No! Don't run! It's not the police! It's Allo Darlin', a wonderful indie pop group from London! And yes, I went there.
For the past couple of weeks I've been working on a new music video for these guys. Which has meant many sleepless nights in a disused office block. And at last, my work is complete.
The video features a whole lot of cardboard, and I've been working with the same team behind my last video, Efterklang's 'I Was Playing Drums'. That also means I've been co-directing with Simon Taffe again.
Before I say any more, have a look at the video on Vimeo, or just below:
The shoot all started in Simon's kitchen, which on Saturday evening looked something like this:
And by Sunday evening, was looking like this:
From there we moved to a disused office block to build the rest of the set and costumes. The main tunnel ended running about 20 meters long, and was built, for the most part, by Clyde Cronin. When it was finished the only way to get from one end to the other was to crawl, which meant some pretty painful knees all round.
Not least for Elizabeth, who had to do more crawling than anyone. I seem to have a habit of putting my lead stars through arduous conditions, and this shoot was no exception it seems. Luckily I think nostalgia served as a pretty good anaesthetic here.
On the day of the band we were running behind slightly, and the guys were brilliant at pitching in; building the final bit of the tunnel while I continued to throw boxes and Ukelele's at Elizabeth.
The performance itself was filled with enough slapstick to fill a Laurel and Hardy sketch, with Heart's tripping over left, right and centre. I don't think the laughter on everyone's faces could have been faked, and I'm really glad a lot of the atmosphere on set made it into the video.
I have to give an extra special thanks to Leila Watts and Owen Davey, who gave up far too much sleep for me and Simon. And a standard, but still very special thanks to everyone else who gave up their waking hours to make this one happen. I really think it was worth it, and I hope it makes people smile when they see it.
