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Pressure DVD
306 Blackstock Road
Sheffield
South Yorkshire
S14 1GA
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Interview with Rob Barker and Carl Timms of Pressure
Hi Rob, hi Carl.
Rob: Hello.
Carl: How’s it going?
Good, good. So tell us how Pressure came about.
CARL: So - Pressure came about through my brother initially, who was a paintball player – played in the Midlands Masters series. He suggested to me that there was possibly room in the market for UK DVDs or DVDs of the European series and we decided to look into it. We put our names about, got an offer from Warren Maxwell to do the new five man tournament he was putting together in Ashford and that was it!
You’re not paintballers by trade are you?
R: Nope. I was the first person to come aboard once Carl got the Euro 5-man gig and that was initially as scriptwriter, which I guess is probably the first time anyone doing paintball DVDs thought that was the first role they need to fill...
C: I think one of the main benefits of us not coming from a paintball background has been that we’ve got no agenda whatsoever though - apart from looking for the best games and the most interesting stories. Where we think Pressure wins out is that we find and put together the stories behind that mugging, or that extra love. We’re trying to thread together the action sequences, the games, I mean, in between stories - just like it was a Hollywood film.
R: For me one of the great things has been to take that narrative angle - go ‘Right, well Joy Division and Ignition have got that rivalry…’ Cos those angles get the audience’s attention, build you up before the game so you’re hyped - and you actually care when a player gets shot out… Paintball’s such a tight knot family and everyone inside that family knows those little histories – one of the things we’re trying to do is bring them out for a wider audience.
So where on the pitch do you normally stick your cameramen?
C: My favourite camera position is getting that over the shoulder shot of the player firing – so you can see the player and where they’re aiming the paint. Of course, that can also be the least favourite position cos if the player you’re behind starts getting shot at and paint starts firing back over his shoulder, then the first person to get hit is the cameraman! It’s a case of timing it right. But the camera operators we use, some of them are particularly good at getting those kind of shots – they’re the ones I guess who are a little less concerned
R: We generally try and use cameramen who are struggling to get over a bad relationship or who’ve given up on everything and don’t place any value on their own lives anymore
C: We’re a kind of 21st century foreign legion for camera operators, basically... But we do have full armour for the guys so they can get into those dangerous positions.
R: We’ve had some kamikaze cameramen haven’t we?
C: We have. Um. The first tournament we did – not a single camera operator had filmed anything like paintball before. They all had tremendous experience in other types of camerawork, including other sports, but paintball was a completely new experience. And we had an Australian cameraman who approached the job like it was his Vietnam. He loved getting out on the field, running around, following the players, moving right into the line of fire. He took a lot of hits.
R: He was hearing helicopters, wasn’t he?
C: I think he was. The great thing was that he got a really great end result. Of course another of our cameramen is probably the most unfortunate man in the paintball DVD industry. For the two events he shot he took one in the throat, and another one in the testicles. That particular one, I’ve never seen a man go so white so quickly.
R: And he’s pretty white to begin with.
Tell us about the way you film games. You use a fair number of cameras, right?
C: Sure. We normally work with four or five cameras on field, plus two interview cameras off the pitch talking to players, fans, getting nice shots of the stadium etc. Working with WDP at the moment you realise the benefit of having even more cameras than that though... They have nine cameramen on the finals at their events and you get almost everything with that. But there’s so much going on you never quite know... All it takes is a fraction of a second for someone to poke their head out from a bunker and get slammed in the face – twitch for a second you can miss it.
Okay… So paintball’s got some memorable teams. If I throw a few names at you why don’t you tell me what you think about them?
C: Do you mean playing styles or off-field?
Anything you like really. Like, if I mentioned London Tigers, then you’d go -
C: Bunch of ****s!
'Bunch of ****s'. You got it. Don’t say 'Bunch of ****s' for all of them, Carl, cos that’s not gonna make good copy. Okay, we continue. London Tigers.
C: Bunch of ****s. (PAUSE) Only joking! They’re the team we know best cos they’ve been at every event we’ve been at. Gentlemen, great paintballers. Most importantly, the thing that’s been best to see has been that at Euro 5man we filmed the Tigers Kidz bashing teams - that first bit of promise - and now at Campaign Wee Man and Jarvis from the kidz are not just playing in the first team, but are some of the best players they’ve got.
Okay. Russian Legion?
C: Just - amazing to watch! Our first xball game was Legion vs All Americans (Bespoke ‘Philly Americans and Baltimore Trauma superteam put together just for this game’ – Ed) and what an introduction to xball that was. The Legion’s style, technique... The sheer difference that being full time has made is incredible. We’ve been lucky enough, editing Heroes and Villains, to have watched some of the stuff of them previously at some of the NPPL events. And the difference in them since then – there’s one game we got of them against Dynasty, and Dynasty beat them, you know – Legion put on a show but they still lost.
What about the Americans?
C: Well because the American game is so high profile, our first experience of US teams, apart from the Avalanche guys at Euroball III, was at Campaign. And we were a bit in awe. By this time we were paintball fans as well as paintball filmmakers. They play so vocal, pump themselves up, and the US pits can be daunting, but once you get past that it’s amazing. And the Americans have just got this showbiz gene – you put a camera in their face and they can just talk so well, so succinctly with great sound bites - you just get gold every time. They’ve just got used to that camera being in their faces from the profile of the sport in the US
R: Course, the aggressive way they talk amongst themselves taps into the idea of psychology as a tactic of the sport, which is something we’re exploring in the Campaign DVD. That idea of being able to put your opponents off their step by having a loud pit area... There’s almost two battles going on when you got the US derbys – you’ve got the one on the pitch and the one on the pits. One guy in one pit shouts something to his teammates, the other pits hear it and they bounce off it – they ramp it up, and it adds so much to the game - especially as a viewer.
C: So are you gonna ask about Copenhagen Ducks?
R: Ugly Ducklings? The most full-on -
C: Chilled out...
R: Mardy!
C: Team around. Of all the teams we’ve met, the ones that wear their hearts on their sleeves the most are the Copenhagen Ducks. When they’re angry they show it – they’re full of Viking spirit, they’ve got that Scandinavian fieriness... Some teams talk about playing aggressive, but they’re the real deal.
R: They’re pretty much the opposite of us.
C: Right.