Newtown Music Video
Monday
As an active member of the Wrexham Film and Photography Collective another job we were asked to cover was the creation of a music video throughout a number of Schools in the Newtown area.
I have always had a great love of music videos, having made some myself, so I was eagerly looking forward to this one.
Our brief was to film and edit a music video to the Super Furry Animals song "fire in my heart". Over two days, Monday and Tuesday we were to visit a selection of schools including a high school, a primary school and also a special needs school.
The Monday started with picking up the GOWS musical director Mark Huckridge, who also plays guitar and piano in a quite successful band called The Gallops. It was Marks job to record the audio from the children in Newtowns High schools recording studio. After picking Mark up I then had to collect Will Aron, who would be capturing the day in the form of photography and also Ryan Anchors who would be responsible for part of the filming. Another car load was to meet us there with four more people who would be filming the day, these consisted of Katie, Anant, Jess and Catherine.
Everyone apart from myself and Mark are second year students studying creative lens media and one of their briefs for this year of study was to submit a music video. I felt confident in my team doing a professional job on the video as it would go towards their final marks for the year.
Upon arrival at the first school I was impressed to see the recording studio that we would be using. It was a finely equipped studio, with an editing room and also a live room where the children would be performing the parts of the song. After setting up the equipment and having time for Mark to familiarise himself with the layout the recording started. Throughout the day we filmed children playing guitar, drums, piano and also parts of the vocal track.
After dinner time we were asked to visit a school for children with behavioural problems to film them playing the drums. Upon returning to the recording studio there were a few more children to record their singing, which was performed brilliantly.
A few issues with the day that we had to overcome was the noise from the corridor in the school. Unfortunately the live room was not sound proofed and Mark had to deal with a lot of noise spill from the outside area, also it would appear that some of the children were a bit unprepared in the performance of the song, which resulted in quite a few takes to capture what was needed for the musical production side. I am unable to point any blame at the children for this because I know it can be very unnerving for young children to play in front of people that they do not know while being filmed, photographed and having their playing recorded in the recording studio.
All in all I think the day went very well, the crew were brilliant and the performing children were fantastic. It was a long day for all concerned but I feel we captured the essence of the day well and acquired all that we needed on that day for the creation of the music video.
Tuesday
The schedule for the Tuesday was a bit different from the Monday. There was no audio recording to do as all was done on the Monday. The main requirement for this day was to capture additional footage for use in the music video. Our first call was at St Michaels Primary School in Newtown where we were to film a group of about sixty children in the main hall sing along to the Super Furry Animals song. This was one of my favourite parts of the two days as the children behaved and performed brilliantly. Even Mark, the musical director said that he wished that he could of recorded the audio for that performance as it was one of the best from the whole two days. The children appeared much more confident performing in a group and in familiar surroundings of their own school hall.
The next stop was to visit a special needs school in Newtown to film some performances being put on by the children. Mark Huckridge also had an active role in the days proceedings, he had designed a musical application on his Apple ipad which enabled the children to create sounds by touching certain parts of the screen. I thought this was a brilliant idea as some of the children at the special needs school had difficulty in movement and understanding, but there were smiles all around at the sounds that were coming out of the speakers.
Mark Huckridge preparing his iPad template for the children
After a quick trip to McDonald's for dinner we were then asked to filmed two of the girls performing makaton sign language the the song that we would be using for the finished music video. Both of the girls performed brilliantly and we got some good footage from them. The final part of filming for the day would be to film a dance workshop at the school. The dancing was to comprise of lights and colour movement, again against the Super Furry Animals track that was to be used in the final production.
I was happy to be part of the crew for the Newtown Music Video production and am excited to see the final product that will be edited by the second year students as part of their degree brief.
The positive elements for me would be seeing everyone working together well and seeing all the children over the two days enjoying themselves. The negative would be the early mornings required to be able to get to the schools on time and also the 230 miles that I had to cover in my car as only one other person was able to drive. Fortunately I am able to claim my travel expenses back out of Mark's budget so I will not be out of pocket.
Over the two days I feel I gained some valuable experiences in relation to production and dealing with other people and also met some new contacts which can only be of benefit in the future.
Please click on the link below to view the Newtown music video.
Newtown music video
