Music
Director Paul Dugdale gives us a glimpse inside Ed’s epic Wembley Stadium concert film.
Tonight, you can see Ed Sheeran in your local cinema. No, he’s not dropping down to the Odeon for a squizz at The Martian and a bucket of salty popcorn – it’s the launch of his new concert film Jumpers For Goalposts, filmed at London’s Wembley Stadium back in the summer and now showing (alongside an exclusive live performance) at screens across the UK. Go here for screening details.
Bringing the excitement of an 80,000 capacity concert to a cinema screen is no easy task, and the man Ed and his team decided were up to the task was director Paul Dugdale of JA Digital. He told Red Bull UK about capturing Wembley, hanging backstage with Ed, and an unexpected moment of healing with Sir Elton John.
Films like this are all about peering behind the curtain, and artists revealing moments that normally they wouldn’t...
Hi Paul. When did you get the call from Ed, saying he wanted to work with you?
I had worked with Ed at the start of the year on the VH1 television show Storytellers and it was the first time we had met. The show was broadcast live worldwide from a tiny Dublin pub and we got on well. What was interesting was that the show only had 250 people in the audience and we knew the next time Ed would play, he would be at Wembley, which was 87,000 people per night – pretty incredible. It was a huge honour to be picked to do the Wembley shows. I never asked him why he chose me but I guess we got on, the vibe was right and my body of work made him feel confident he could trust me. Trust from the artist is crucial to the success of a concert film or documentary.
Did Ed have a clear vision of what he wanted the film to be?
We developed an idea and presented it to Ed and then discussed with the record label and Ed’s manager, Stuart Camp. It’s brave of Ed to let us have so much access on what was one of the most important weekends of his life, but he was really welcoming to our film and his willingness to go with the ideas meant hopefully we were able to paint a really intimate picture.
How long did you spend hanging with Ed? Is he as humble as he appears? What does he get up to backstage around the Wembley shows?
With Ed, what you see is what you get. He is really humble but also incredibly ambitious. He's a really hard worker and what's so admirable is how he looks after people who he sees real talent in – he’s incredibly loyal. If you want to see what happens backstage then you need to watch the film – it's all in there!
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We wanted to show how Ed is on an absolute crest of a wave...
You’ve previously made music videos and live films for huge artists like Coldplay, One Direction and Adele. How did working with Ed differ? In many ways, his stage set is way more stripped down – it’s just one man, with a guitar.
For me, filming a single artist on stage and making the piece hold the audience interest for 100 minutes was the biggest challenge – but a really enjoyable one. No one had ever played Wembley Stadium entirely solo before, and with no one else on stage, the danger is that the filmmaking can begin to feel repetitive and unimaginative – you use up all your options pretty quickly unless you have a huge camera complement, which we didn’t. I once directed a concert for David Guetta, which we filmed on Copacabana Beach in Rio. He was playing to an audience of two million people. It doesn’t get much bigger.
How do you go about capturing the excitement of a venue as big as Wembley Stadium?
For me, the performance elements of this film were a matter of capturing three things and doing them really well. We wanted to show the enormous scale of the venue and show how Ed is on an absolute crest of a wave. This was the culmination of years and years of hard work so you need to show that this is a BIG moment in a colossal venue. At the same time though, it was important for us to grasp really intimate moments, and show Ed’s emotion as well as musical skill, as though the viewer was stood right next to him on stage – that way the footage becomes so much more engaging.
Thirdly – and vitally – filming the audience. We had as many cameras filming the audience as we did filming Ed because they were an absolutely crucial part of this film. They are the viewers' emotional barometer, as well as the only protagonist Ed has when he’s on stage so it was so important that we caught them in a way that allowed us to translate what it felt like to be at the show to the viewer at home.
And Sir Elton John makes a brief appearance?
Yes, Sir Elton is in it – and played two songs with Ed at the first show on the Friday night. When Ed finished the first show he was furious, because he had had a technical problem with one of the songs and he felt it had ruined the biggest gig of his life. There's an incredibly tender scene in the film where you see Elton consoling him and telling him not to worry.
It's pretty amazing, and I’m pretty sure we weren’t meant to be filming when that happened, but it was so revealing. Films like this are all about peering behind the curtain, and artists revealing moments that normally they wouldn’t. They make it truly special.
Visit the official Jumpers For Goalposts site, or follow Ed Sheeran on Twitter at @edsheeran. And don't forget to follow us on Twitter at @RedBull_Music.
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