I was asked to film the Worcester Ball Trailer in exchange for the ball donating a free ticket to a raffle raising money for Breakwater, the University of Oxford's first feature film in 40 years. In hindsight, not the best deal. Always ask to be paid instead, especially because shoots like this require a lot of time and effort. Nevertheless, this was a really fun shoot and some of my favourite footage that I have shot ever. I co-directed the trailer with Zoë Heimann.
The ball gave us complete creative freedom (their only requirement was to make sure the trailer looked different than the one for the St John's College ball). We decided that we wanted to move away from the typical ball trailers, which show a heterosexual couple preparing for the evening. We wanted to show that anyone can attend wearing anything. We wanted a diverse cast and we wanted to subvert traditional conceptions of masculine and feminine. Our inspirations were Vogue fashion videos. The theme of the ball is 'Garden of Light' so we also wanted to film in the college's gardens. We created a rough shot list inspired by different videos; I took Zoë around Worcester College and we decided on places where we definitely wanted to film. We purchased a mirror from the local market (we loved the mirror shots in the fashion videos), and I used the remaining budget to buy some colourful eyeliners and eyeshadow for the make up.
On the shooting day our Makeup Artist created fun, bright looks on all five models. Two of the female models were dressed more feminine, while the third was in a powerful vivd blue suit. One of the men was dressed in a white suit with a pink eyeliner look, and the look for the second guy was inspired by Harry Styles. The models were absolute stars: the event is a summer ball, so we dressed them in summer looks, but the committee asked for us to film the trailer in December. It was freezing but they powered through.
It was a very relaxed shoot; it was experimental, with everyone offering ideas and the crew each taking turns at the camera to attempt different shots. We have a great variety of footage which can hopefully be used as marketing materials.
UPDATE: Zoë chose the song 'All Out King' for the trailer, and I did the edit. I'm really happy with how it came out: it is visually exciting and colourful. This is potentially my favourite trailer I have made (along with the one for Skin), and I hope it excites viewers for the event.
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