The First Collection

We were commissioned by independent North East based urban fashion brand Forsaken Clothing to produce a 90 second promotional piece to showcase their collection.

The concept of the piece was to marry the brand’s urban aesthetic with visually interesting North Eastern locations, utilising male models in a variety of scenarios to showcase their clothing’s style but also it’s functionality.

This was something of a passion project for Ether/Awe; although the budget was restricted, we were excited by the prospect of a piece that allowed us to flex our creative muscles in a genre of content that we had not previously worked in.

The shoot was carried out over two days at a variety of locations in Newcastle Upon Tyne and South Tyneside, including the Quayside, Ocean Pleasure Beach, The Baltic and Byker Wall.

We cast male models from various North Eastern based casting agencies and devised scenarios that were fitting with their personalities, hobbies and lifestyles – for example, Alan Li is a keen basketball player and so we conceived a sequence where he would shoot hoops at a community court.

We utilised a skeleton crew, consisting of a director, DoP/steadicam operator and 1st AC.

We shot the entire piece in 50fps; allowing us to utilise speed ramps in the edit and draw out hero shots of the branding. In terms of grip, we opted to use a combination of handheld and steadicam – allowing us to capture extended, complex movements but also be nimble enough to capture close-up textures where required.

The edit was completed by our MD and Head of Post-Production Michael Cornell at our York studio.

We were keen to avoid a linear narrative structure, instead utilising the best shots and sequences out of order to fit with the emotional beats of the music. Our 50fps footage was primarily conformed to 25fps, leaning heavily on slow motion to draw out complex camera movements.

For the score, we opted for a hard-hitting hip-hop instrumental to achieve an energetic tonality and to tie in to Forsaken’s urban branding.