Pre-production:
I’m sitting in Maxwell Weaver’s kitchen. He’s cooking me a curry whilst simultaneously trying to discuss ideas for a music video for the title track of his new EP ‘Dream Of Love’. He previously broached the topic of working together when we were at the pub a couple of weeks ago. A declaration, I was delighted to discover, was not just idle pub chat and he in fact seemed quite keen on making it a reality.
Max’s energy rests on the extremities between that of an excited, slightly overtired child and a 70-year-old man. I think perhaps that is what attracted me to the concept of working with him in the first place. His personality really comes through in the music, a cavalier showmanship that’s a refreshing change of pace from the self-conscious mumbles of a lot of modern frontmen.
“I want it to be silly, give it a really playful tone”, I explained to him.
“Yeah, 100%, absolutely, one sec I don’t want to burn these courgettes”.
“Max’s energy rests on the extremities between that of an excited, slightly overtired child and a 70-year-old man.”
Whilst eating, courgettes very much unscathed, I showed him a couple of my short films and he showed me a few videos he had made with his other band ‘Yellow Hellen’. It helped that Maxwell had studied film and therefore had no delusions about what the filming process entails. He also volunteered to edit the video which was nice of him because I don’t want to edit ever. I’d never shot a music video before so was interested to see how the process would reveal itself to me. My initial idea was to cut back and forth between Max sleeping and him performing to camera, a simple idea that would give space for both some fun whacky imagery and for Max’s performance abilities to be front and centre.
“I’ve always wanted to make something where I’m a fisherman” mused Max matter-of-factly between mouthfuls, as though a completely normal thing to say, “But just like walking around Glasgow not on a boat”.
Day 1:
I awoke to utter darkness. I had spent the better part of the previous evening setting up my bedroom for the shoot. This included blacking out all of the natural light from my windows, first with large pieces of black card and then, when that didn’t seem to cover the surface area, with bin liner. This was done in order to keep the light consistent for the shoot however, also had the unintended effect of making my room look not unlike a crack den.
Me and my cinematographer, Paul, had also managed to block a couple of the shots and set up the key lights the night before so when I awoke my room had a very strange quality to it. Familiarity seeped in artifice being a peculiarly off-kilter way to start the day, like waking up to find your wife has become a robot. Maxwell arrived shortly after I had collected myself from this confused sleep state. We exchanged groggy small talk and set up a couple more things Max had brought along for the shoot, including a smoke machine and some aquatic-themed bedsheets.
We began the day’s filming. It had been over a year since I had shot anything and I could feel the familiar gears slowly beginning to turn; the early starts, the shorthand musings, the erratic mental pendulum that swings between panic and elation, all flooded back to me from the last couple of years as a film student. I was more or less able to get back into the headspace of filmmaking, I feared perhaps it would not return. However, a few key skills had perhaps slipped my mind during my hiatus.
One such skill was scheduling. I had rather naïvely thought we could film everything in the one day, finishing the bedroom stuff by the afternoon and then making our way into town. This did not end up being the case and I reluctantly settled in for a two-day shoot.
Day 2:
‘To whom it may concern,
I was wondering if we could rent your DJI RS2 gimbal for Friday the 14th of July.
Thanks,
Oliver Rogers’
I frantically sent the email on my lunch break at work. The franticness was due to the fact we were filming in three days’ time and the gimbal we were using had broken. For those not in the know a gimbal is a piece of gyroscopic filmmaking equipment that allows for smooth handheld shots. Paul had informed me it was a vital piece of equipment for the outdoor run and gun shoot we were about to embark on. I had turned to a small Glasgow kit hire company to come to my aid. After sorting out insurance and the logistics of hiring the kit, another first of my filmmaking career, I was off to an industrial estate in Cessnock to pick up the gear, a statement that I hope is not taken out of context.
I got off the subway at Kinning Park and followed my Google Maps across the large bridge that patricians the motorway. Arriving at the industrial estate I hoped that this was not all an elaborate ruse to mug me. Thankfully, I was able to retrieve the equipment from a large warehouse where the woman running it could immediately identify I was out of my depth. I got the subway home hoping none of the rougher-looking fellas in my carriage could tell I was transporting some rather expensive equipment with me.
“I was off to an industrial estate in Cessnock to pick up the gear”
With the gimbal in hand, we were ready for a second day of shooting. We began the day much like the first, an early morning ronde vu at my house before walking down the canal to find a boat that I knew to be placed on the bank.
“It’s somewhere around here”, I unsurely attempted to quell Max and Paul’s inquiries as we lugged the equipment down the canal. During our travels, we see a slide and decide to get a shot of Max going down it. The results are perfectly goofy and we continue our pilgrimage to find this elusive boat. A faint alarm suddenly sounds and very slowly the bridge in the middle of the canal opens to make way for a barge to pass through at a similarly unexciting pace. Although quite a fun thing to see we mostly ignore the snail-paced spectacle and continue along the canal.
Eventually, we make it to the aforementioned boat. We set up our close-up, framed as if to make it look like Max is on the water and as we do so we see the barge from earlier slowly made its way downstream. We decide to wait for it to come into frame and quickly begin filming. Max gives them a wave and the bargeman gives a good-humoured wave back. Quickly I call cut as me and Paul hastily set up the wide to reveal Max is in fact stationary as the real boat goes past. The happenstance visual gag is perhaps my favourite part of the video and one of those moments that just so perfectly align with our filming. I have walked that route down Maryhill Canal many times and this is the only time I have seen a boat like that go by.
Rather pleased with ourselves we continue into town. The equipment is heavy and we realise we should have perhaps recruited another unfortunate soul to help with the expedition. We arrive at the river Kelvin in hopes of getting a shot of Max in the water fishing. However, it has been raining on and off the last couple of hours and the tide seemed a bit too strong and the water too deep to film with Max in it, although having Max being swept away by the current was an alluring prospect to film.
Instead, we walk down the river until we find a small secluded spot behind the botanical gardens. We set up for the scene, which involves Max bringing up a random assortment of items from the river. The composition of these shots proved to be more difficult than I expected as the visual grammar needed to be a lot more precise than the rest of the video, having a direct rhythm and narrative progression. Me and Paul stood around discussing what exactly we needed to shoot to get enough coverage whilst Max sat on the bank and watched a YouTube video of an Australian gentleman giving a tutorial on how to assemble a fishing rod. I could tell me and Paul were both beginning to feel the exhaustion from the start of the day take a firm grip on our mental faculties and lamented the fact that we should have stopped for lunch before shooting this complicated sequence (again, it seemed my organisational skills had scuppered us).
After a couple of minutes of muddled discussion, me and Paul were on the same page and we began filming. Eventually, we were happy with the shots we had and were ready to move on. However, there was one final aspect of this scene that would soon prove disastrous.
Me and Paul had discussed using his drone to get a couple of establishing shots to add a level of production value, and also because I really wanted to have a go with Paul’s drone. Unleashing it from his bag Paul placed the drone in the palm of his hand and then let it fly off like some demented futuristic form of falconry. There was not a chance Paul was going to let me get my grubby little hands on the controls and with good reason, knowing my predisposition towards haphazardry mixed with an aversion to technology that would, in all likelihood, end in disaster. We were having a lot of fun with it, Paul getting lower to the river each time with more and more confidence. I suggested we perhaps call it a day with the drone and Paul, with all the joy of a child on Christmas messing around with his new gadget, said he wanted to get one more shot going around Max on the shore.
Disaster strikes! Paul momentarily loses control of the drone as it pulls backwards, hits a tree and plummets into the river.
There is a moment of silence as I look over to Paul, the look of joy has now fully receded from his face and in its place, an ashen expression that proclaims: ‘I can’t believe I bloody did that!’ Maxwell returns and we edge our words to try and both console Paul and try and figure out what to do, as I know we soon need to move on with the rest of the shoot. Paul stares at the monitor for a moment and realises that it is still recording, a mostly black shot you can just about make out the movement of the water in the corner of the screen. “I think it’s stuck in a tree, just above the river”, Paul says, his eyes still glued to the screen and a small measure of hope registering in his voice.
We decide that I will stay with the equipment whilst Paul and Max venture over to the other side of the river to see if they can retrieve the drone. As I wait with the monitor, the battery of the drone slowly depleting, I can’t help but anthropomorphise the poor helpless drone suffering, splayed in the tree and wished that the makers would have been humane enough to insert a self-destruct button in order to put it out of its misery. Before I can get too teary eyed I notice Paul on the other side of the river. He gracelessly scrambled down the almost vertical hillside to try and get a better look. I suddenly get a premonition of him losing his footing and me having to explain to his parents the tragically comic cause of his untimely death.
Alas, he can’t see it and Paul and Max glumly return. We decide to move on and get an Uber to an aquarium in the Southside, which has kindly allowed us to film (I had called 2 places before that were really not having it). We were all deeply, fundamentally exhausted in the car journey over and decide to stop for food before continuing. The loss to Paul’s drone had definitely put a damper on the general mood but to his credit (Paul’s not the drone’s) he was able to keep up his energy and get on with the rest of the filming in a very professional, all be it minorly grief-stricken, manner.
Entering the aquarium I approached the front desk to announce that we were the people who called earlier to shoot some shots of fishes. The gentleman behind the counter could not care less and asked if it would just be a couple of photos we were taking for a school project to which I replied yes. No further questions were asked as Maxwell appeared in his fisherman outfit. I thanked him and asked if in return they would want any of the photos to which he responded “Why would I want them? I see the fish all the time.”
Fully conscious of trying not to get in the way of this functioning small business we chose some of the more fun fish to film as well as a couple of shots of Max walking around sadly observing these fish’s watery entrapment. We finished filming and thanked the patron just as they were closing up. We then got on the subway planning to get a couple shots of Max on the way. Max convinced me to make a Hitchcockian cameo giving a double take as the passenger next to him and the feeling of deep embarrassment to being filmed in public was rather palpable, how Max was able to walk around so confidently the whole shoot still to this day mystifies me.
Although we assumed we would get some form of scolding from the transport police for filming on the subway it never arrived, even when the driver walked through the carriage mid-shoot. We arrived back in the west end with only one shot left to get. The shot in question was of Max walking out of a fish and chip shop which very kindly allowed us to film outside. We had just about wrapped when I bumped into someone I knew from university walking past. Only mid-small talk did I realise how truly exhausted and semi-delusional I had become and a couple weeks later when I bumped into him again at a house party he confirmed that my energy was all over the shop.
We parted ways with Max and Paul gave me a lift to the train station as I was going directly to a gig in Edinburgh that evening. It was only in this moment of reflection as we quietly drove down the motorway that I realised how much I missed this particular kind of exhaustion.
