Many Firsts

The Royal Enfield Service Campaign film was a first for Slate Studios in many ways. Royal Enfield reached out to us with a brief where they wanted to show the analogy of “machine love” from both the rider and mechanic’s point of view. Moreover, the entire film was going to be in the form of a music video - something none of us had attempted till then.

Dual Perspectives

Anusha and Abhin, our in-house writers, sat in on the concept first. We decided that the best way to showcase the analogy was through match cuts that shift between the rider’s and mechanic’s perspectives. Once the treatment was locked, we quickly moved into pre-production, which took us roughly three weeks.

Since match cuts were crucial for the film, we decided to bring on Bharath Parashuram, an acclaimed DoP based in Mumbai. This was another first for us in terms of collaboration. We had been itching to work with Bharath for quite some time, but the dates never really seemed to work out previously. This time, however, we got lucky, and his technical expertise and problem-solving abilities turned out to be crucial on this project.

The Great Outdoors

We decided to shoot the entire film over two days, with the exterior shots chosen for Day 1. We had five location changes for this day, so getting all the shots as quickly as we could was crucial. Akash, the rider of the Himalayan, definitely understood the assignment, and was tireless as we worked as fast as we could to get his shots. We were pumped and raring to go when we wrapped up the shots at the first location sooner than expected.

Our enthusiasm, however, was short-lived. As expected, the quick location changes came with its own set of logistical challenges, and the camera arrived late at the final location. Ever the problem-solver, Bharath decided to go guerrilla for some of these shots to prevent additional delays. He even managed to snag some experimental shots in spite of the delays.

The Venice 2 with the Rialto proved to be a great choice in terms of rigging it at places that a big camera never usually goes. As Darshan, the director on this project put it, "Again, the Venice with the Rialto came in super handy for all the guerrilla shots as it kept the footprint to a minimum.”

In spite of the delays, Deepdarshan, the rider on the Supermeteor 650, was very co-operative, and we managed to cover his shots with ease. Our first AD Abhin and producer Suyashaa made sure that Shruti, the rider on the Hunter, managed to get one rehearsal in at the hilltop before the rest of the crew could get there. Thanks to them, we managed to get all the shots we needed as per the call sheet, and that was a wrap on Day 1.

Hello Studios

Day 2 began bright and early at the Royal Enfield service centre in Marathahalli. We had scheduled all the interior shots here, and although setup began at 6.00 am, it took the crew close to an hour-and-a-half to light the first shot.

Here’s where the match cuts came into play. We used frames from the exterior shots as references and loaded them onto the Atomos Ninja V monitor. This was one of the few monitors to have the ‘onion skin’ feature that allowed us to superimpose the frame grabs onto the live feed, to ensure that the match cuts lined up as perfectly as they could. Bharath and his Associate Cinematographers - Harsha and Rohith - did a fantastic job in framing the same shots with the superimposed images and the measurements that they had taken on the first day of shoot. The actor playing the mechanic, Naveen, was needed in two places at once.

While we were getting the shots of the bike and the mechanic, there was a photoshoot for the service centre taking place simultaneously that we ourselves were in charge of. To make the best use of time, our very own Manu Palohia doubled up (literally) and was in many of the shots when Naveen was called away. In fact, he also practiced a “magic trick” for several days that the actor could not have pulled off in such a short period of time, on the day of shoot.

For the probe shot of the fuel tank and the petrol-filling gun, Manish and Manu went to several mechanics to try and get a scrap fuel tank, and managed to find one in Shivajinagar in Bangalore. Although this shot took a lot of time to set up, it turned out perfectly, and we’re super proud of how it looks in the final film.

But the biggest highlight of Day 2 was the mud, which turned everyone into their childhood selves itching for a mud fight! The client wanted their bike to be covered in thick, wet mud. To maintain consistency, the rider had to be covered from top to bottom in this very mud, too. Luckily, Priyanshu, a close friend of ours, volunteered to be the muddy rider and even managed to fit into the suit. Suyashaa doubled up as the muddy version of the Hunter rider, and the glee on her face was more than palpable.

In Conclusion

The RE Machine Love video turned out to be one of the most exciting yet challenging projects we’ve worked on. The client loved the final output, and the cherry on top of it all was the rave reviews we got on social platforms. The video even garnered over 400k views on YouTube and Instagram within a day of it being published. This project marked a milestone for us at Slate in terms of what we thought we were capable of, and it allowed us to really push ourselves in terms of technique and collaborators. RE Machine Love will always have a special place in our hearts, and it’s made us excited about the possibilities - here’s to more experimentation for all of us at Slate!