Finding Nima

Having made his name in the music video industry, Nourizadeh has achieved great acclaim for his work with Lily Allen, Lady Sovereign, a much lauded low-budget roller-coaster themed video for Architecture In Helsinki’s ‘Do the Whirlwind’, and his whimsical video for Jim Noir’s ‘My Patch’, which was dubbed by NME as “possibly the greatest music video of all time.”

He has also frequently collaborated with Hot Chip, who he describes as “great friends”, his hilarious video for ‘Over and Over’ – a tongue-in-cheek deconstruction of the pop-promo-making process – gaining cult status among fans.
But it was his 2009 hedonistic, star-studded party-themed ads for Adidas that attracted the attention of producer Todd Philips (The Hangover, Old School), ultimately leading to his feature film debut.
“But,” the modest Londener hastens to add, “it’s not like I was the muse or anything! It was a weird way of getting a film made. I think Todd had a treatment with the general plot floating around for a while when he saw my ad. And I was away, actually filming another Adidas ad when he got in touch with me. I think he just really responded to the vibe, the style, the tone, the authentic material. So they said they wanted me to have a look at a 20 page treatment, I put my spin on it and it all moved forward from there.”
And it seemed he jumped right in the deep end. Working with “a huge cast of unknowns”, filming in a house with unmoveable walls to make the interior shots look as realistic as possible and five weeks’ night shoots almost destroyed Nourizadeh’s party spirit.
“It was a huge challenge, really. I’d worked with actors, but in such a small way. Here I was trying to get a performance out of kids that had never acted before. I knew I could do party imagery. There was a lot more to the film than that. It was a quick learning curve for me. Having someone like Todd over your shoulder is a huge help, just in terms of comedy and performance and keeping the audience in the back of your mind. It’s a lot harder than a four-minute music video!
“It really felt like a party,” he enthuses. “We always had a DJ, all the extras became friends and the atmosphere was great. Though I will say that the cast are a lot younger than me. So they kept the energy up. At my age, for every crazy night I want a night in to recover. You always have to work, to keep the energy up, so that was hard, old man that I am!”
To heighten the immediacy of the film – and to “shell out some of the work,” the director jokes – Nourizadeh handed over some control to the several hundred extras, handing out camera phones and encouraging them to tape what they wished, reviewing the “endless” footage and cutting it into the film.
“I was really surprised with how the extras were getting involved and how enthusiastic they were. I don’t know if it’s shooting in a city like LA, where everyone wants to be noticed. For this, everyone was on board. We really involved them in the storytelling, telling them ‘film your friends!’, because I really wanted to get stuff I wouldn’t get myself. And there’s a real innocence or naiveté to the way it’s shot. I think it just came from everyone being so comfortable with each other on set. So much of the party material came from them – I mean there were girls kissing girls and we hadn’t even asked them to do it! And you can tell so many of the extras were hooking up (laughs)! I bet there’s at least one Project X baby floating around!”
Yet another complaint the Daily Mail will have about the film. And a good lead-in to ask Nourizadeh about the rumours that little Jonathan Daniel Brown (the cute, chubby, bespectacled lead who could easily be 14) starred in a porn film, Nerd Hunting.
Nourizadeh begins to laugh uncontrollably.
“Who told you that?” he demands through chortles.
I have my sources.
“Well, I’m neither going to confirm or deny that – though you can probably already tell from my reaction,” he adds mischievously. ”If you do a little bit of searching in the right places you’ll be able to find out yourself!”
He’s actually going to make me go research some porn? He giggles. “Hey, it’ll be fun!”
I did research. It’s all true. And Nourizadeh lied - watching Project X was way more fun.

Project X is crashing its way into cinemas on March 2.