Bombol Comedy Club. Behind the scene #5: filming the kids
The set up
For Bombol social media campaign, I wrote and directed 12 stand-up comedy clips about the craziness of parenthood. All comedy routines shot in a white studio reminiscent of the one of the famous Apple vs pc ads. Comedians and audience to be filmed separately. And did I mention the audience was made of kids?
The kids sat in their comfy bouncers in a white room, a clown entertaining them for two and half hours with jokes, tricks and props. We filmedthe kids with three cameras simultaneously: one fixed for the wide angle, two hand held, moving fast from kid to kid, trying to film in any given moment the kid with the most interesting reaction.
There were five kids at a time sitting on the bouncers, plus three more ready to take their place if somebody started crying or got tired.
The unexpected
It sounds easy. It was not. Kids are unpredictable, hence the most difficult to film, they say, together with animals. I say animals can be trained.
You know you're in trouble when you have three babies crying wanting to breastfeed, one kid refusing to participate at all and one kid who's the kind of guy who laughs inside.
We were not getting from them the bold, comical reactions we anticipated. The problem was there were only five of them at a time, they didn't know each other, and they were in a new and strange environment, with very serious looking adults moving cameras and various equipment around them. We can't blame them.
Eventually something unexpected happened. A kid tired of sitting started jumping (dancing?) around in a funny way, then went to cuddle the crying baby, offering the sweetest moment we could ever imagine. The other boy also stood up and started bouncing his baby brother who loved that very much, laughing excited for the first time. The little girl, seeing the babies finally happy, relaxed and gave us some great reactions. The alpha kid, a happy, playful Indian girl, started to enjoy the clown show very much and showed her enthusiasm, modelling the expected behaviour to the other ones, encouraging them to let go a bit, clap, sing and laugh.
The cameramen did a good job in switching from kid to kid trying to capture the most interesting reactions.That kid in the first row is smiling, wait the baby in the corner is making a funny face, let's get that... And the one on the back is crying, let's film that too, it may turn useful... And so on, for two and a half hours.
Finally, in the editing room, those little reactions, gestures and change of expressions appeared much bigger than they did live, the cameras hand held at kids eye level magnifying those tiny moments that in studio from an adult perspective looked so disappointing and plane.
And so the next challenge began...
Writer, director (on set & post-production), producer.
12 comedy videos
Bombol ltd.
Hong Kong, 2017