Gaffer Josh Mclaren on lighting the music video for British rising star RAYE's latest single "Flip A Switch"

Having garnered 1,000,000 views in just a month on YouTube, the music video for British rising star RAYE’s latest single ‘Flip A Switch’ is a feverish blend of neon, sweat and carnal energy. The animalistic choreography onboard a hurtling double decker bus set to electronic beats and guitar riffs make for a visceral viewing experience.

We had the pleasure of chatting to Gaffer Josh Mclaren on how he utilised lighting to match the energy or RAYE’s intense performance.

Firstly, how did your involvement in the project come about?

It came about through the DP Ian Murray who I’d worked with before. I think he’d been talking to the director Otis Dominique for quite a while to work out a project that they could collab on, and then this one just finally came to fruition. It was quite funny as I went to high school with the director, and I only found out on the pre-production zoom call when recognising his voice.

What was the visual approach for the music video and how did the lighting feed into that?

From a lighting point of view, we were just trying to do anything we could to match the energy of all the choreography going on, especially in such a tight space as we were working on an old route master bus. Mainly, we were just trying to create a look with different colours to match the CGI that formed the background outside of the bus. So yeah, just trying to get that colour scheme right and then create a sense of movement and energy that could keep up with all the choreography, that was the main approach.

How did you go about lighting the bus and mimicking that feeling of movement?

So, we had quite a lot going on. Throughout the bus we used a row of Astera Titans just doing a simple chase, to give the feeling of the bus moving forward through a tunnel. And then we also had a couple of 2K Blondes on dimmers to give the idea of streetlights coming and passing. We also ended up using a few M18’s pointing into spinning mirror triangles to ramp up the intensity and generate some visual energy.

With the lighting fixtures you had, was there a particular piece of kit that was essential for the project?

Well, we used the Titans to create the ambience of a moving bus and then to utilise the tight space we had onboard the bus, we used some small Kino Flo panels to create some shape on the artist and the dancers. So, any small lightweight panels with good colour control that could help us bring out the neon look on the skin tones became essential.

In terms of lighting, what were the main challenges?

Working in a tight space onboard the bus was challenging, but also just trying to pick up RAYE from the crowd of dancers and bring her out was a bit of a challenge. We ended up using some small Kino Flo panels on the inside of the bus and then some Dedo Light Stream reflectors outside to create little shafts of light to pick her out through the crowd of dancers.

There’s so much going on in the music video from choreography to complex camera moves, how much of that was done in pre-production?

All the choreography was pre-rehearsed, and we didn’t actually see the final routine until the day of the shoot, so quite a lot of the camera and lighting set-ups had to be worked out on the day as they were rehearsing. We had to work out the best positions for the lights to really bring RAYE out from all the other dancers and emphasise her performance. There were a lot of moving parts, and naturally it was quite hectic on the day to get it done and looking good.

With a tight shoot and only a limited amount of time for set-ups, did that factor into your decision making when choosing your lighting fixtures for the project?

There’s always compromise and if you have more time then you can think of other ways to do it, but we used a combination of the wireless Titan Tubes as it speeds up things quite bit. But because we had quite a lot of practical effects going on with spinning mirrors and blondes on dimmers and having to work out the timings of those in beat with the music, all of it was just having to get it right on the day and having to do it a few times before we nailed it.

Were the reflections of the bus windows achieved through lighting or CGI?

We were in the studio the whole time so all the cityscape reflections are in fact CGI, but we tried to match it as best we could with the lighting. For the front of the bus, we ended up creating a little spinning rig with four 150-watt Dedo lights that would spin 360 degrees just to bring as much movement and energy as we could through the lighting. And then using tungsten lights to mimic passing streetlights. There were a lot of practical effects to bring out the best of the CGI on RAYE’s skin and the back-up dancers.

How was it working with Pixipixel and did we achieve everything you were after?

It was great. Howard (Lighting Account Handler) was the saviour of the shoot.  We realised that we needed more spinning mirrors than we originally planned for and then the Pixi team pulled it out the bag and managed to source a few more which really helped bring the video together. Each one of those practical effects brought another layer to the final edit.

Is there any specific part of the music video that you’re particularly proud of?

To be honest I’m very proud of the whole thing. It was amazing working with RAYE, she was just so committed to getting the best out of the time we had to shoot, it was just incredible to see her work really. And the whole thing really was just trying to keep up with her and the dancers, it was a pretty intense performance, and we were just trying to match that with the lighting, and I’d like to think that we did a pretty good job, hopefully.