.

Im sure all steadicam operators are hearing this a lot these days, 'We want it to be like a dolly shot', today was no different. The day was packed full of shots with not enough time to actually shoot them. As the steadicam rig was so heavy it help maintain level horizons, especially as half the shots were at that limbo height between high and low mode which is where I was flying the camera most of the day as one of the kids was about 4ft tall and sitting down. Ouch!!

Not sure I've hydrated from his yet but as they are on SYCO record label I'm sure they'll become a big success which will hopefully filter down to the guys that make them look good.

Check out the promo below and if you war to see me cameoing in their making of video, click here