Director: Michal Bolland

Director: Michal Bolland

Artist: Andrew Bayer

Video: Need your love

Michal Bolland is a director from Poland. You can see some of his other work at Cargo Collective.

How were you approached for the job?

Anjunabeats Records announced a competition, I sent my treatment and it turned out that it was the most interesting one. I showed them exactly how I wanted to do it and after some time I got the green light from them.

What inspired you on your idea for the video?

First time I heard “Need Your Love”, immediately this image you now see in my video came into my mind. I knew that to catch the feeling of the song, we had to shoot it in a desolate, remote, but also beautiful environment.

The track has a very positive and gentle vibe, but I also feel that there is a secret hidden vibe. Some sort of charm combined with mystery. These are feelings I also admire in women.

I knew who had to play the lead part and I’m glad that Kasia Smolinska said ‘yes’ to the project. I’m not only delighted about her performance, but she’s also just a great person to work with.

What was the budget?

For such a production the budget was really, really tiny. We struggled a lot, but on the other hand we had a lot of luck and we received massive support from many people. My production manager Lidia Sadowska did an amazing job putting it all together, so I was very fortunate to have her on board.

Tell us about the production process

From the very beginning I knew that the key to success of the shoot was the logistics. We spent a lot of time looking for suitable locations. They needed to look good, but also be accessible for the film crew. Finally I decided to go to the Polish and Slovak, Tatras Mountains. We had 4 long consecutive days of shooting in very difficult terrain. It was also in July, which is one of the most rainy months there. It was a little gamble, but we made it work.

What were the limitations you faced with the production?

Budget, weather and difficult terrain. The terrain made movement very demanding on thew crew. We had to be really creative to overcome these problems.

What was the turnaround?

We started pre-production at the beginning of July. Then we were waiting for the sufficient weather window to open up towards the end of the month. Then we had about 2 weeks of post-production.

Rafal Tluchowski, who was doing all of the visual effects had a lot of work ahead of him. For example we had a lot of flies on set, and obviously it doesn’t look good when you see flies constantly flying next to the actress's face; it took some time to remove most of them.

Who were your key collaborators?

My DOP: Karol Lakomiec, Production manager: Lidia Sadowska, Costume designer: Marta Sieczak: Art director: Magda Minko. And the actress was Katarzyna Smolinska.

Have you worked with any of them before?

Karol Lakomiec, my DOP is definitely main collaborator. I’ve worked with him since my very first project, so we know each other pretty well. He’s not only super talented cinematographer, but he is always strongly committed to what we’re doing. He brings a lot of ideas in pre-production and working on set.

What did you shoot on? What lenses did you use?

We shoot on Red One and Sony FS700 with Nikkor MF 85/1,4; MF 50/1,4; MF 35/2; MF 24/2,8

Did you shoot those aerial shots on a small copter rig?

Yes, aerial shots were shot on a remote-controlled copter with GoPro 3. We just didn't have the budget for anything better.
Obviously the quality is not as good as the Red One footage, so we had to
work on it in post to match them together. One other problem with it was the higher the GoPro rose the bigger the fish-eye effect occurred.

Do you feel that the client understands the production process?

We agreed in detail all the stages of production and then Andrew and Anjunabeats gave me a lot of trust and freedom to do what I think was right for the video. They were very pleased with the final result, so everything turned out great.

If you had a chance to approach it again, what would you do differently?

I would like to have at least one more day on set, furthermore additional money and time for post-production, but that's only if I had to be very picky.