• Adele “Chasing Pavements” (XL Recordings)
• Director: Mathew Cullen
• Producer: Anna Joseph
• Production Company: Motion Theory
• DP: Eric Schmidt
• Editor: Lenny Messina
• Post Production: Motion Theory and 1.1 VFX
• Length of Production: About a month
• Location: Los Angeles standing in for Europe

This new feature of Flux takes a look behind the scenes of the making of a music video – from script to screen. Our second feature is Adele’s Chasing Pavements, directed by Mathew Cullen, co-founder of Motion Theory, whose Weezer video has set YouTube on storm. Here you’ll get to see the preparation, the actual shoot and an exclusive interview with Adele in the second half. Mathew, who has made videos for REM, Beck and Modest Mouse, fills us in on how the Adele video came about:

How did you get this project?

We have been trying to work with XL Recordings for a long time. We wrote on almost every White Stripes video for the past couple albums and they seemed to only want to work with Michel Gondry, or the Malloys, which is fine because they are both great directors. At the end of the year, we got the track from Adele and were instant fans. She knew our work and was a fan so it was a natural collaboration.

What attracted you to the song?

Her voice is incredible. She projects it effortlessly but it still reflects depth, complexity, and vulnerability. This was also her first video and I really enjoy the process of helping to brand her for the first time. When I listened to the song, I was inspired by the idea of following after someone you love even though it will never work out. The unconscious couple coming to life to retell the story of their relationship was a perfect storytelling device for the themes.

What was your brief on the project like?

They wanted it to be creatively ambitious.

Here’s an exclusive look at one of Motion Theory’s renowned treatments. Chasing Pavements Treatment, PDF 2MB

Was there anything that happened during the shoot that was unexpected that caused you to alter your original plan? Where there any happy accidents? If so, what were they?

The most difficult part of the shoot was in creating the shadows. The perspective of the shadows only lasted for 30 minutes a day so we needed to recreate the shadow effect at night when we could extend the shadows for as long as we needed. I have to credit the cinematographer Eric Schmidt for pulling it off. We couldn’t test the shadows because of time and resources. Light is your best friend and your enemy but in the end it worked.

Motion Theory has always experimented with new ideas on each project. What new idea or innovation did you explore with “Chasing Pavements” ?

The main technical challenge was creating the illusion of our story being right side up. I decided early on that I wanted all of the movement to be in camera and limited to only natural movement. Marguerite Derricks, the choreographer, did an amazing job helping to bring that idea to life. We discovered early on in the choreography that the couple needed to use each other to create the illusion of movement. This ended up being a perfect metaphor for the relationship.

From the set of Chasing Pavements. Check the license plate, just one of the ways Cullen achieved the European feel of the video.

Do you storyboard your shots or only certain scenes? Did you use a crane or motion control for the shoot?

For “Chasing Pavements,” we storyboarded, previsualized, and choreographed ever aspect of the video. I find that the more you have planned, the more you can live in the moment of the shoot. Having a clear vision and plan of execution allows for the extra creative intuitions that you discover while shooting.

With budgets getting slashed for music videos all of the time, is it a challenge to deliver compelling work or do you feel that talent, imagination and technology are enough?

The most challenging thing for me when doing a video is time. This video had a 3-week schedule. There were so many things that I wish we could have explored that budget and schedule just wouldn’t allow. With that said, I find that constraints in the right situation can be a good thing. They allow you to focus on the essence of the story you want to tell and be more innovative in your approach. Because of the subject matter, I wanted to keep everything as real as possible. They needed to look like they were defying physics but also still grounded in reality. This approach meant that almost everything needed to be done in camera.