Suzaan Heyns` opening film was Willem Grobler`s second directorial project. We catch up with the Cape Town based film maker to find out more about how the project came about, the inside on the shoot day, and what`s in store for the future
iFashion: How did the Suzaan Heyns video come about?
Willem Grobler: I was worked with Silver Lining Pictures producer Reiner Ridgeway and he is friends with Suzaan. I believe they were watching MK and the Isochronous - Destiny video came up and she absolutely loved the video, so Reiner set up a meeting.
iFashion: And then…
WG: We had a good meeting, and she told me what she was doing with PPC: thinking about cement differently. We came up with a treatment, I landed on Wednesday night, and we had three days to put the shoot together with virtually no budget. But often that works the best: people come on board with a belief in what they’re making, in what they're doing and they give as much as they can.
iFashion: Tell me about the shoot?
WG: The twins, Abby and Claire, are only fifteen going on sixteen and this was their first time on camera. We didn’t have a lot of time to prep and I think that added to the feel of the video. We just did it. It was shot in a PPC cement factory.
iFashion: Who else was involved?
WG: My friend Rob was the editor and I think he really excelled at taking what we did and making it a real story. That’s when the story really developed, after the shoot…
iFashion: And what is that story?
WG: Like the duality that Suzaan was putting across: the hard and the soft elements of the cement, mirroring the masculinity and femininity. Using the twins exemplified this.
iFashion: Do you have a style? How would you describe it?
WG: Moody, dark, freaky, sci-fi – I like pushing boundaries, rethinking a film-making structure and I think that worked really well here, and mirrors what we were trying to get across – a different way of thinking about cement, thinking about the flexibility of what is traditionally an inflexible product
