Behind the Scenes: Making A Music Video
Friend’s bands – as a rule they’re quite shit but every now and again there are some that through pure dedication you are up all hours of the day and night tying pieces of cotton wool to string to make clouds, making pastel coloured cardboard houses, and constructing families of gingerbread men for them.
I don’t know about you, but when music videos arrive edited, shiny and new to our TV screens I never really think too much about how they get there, the hours spent making bizarre props and the people that have surely gone semi-mad in the making of them. Never is this truer than whilst making a stop/start animation film.
Last summer, I was working in Bristol and staying with an old friend who was working as art director for the music video. Even in the days of computers with ever astounding graphics my friend Alex, lead singer, graphic designer and general powerhouse behind his band Kotki Dwa decided to do things the old fashioned way. After industry interest and winning a major Tate young musicians award, Alex decided to accompany their new release ‘Robin’s Clogs’ with a video. This led to 3 weeks of absolute insanity, fuelled by more cups of tea and sugar than I ever could have imagined, while the entire set of ‘happy land’ was created in his bedroom with bin liners taped over the windows to keep out the light. ‘Robin’s Clogs’ is an indie pop treat with a synth crafted over the top to make the melody. The video created had to echo the upbeat simplicity but also the frantic quality at the end of the song hence the childlike colourful theme throughout and the more sinister ending.
Nearly everything on the set was made out of cardboard and confectionary, and the video follows the story of a boy (a slightly freaky tin toy, complete with an ice cream trolley) and his journeys through this land. His following adventures include being chased by gingerbreadmen, falling into some Haribo horrormix style caves and encountering some unusual beings there.
Throughout the shoot, thousands upon thousands of photos were taken as the story unfolds, picture after picture was artfully crafted as each prop was moved millimetres at a time to create the story. It was eventually placed together to form the film of a grand total of 3 minutes and 56 seconds. I really don’t envy Nick Park, the master behind Wallace and Gromit who has made 3 films the same way.
The entire shoot took about three weeks excluding editing time, and nearly sent the makers of it insane. Every part of the set was created from scratch, each cardboard house carefully fashioned for a less than a second in frame. I was working in the day but at night I was on hand to make clouds, paint pastel coloured houses and cups of tea and observe the wonderlands of caves, hills and rose tinted candy towns built that emerged and disappeared day.
Due to the fact that the majority of the set was made out of pure sugar: gingerbread men, Smarties, and Haribo this inevitably led to delirious sugar highs followed by the inevitable sugar comedowns where at one point certain band members had to be restrained outside. Although I now have a slight aversion to gingerbread men and flying saucers at the same time there is a certain pride in seeing the same strange tin toy being chased by daisies across the screen on MTV2.
To watch the video go to http://www.kotkidwa.com/robinsclogs/
http://www.myspace.com/kotkidwa
Hattie FitzGerald
Band from the Past: Looper
Bassist Stuart David left Belle and Sebastian in 2000 to focus on his side project ‘Looper’. It was a daring move and, seeing as B&S’s popularity has gone from strength to strength whilst Looper are still widely unknown, some would say a foolish one. But judging by the free EPs on the band’s www.looperama.com site, David isn’t so interested in commercial success as creating something original and provocative. Each of Looper’s albums are different from the last: The quirky ‘Up a Tree’ is an inquisitive child, telling tales full of understated humour; ‘The Geometrid’ is the cooler older brother, generating refreshing pop beats full of bounce and oozing cool; ‘The Snare’ is the misunderstood Mr Hyde, sinister in tone and unrivalled in its championing of the bassoon. Rummage about in record stores or on the web until you’ve given this band a good listen and join me in asking ‘Whatever happened to Looper?
Alex Bowell
