Dancing Pigeons - Ritalin - (2010) (Sweden)

Tomas Mankovsky, creator of the much copied "Sorry I'm late" video just sent me his latest work, and it's like made for me. He's got flame throwers and slow motion going on, and has wisely thrown in a couple of very unattractive hillbillies so that I don't die from a major case of the thigh-sweats. Yes, these men duel with a flamethrower and a fire extinguisher. It's aggressive, it's gorgeous. It makes me tingle.

Thomas says;

“Duels fascinate me. It used to be a popular thing, but in modern days it has died out. So I thought that probably somewhere in the States, some hillbillies are still doing it, their way.”

Shot almost entirely on the phantom camera at a 1000fps, threw up its own difficulties.

“The next tricky thing was getting the exposure right where Adam Frisch, the DP, did a great job. Since we shot at high frame rates we needed a lot of light, but I wanted to shoot it at night, which made it difficult. And on top of that, the main element in frame was a huge fireball that was really bright.”

Shooting in camera was a conscious decision to create a more real and visually striking film.

”It was difficult to know how this shootout would look like in superslowmo. We did some tests with a gas-flamethrower but the flame was only 2-3 meters and it looked quite bad in slowmo, so the special effects guys had to build a new flamethrower from scratch. They made one with liquid fuel, and that one was much better, firing out 10-15 meter flames. But the first time we saw how the flamethrower and fire extinguisher looked and behaved in slowmo was on the day of the shoot.”

This is part of Diesel:U:Music, the brand's ongoing program supporting new and upcoming artists, Blink and former Fallon London creative/director Tomas Mankovsky crafted this new video for the Dancing Pigeons track Ritalin, which, in its own way, illlustrates the Fire & Water theme of the brand's current collection. The video is also accompanied by a set of prints, and a longer, short film version will soon be released on Diesel.com

Directed by Tomas Mankovsky
Cast/ Performers (in order of appearance)
Old Man - Keith Francis
Flame Man - Adam Speers
Ice Man - Phil Zimmerman

Producer - Patrick Craig
Casting Director - Sophie North
Editor - Julian Tranquille
Post Production Supervisor - Justin Brukman
1st AD - Chris Kelly
1st AD - Ben Fogg
Production Manager - Adam Shaw
Director Of Photography - Adam Frisch
Focus Puller - Jeremy Fusco
Phantom Technician - John Hadfield
Camera Assistant - Roland Philip
7D Camera Assistant - Chris Nunn
Gaffer - Tony Miller
Spark - Jim Okeffe
Spark - Chris Georgeous
Spark - Jason Fletcher
Genny Op - Kevin Cooli
Genny Op - Lee Parfit

Art Director - Arthur De Borman
Art Director - Sam Ludgate

Special Effects - Artem
Special Effects Supervisor - Simon Tayler
Special Effects Technicians - Toby Stewart
Special Effects Technicians - Jonathan Bickerdike
Special Effects Technicians - Matt Loader

Hair & Make Up - Izzy Broad
Stylist - Tess Loe
Stylist Assistant - Daisy Babbington

Fire Cover - 1st Defense
Medical Cover - Location Medical
Animals - A-Z Animals - Gerry Cott

Photography - Marcus Palmqvist
Photography Assistant - Belinda Foord

Production Assistant - Rob Leonard
Runner - Sophia Marks
Runner - Lola Marks
Runner - Anna Fogg

Special Thanks To

Cut and Run
Take 2 Films
MPC
Green Door Films
Panalux
Black Country Parks
San Remo Café
Commissioned by Diesel:U:Music