Into the Library with Ninian Doff

The first thing that felt very ‘me’ was a music video for a band called Fulton Lights. I desperately wanted to make a music video but didn’t know anyone in the music industry, so I just emailed an unsigned musician and asked if they wanted a free music video. I then filmed crows in the park, got my friend Dave in a suit to match their movement and then spent weeks, actually months, combining the two shots. 

It truly was a one man show – I shot it, edited it and did all the post production on it. Since this video came out, I occasionally get sent clips and ads with dancing birds with arms copying it but I think I was the first person to do it on video (not stills), so it stood out. At this stage in my career my biggest, wildest aims were to get a video shown at BUG (music video night hosted by Adam Buxton at the BFI) and be nominated for a UKMVA. Then that video achieved both of those aims so that caught me by surprise and I had to dream even bigger! It also absolutely led to me making my first ‘proper’ music videos too (for Graham Coxon) so it was a big stepping stone/calling card.

The most recent thing I shot (as in this week) actually has some funny parallels with the one above, in that it features a narrative around an animal too. It’s not out yet to share here but the biggest difference is this time the animal will be full CG which was unthinkable on the first video. However on the day I shot a man in a suit pretending to be the animal so in some ways I haven’t moved on!

But since I can’t share that one... another recent job that is out were some fun spots for Apple Watch. I did about four different spots for Apple last year, so it was a great collaboration and all of them had the fun challenge of getting very tight narratives into short running lengths. If I’m going into a spot knowing it’s only ever going to be a 30, or even a 15, I actually love that restriction. I’m not always a huge fan of drawn-out self-indulgent director’s cuts! I think there’s a real art in super efficient storytelling and I get very into achieving that. 

That actually would be the big difference between this and my first music video. The first music video I just shot lots of random footage and figured it out in the edit, whereas now I meticulously storyboard, often drawing them myself, cut animatics and even test films of the whole spot just to be sure it’s going to work in the edit.

This recent spot for Apple ‘Sleep Active’ was fun as it was taking something mundane (getting ready for bed) and shooting it like a sports commercial. It had some really fun rigs and practical effects to bring drama into what’s dull. For instance in camera travelling through the mirror (using body doubles) just for a shot of someone brushing their teeth. I love clashing genres like that and I was given a lot of trust to go for it.

‘Nicholas The Sweep’ for Sainsbury’s felt like a big step up for me at the time: proper period drama, bigger story, very cinematic, lots of extras, rich production design, matte paintings, just full of amazing tiny details. 

It was also the first Christmas ad I’d done which in the UK is a whole thing and brings lots more eyeballs and attention. John Mathieson was the DP (‘Gladiator’, ‘Logan’, many many more) and that was the first time for me shooting with someone who had that much movie experience. I loved just sitting next to him and hearing all the stories of his career and seeing how he worked and the choices he made in terms of lighting and camera. I think one of the biggest gifts commercials offer a director is the chance to work with so many different, and highly experienced, HoDs and learn from them. 

It was a great job in that there was a lot of trust and I got to push it to some quite crazy places for a big supermarket at Christmas! For example the “Gotcha” stick, the child in a sleigh cage, even a man wielding a chopped off horse’s leg all were additions from me and frankly, it blows my mind sometimes that they’re all in there! That’s a big credit though too to Weiden+Kennedy and the creatives Tom Bender, Tom Corcoran, Tomas Coleman and Mat Kramer, for a script that was already packed full of jokes and a great story.

The Chemical Brothers have an amazing music video legacy and I’ve been fortunate enough to make two videos for them. I think one of the reasons they’ve attracted such good directors and made such good work is they have an amazing amount of trust. They approve the idea, then approve the final edit and really leave you alone for the rest!  

‘We’ve Got To Try’ was pretty unique though, in that through a F1 collaboration, the band had access to this insane F1 car and a day on the track. The brief was basically ‘What’s a Chemical Brothers video that takes advantage of this mad chance to put a zillion pound car in your video’. The best thing was there was no catch. It absolutely wasn’t to be an F1 advert, it was the car with no strings attached. So the only rule I set to myself when brainstorming was to think of ideas that didn’t involve racing. How can I take this opportunity and go an unexpected route and warp it into the world of Chemical Brothers videos? I love all the old space race stories. The story of the Russian dog Laika was an inspiration here. However the real Laika story often ignores how horrendously tragic it really is (spoiler: they flew a dog into space, but not back to Earth). I really liked the idea of retelling the story so that the dog gets the upper hand and the happy ending she deserved.

Then I had the challenge of having written a story about a dog driving F1 cars and spaceships, however, I had an ace up my sleeve. I’d actually done an advert with real cats genuinely playing music instruments and through that met this incredible animal trainer Charlotte Wilde. She told me she’d trained a rescue dog to fly an aeroplane for a TV show, like an actual plane, for real. I think as a director you’re always mentally logging interesting locations, actors, facts for future use and that tidbit went straight into that file! 

So when it came to this, everyone kept asking how we’re going to fake a dog doing all this stuff and I kept saying “Don’t worry about it, I know a dog...” No one believed me, in fact I think some thought I was fully deluded, until he was on set being a total legend doing everything perfectly. The dog is called Shadow, a total pro and very special dog.

I’m fortunate that I’m so delusionally optimistic that even the most challenging shoots always feel kinda fine despite all the evidence to the contrary. I have had set builds flood the day before shooting, had to clear locations due to risk of being killed by lightning, equipment failures, power cuts, cast get sick etc. All the usual for this job, but I just roll with it so don’t really reflect on any of those jobs as particularly challenging!

I guess one that was challenging in a way I knew it would be going into it, and was delighted with the result, was IKEA’s ‘Change a bit for good’. It was my first ‘proper’ shoot after lockdown with no remote aspect and finally a full crew all making something together which was surprisingly emotional! I remember location scouting and just being giddy to be with other people in actual real life! But for a shoot that still had all the protocols of testing, masks, social distancing etc., it still had practical effects, great locations, fun set pieces and never felt compromised. It was my first time working with Kiran Shah who performed the robot and is quite a legend. He’s just been given a knighthood for his services to film! His IMDb is a who’s who of every major film of the last 50 years. 

The project I’m most proud of would have to be my first feature film ‘Get Duked!’. As mentioned earlier, making a feature was always the biggest, ultimate goal for me. So not only did it feel great to manage that (as actually getting a film made is a bizarre mix of insanely hard work and then just totally random miracles) but also to sit with audiences and feel the jokes landing and for it to get a great reception was incredible. At the heart of the film are four teenagers and it became such a tight friendship between us, it was incredible seeing them grow as actors as some had never been in any films, let alone as leads. They’ve all gone on to do wonderful things and their stars keep rising and I honestly feel like a proud dad!

It won the audience prize at SXSW and opened Edinburgh Film Festival and then it was released by Amazon Prime. But perhaps the real, absolutely insane, icing on the cake is I randomly got a tweet from the producer of the Simpsons that just said “You should watch the show tonight...”. And I did and there was an entire Simpsons episode made in homage to the film! I’m not even kidding, it was shot for shot in many places. Just absolutely wild. I still can’t wrap my head around it.

My music video for Miike Snow called ‘Genghis Khan’ really impacted me in a way I never ever expected when I wrote it. I was always adamant from the beginning that it should never come across as a joke that the characters are gay, despite the high concept world. So huge attention to detail meant it was always treated super seriously and sincerely even if it’s essentially James bond dancing! This seriousness and care went right down to shooting it on 35mm so that it felt authentic and like a long lost film scene, rather than an SNL skit. This made the world and cast feel like real people. But even then, I didn’t expect it to have importance in people's lives and get the reception it did. It’s been seen 60 million times but even more importantly I received a few messages over the years from people telling me it played a part in their journey of coming out, which... I don’t know what to say even... just beyond an honour to ever think something I made could be so significant in someone's life. It’s emotional for me to think about! 

I like to think of every job as a mini film school. So even if it’s not the best job, you’re hopefully still learning something and upgrading yourself! I sometimes joke that at the end of jobs you should get a certificate of the new ‘course’ you just graduated from. A job that was good but also I felt like I was learning a new thing was my second Christmas ad for Sainsbury’s, ‘At Last’. A frozen in time, no cuts, 60-second impossible camera move with real people which was actually shot over four days meant I was working with pre-vis, motion control, CGI, crazy maths, meticulous planning and still keeping an eye on none of it feeling too technical but instead effortless, human and even comedic. That was one where by the end of the job I felt I could’ve been given a certificate that said “Ninian Doff now has his beginners diploma in Motion Control.”

I think all of my early music videos, as I took way too much on every time in order to achieve the idea for the tiny budgets. All my early videos for Graham Coxon, MF DOOM, Mykki Blanco, Darwin Deez, I edited and did all the post production for as well. Never as a team, just me on my own losing my mind in After Effects. My first music video for Graham Coxon involved hundreds of fans sending in footage of them doing particular dance moves and then me rebuilding entire video collaged bodies motion tracked back into the real world! All just me in my bedroom doing 18 hour days trying to finish these videos but... It was worth it. It was the only way to make them happen.

To end on my funniest project, I’d like to think all my shoots have a fun energy and there’s nearly always some element that’s pretty out there raising a chuckle from even the most cynical crew member. A job that sprung to mind though for this one was a cat food commercial I did that was a full on 1980s pop video. Again, despite the inherent ridiculousness, I treated it super seriously, really researching shitty wipe transitions and bad ‘80s set designs. In terms of the shoot itself it was again Charlotte Wilde (trainer of the dog who can fly a plane mentioned earlier) who trained five cats to literally play instruments in exchange for bits of chicken. Going into the shoot it really felt insane thinking we’d be able to get a single shot but then hilariously one after another these cats played keyboards, hit drums, even strummed a guitar. It was both totally ridiculous and amazing at once.