Vol. 6

We’re looking at the top of the food chain in this volume of Cut Culture, with some heavyweight productions from Discord and EA Sports. The latter got us in the footy mood, so we’ll also share a BTS view of our shoot for Wow Hydrate with Manchester United Captain, England centre-back, and all-round legend, Harry Maguire. And keep an eye out at the end for a director/photographer that you’ll be wanting to keep on your radar.

Cut Culture

Discord: The Movie.

With people finally able to ram back into cinemas, there’s been a palpable increase in film promo over the last month or so. But one release you might have missed: Discord: The Movie. Granted, it’s unlikely to be coming to an Odeon near you any time soon, but the level of production that went into making this 5-minute ‘movie’ is certainly Hollywood-quality. Not to mention the all-star cast, most notably Danny De Vito in the pivotal role. Although, fans of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia will be able to observe that it’s more like a version of Danny De Vito playing Frank Reynolds playing Danny De Vito. Whoever it was, I’m pretty sure he went home still having no idea what Discord is, but at least he got a decent sandwich out of it. The film transports viewers through the plethora of worlds available on Discord, highlighting the multitude of digital communities that congregate and communicate on the platform. Since it can be hard to succinctly define exactly what Discord is, production company RIFF RAFF decided to leave that task to the people who know it best: the users. The film is made up of and based around real quotes from Discord users describing what the platform means to them. So when’s the full feature length coming out?

It’s… Coming Home?

Organising talent on a shoot can present certain challenges - let alone if the talent in question happens to be the full PSG and Real Madrid squads wired up to motion sensors. But that’s precisely what Reset decided to do. The football season is well and truly back underway. That means one thing: miserable weekends for Arsenal fans. Oh, and also the launch of the latest FIFA game. Some may argue that the franchise peaked back in 2005 when the OG FIFA Street dropped, but one point that isn’t up for debate is how much more realistic the games have become over the years. Partly in the sense that they’ve got harder and most people have got worse - just like real football - but also with regard to the technology that goes into powering the game engines. And, clearly, EA have decided they want to shout about all of their clever new tech, so they’ve used the trailer for the upcoming FIFA 22 game as an opportunity to showcase some new features. In what may represent the next step in the gradual blurring of the lines between real and digital worlds, this year’s game will be informed and powered by the movements of actual professional footballers wired up to EA’s new ‘Hypermotion’ technology. The trailer fuses real life footage with gameplay to create such an energetic video that you’d be forgiven for forgetting that it’s selling something you generally play from a sedentary position with a bag of Doritos by your side. Welcome to the metaverse.

BTS

Wow Hydrate, featuring Harry Maguire.

Just prior to his heroics in the summer, we were lucky enough to spend the day with one of the stalwarts of England’s Euros backline, Harry Maguire. And if that wasn’t lucky enough, we even managed to do it on a scorchingly hot day in, of all places, the North of England.

We didn’t just go for a kick-about in the sunshine, though - we were there to film some content for Wow Hydrate and Tesco’s grassroots football campaign. And who better to launch it than England’s man of the people, big Harry Maguire? Coming from a grassroots background himself, we followed Harry’s visit back to his first team, Brunsmeer FC, to surprise some of their current crop of young talent (and for Harry to get rinsed by a couple of them for losing 6-1 to Spurs, which we promise wasn’t part of the script).

After a day’s filming - complete with the slight logistical headaches that come from wrangling a load of kids and trying to hide a 6ft4 centre-back from them - we produced a series of films and stills for Wow Hydrate’s social channels as well as in-store in Tesco’s across the country. Check out the final edits, stills and some BTS shots below.

Radar

Charlie Sarsfield - Director

Charlie Sarsfiled, director and music video maestro. We worked with him recently on a film we created for JD Sports and Puma, featuring Young T and Bugsey (keep your eyes pealed for that one, possibly dropping in next month’s Cut Culture), and Charlie certainly lived up to the fairly substantial hype he’s managed to gather around his name. He’s been making waves in the music industry for a couple years now, working with the likes of Stormzy, Jaykae, Dizzee Rascal, Ghetts, Wiley, James Arthur and more.

Head over to Charlie’s Instagram to check out more of his work.