Big Chop's Matthew Felstead Cuts a Punchy Jazz-infused Spot for Sony

Director Greg Hackett, Editor Matthew Felstead (Big Chop) and producer Steven Richardson have collaborated, on Sony’s Action Cam launch, a short film, which gives a unique first-person and third-person artistic perspective of a prizefighter during training.

The film places the Sony Action Cam in the middle of each punch.  The intensity of the action was captured by mounting cameras on forearms and crash helmets and the dynamic editing compliments these high impact action scenes.

Greg, Matthew and Steven, really wanted to play on the rhythms that are found in boxing, particularly sparring and training, so set out looking for a track that would compliment that.  The idea that a drum tutorial would be perfect soon became apparent so they set about trawling the internet for jazz drum tutorials. They came across a Bernard Purdie track and immediately knew it was the one.

‘’Bernard Purdie, a 75 year old jazz legend is still touring!   He proved tricky to track down.   Through the suggested links on Mr. Purdie’s site, Jack Hoban, who plays in Bernard’s band ‘Jersey Blue’ seemed our best bet! We sent him a message on Facebook and waited for him to get back to us," commented Steven Richardson. "During this time, we went through Bernard’s tour schedule and called every location on the list trying to get hold of whoever handles his bookings. After a number of dead ends, The Clef Club in Philadelphia, came to the rescue, and got Bernard to call us that evening.  He loved the idea and told me that Jack Hoban handles his licensing.

"The whole process took about two weeks and only finalised six hours before play out.  It was scary but we knew we had to have Bernard’s track. Apparently most people use Bernard’s recordings without permission, so I think they were quite grateful that we’d spent the time tracking them down!’’ 

‘’The concept comes from the fact we wanted to throw action against the action camera but still try to remain creative. We wanted to take it to a more abstract place where we use the camera on the forearm and head but also make the rest of the film interesting and unique.’’ said Greg Hackett

Matthew Felstead commented on his work: ‘’I wanted the edit to feel like the boxers journey from training to fight and the way the track builds is perfect for that.

"The front section has a slow rhythm and anticipation with a sense of building to something bigger which matches the boxers training regime, the hand wrapping section has a quietness and reflection before our hero enters the ring and then we go full bore into the fight sequence.

"There are so many layers to the Bernard track that I have tried to make the edit like a sheet of music, not just to cutting on the beat but also trying to find pieces of action within the shot which match the beats you are hearing.’’