Milan, February the 10 th, 2014 – “Set Alchemy: Mike Tyson and the pigeons”

Life on the set is a little bit different form everyday life: you are part of a team who’s creating a film. In a tvc there are peculiar relations with clients, that give birth to a inner world: a world made of trust, fun , and concentration both for the team in pre prod, and for the set in post prod.

Sometimes tension can be positive, it means that people are doing their best and they are not “working” in an easy way, but in my opinion fun, tricks and jokes are a good part of team working cause they are able to build a positive mood, helping people doing their best and creating a distinctive “language” only spoken by the team and “in those set days”.

In january I worked at the second part of “Allianz web episodes project”, shooting with E-motion srl in Liguria. The project was tough: 13 live action episodes to be taken between december and january.

After the december shooting, in the january one there was a good mood among the crew, actors and client. Thus the 1ad, Enrico, brought on the set a funny pictures I adore which portaits Mike Tyson with a pigeon.

That image became our funny trick: I took some pictures of the team with our “ amuleto” and we did some amusing portaits with that emblematic image

Why? “Make them smile: they will do anything for you”. That is a great truth, but why Tyson? Reading his unbelivable bio ( I do really suggest if you love extreme stories and boxing), I discovered this interesting story betwen Mike Tyson and the pigeons: he has been “protected” in his childhood by some gangsters (pag 28) that used to raise pigeons on the roof of a building in New York. Tyson used to take care of them, he was 7. This story created a relationship between the heavy weight champion and the pigeons that last a lifetim. Iron Mike and the pigeons have been part of a reality, a documentary and other media productions in these last years.

Shown below the links to : the spike lee movie/show and mike tyson instagram