Vol. 14

Don't believe everything you see on the internet. In this month's Cut Culture, we’re highlighting some deepfake deception and gravity-defying daredevilry. We’ll also take you on a trip to Spain for a look behind the scenes of our most recent shoot for PUMA, and we’ll close things out with a brief love letter to the FA Cup, courtesy of an introduction to our mate Khalil.

Cut Culture

Return of the King.

Considered by many to be the GOAT, Kendrick Lamar returned out of nowhere this month following a 5-year-long sabbatical – because somebody had to come back and see to all the various ‘Lils’. However, it’s the video for ‘The Heart Part 5’ that’s getting a lot of attention (don’t worry if you haven’t seen the 4 previous parts, it’ll still make sense). The video centres around the idea of ‘perspective’, and spells that out fairy clearly by using the magic of deepfakery to transform Kendrick into O.J. Simpson, Kanye West, Jussie Smollett, Will Smith, Kobe Bryant, and Nipsey Hussle. Interesting bunch of blokes, that. Would be a heck of a stag do. I’m sure Jussie’s account of events would make for quite the tale. Considering the scale of production that goes into many music videos these days, the fact that a 5-minute video essentially shot in one location has garnered so much attention is a testament to the seamless execution of a somewhat simple, but inevitably provocative idea. The question that emerges from this is whether or not the video has become so notorious due to the novelty factor of deepfake technology (as well as the individuals whom these particular deepfakes depict), or whether this is perhaps ushering in an era of new possibilities for the creation of video content more broadly. There will certainly be some actors looking to use this technology to get a day off work. Or perhaps some directors who don’t fancy dealing with difficult talent…

Wheelie Good.

Anyone who’s ever ridden a BMX or a mountain bike for any extended period of time has probably had someone shout “Do a wheelie!” at them at least once. The difficulty therein is that most of us don’t know how to do so, and typically like to keep both tyres of a bicycles firmly affixed to terra firma, so one then faces a difficult decision of whether to ignore the plea or to give it a go and potentially end up with a face full of pavement. Danny MacAskill knows no such dilemma, as is proved by Adidas Five Ten and Cut Media’s latest joint masterpiece. Saying that, Danny does stack it in the first 10 seconds of the video, but I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that may have been set up (sorry for pulling back the curtain on these hot industry secrets). In the summer of 2021 Danny MacAskill put out a call to action to his 3.5 million social media followers asking them to #WheelieWithDanny, with riders and fans from all around the world applying to feature in the project. The first half of the video itself features a wheelying(?) Danny as the one constant in a world in perpetual flux with a constantly changing backdrop, and culminates in a Forrest Gump/Rocky Balboa-esque flock of fellow riders in tow behind Danny. Arguably the best part, though, is after the main film ‘finishes’ and we’re introduced to some of the characters sat atop the bikes, underlining the sense of community that is behind such two-wheeled pursuits. Feel-good stuff from start to finish.

BTS

It’s a hard old life, isn’t it? You can just be minding your own business, then all of a sudden you find out that you’re going to have to fly to sunny Spain to shoot in an utterly idyllic coastal location. What a bloody inconvenience. In case it was unclear, that was sarcasm. However, that was the situation we found ourselves in for our latest work for Puma, launching the Cali Dream Pastel Pack to go live in JD Sports stores and across social.

We put together a concept based around the idea of a girls holiday, which naturally took us to the already pastel-ladened La Marea Roja, Alicante. We did honestly go there for the iconic architectural design - the views, beach, sun and sangria were just happy bonuses. Arguably the one pitfall of such a stunning location is that it is incredibly easy to get lost, so on more than one occasion did somebody leave to shift things around and the rest of the crew was left to wonder whether they would ever return. Saying that, it was rather convenient stumbling across a place that happened to match the colour palette of the new trainers. Good luck or good planning? You decide…

We had 3 influencers from 3 different territories, which naturally comes with some potential translational slow-downs - this becomes particularly pressing when you’re up against a rapidly-closing golden hour window. However, all 3 girls were a complete joy to work with and managed to get all the shots we needed whilst also creating their own content. Serious hustle. There were no siestas for us. Here are some BTS shots - watch out for the final assets dropping soon.

Radar

Khalil Musa - Photographer

As a disclaimer, we ought to say up front that we are slightly polishing our own spokes with this one. As you may or may not know, we’ve been shooting content for Mitre’s ‘Different League’ campaign over the course of the last few months. Possibly the main aspect of which involves sending photographers to FA Cup games, which reached its pinnacle a couple weeks ago. Khalil Musa is a photographer who we have worked with many times over the years, and who was involved with this Mitre campaign from the start, way back when we picked up the project in the 4th round. For the final weekend, Khalil hit the streets of London to finish what we started, and these are the results. Or, rather, these are just a mere glimpse of the results - the rest of which can be found on the Mitre Instagram.

More importantly, though, we implore you to head over to Khalil’s Instagram to check out more of his work.