During the pre-production for Four Wheel Drive’s Hammered Again music video they decided that it would be great to lead into the launch of the extravagant Hammered Again video with a straight up down and dirty performance video. This video would be for their song No Money Down, literally about having no money but having a great time regardless.
And so they called me with the idea to shoot a performance in their rehearsal space the next morning, of course I was up for it! I had a bunch of listens to the song and noticed that it has a really nice clear structure from verses and chorus’ that could play well with an edit that used different focal lengths in different parts of the song. And so I set off with a camera, tripod and a few lenses.
Setting up
The band wanted the room to look shitty and so they set up their kit accordingly while I rigged up the five lights we had available. I had to choose a place for the lights and keep them there because we had only a few hours in the room. The best option seemed to be to stick one either side of Will (drums), one next to Paddy (guitar) and the fourth next to Ben (lead guitar). The fifth light was some naff disco thing that I stuck behind the drums that actually added some nice movement to things. Lucky for me I found some kind of LED torch probably meant for a mechanic that I was able to hang from the ceiling right in Jamie’s (bass and vocals) face. Which not only lit him really nicely but also picked him out as it was the only daylight coloured lighting.
Action!
Once set, we ploughed through the song a bunch of times as I picked up all the shots I needed. I started with the widest (8mm fisheye) thinking that the band might still be warming up a little but you can’t see many details in a fisheye shot. Then I moved in for 24mm, then 18mm handheld of each member, then the 70mm shot of the teeth.
I did the edit later that day on my laptop and had it ready to go in just a few hours!
The band loved the rawness of it and it worked as a great lead up to the narrative video we shot a few weeks later (read about that video here) using no performance element. I particularly like the way the focal lengths fit with the structure of the song and help to show more or less of the room, almost making it a fifth character in the performance.
Kit Used:
Canon 550D
Sigma 8mm fisheye
Canon 18-55mm
Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8
Manfrotto 055xProB tripod
Home-made shoulder mount
Crappy stage lights
Fog machine
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