AN up-and-coming talent in the film industry is getting ready to face the music as a pop video he directed for a new London girl group hits the nation's screens.

Just over a year out of Bath Spa University, Nicholas Bartleet, from Upton-upon-Severn, has been involved in various film projects.

His has just directed a video for girl group 3LFlex, after being contacted by the group's producer Joe Kariuki.

The video - shot in an industrial unit in Worcester's Weir Lane - has been sent to various music programmes, including MTV, and is due to be aired in the coming weeks.

Nicholas described his frantic search around charity shops and the internet for set dressing items to keep within his budget.

"When you're working with something like £4,000 it's hard to make a video look like something that cost £20,000 but that's what I was trying to do," he said.

After leaving college, 24-year-old Nicholas was snapped up by Bristol-based post-production company 422, after winning first place for creativity in the national Submerge Awards for visual media.

However, he decided to go solo after as he became more interested in the production side of things. His subsequent work has included a short film with a twist called The Riddle, about a Russian drug lord and an LAPD cop.His latest project is not the first time he has produced a music video, as he was approached by a former 422 colleague - Charles Golding - to come up with one for Mobo Award-winning artist, Lynden David Hall's track, Day Off.

However, things did not run quite as smoothly as Nicholas had planned.

He used a flat in Worcester's Battenhall Road but only had 24 hours to prepare and shoot the footage before the singer was rushed into hospital for cancer treatment.

He said: "It was pretty hectic because I basically had eight hours to get the location, the equipment together and everything."

Now the talented filmmaker is busy working on other projects and preparing for another music video with a male R&B group, also produced by Kariuki.

"I know I could be working in a post-production job doing effects and making a lot more money but I'd rather be doing something I love doing and having to work harder," he said.

"The feeling you get from something like that is so much better."

JOBY MULLENS