This industry is unpredictable, 100%. I was sitting at home last Thursday and I got a message from a producer, Kobi. “Hey Bruce, how are things? Are you available next week?”. On Tuesday I was filming a job in Amsterdam with Mike Tyson. That’s the way this works sometimes, not normally, but it does happen!
And so, off I went to Amsterdam where Mike Tyson was going to be for a couple of days. We were told that he was available on the following Wednesday so production had to scramble and get permission in any large stadium available in and around Amsterdam. We got the permission from one stadium the day before filming, the Feijernood Stadium in Rotterdam, know as De Kuip (which I think means The Tub).
I don’t really have much time for pictures but I did take a few. It rained almost every day there besides the shoot day, which thankfully, only rained for three hours in the morning. Luckily, the afternoon wasn’t too bad and we even had some sunshine! Mike was available for about three hours for the main film, the rest went to social media and stills….Always a battle, but he did shine and am grateful for what we managed to film in a very short time.
Produced by Jimmy, EP was Kobi Hoffman. He has the incredible ability to be calm and collected in absolutely any situation, never a bad word, always positive and 100% chill and this does of course make everyone around him feel good, it’s all ok! It works….Big thanks to Eran Harel too.
I had the pleasure of working with Jake Polonsky DOP who was also amazing, adapted to the very difficult situation as it developed every 20 minutes. These types of jobs aren’t easy for anyone and it can be very frustrating trying to get a shot done the way it should be and having to adapt to the situation at hand… Jake is very good at this! Big thanks!
And then of course, a massive thanks to everyone else, the local service prod co, Wenneker TV, produced by Rogier Dorant, Maxim Pakhomov, Robin Mac and Kat Perciballi. The 1st AD was Roman Grad and to all the team, many many thanks.
So, quite the challenging one but it’s always worth it when the results are decent, everyone happy. The cut below is the official version.
