Jack Links – Messing With Mates – Bram’s Haircut

This video was a top 5 finalist for the Jack Link’s Beef Jerky Messin’ With Mates video competition.

And like my entry which won gold the following year, it was all about creating a prank that really pushed the envelope.

In this case we took Bram Presser, international man of mystery and punk luminary, down to Manhor in Chapel St where we filmed him supposedly having a haircut.

Now while most hair cuts are nothing to write home about, Bram is a larger than life character whose gargantuan dreads literally precede him. That being the case, we figured that a perfectly respectable hairdo would send his Facebook friends into an atomic meltdown.

To pull this cunning stunt off, I photographed some before shots of Bram in the barber’s chair, dreads akimbo, and then took some shots of him with the hair stylist poised as if about to cut through one of his massive dreads. I cut up a cheap wig to distribute over his shoulders so as to make it look like some cutting had already taken place. Following this I took a series of portraits that I later retouched, removing the dreads altogether, before substituting in a truly believable short back and sides.

It was important that we had a few shots so it really looked like the haircut had really happened. Afterall, what kind of maniac would bother faking multiple shots? Of course that was just the kind of detail I knew it would take convince his eagle eyed comrades.

Suffice to say, when Bram posted it, it was like an earthquake that registered on the Richter scale. His friends were outraged. This was worse than Dylan going electric. The sense of horror and betrayal was palpable. Bram had sold out to the man!

In this case I shot and edited everything myself, save the footage of Yidcore performing which was sourced from another project that I wrote and produced.

The soundtrack features a track that I wrote which Yidcore recorded for their Eighth Day Slice album.