So this song was written when I was in secondary school. I was courting a long lady and we had I asked her to be my girlfriend and become an official couple, however she said that there were still some parts of her life that she needed to improve for herself before she committed to a relationship - pretty mature for some year 9’s right? So that’s the foundation of my song called 'waiting' - “I’ll be here, just waiting around for you, my dear”. I’ve always preferred the idea of using objects/animations and basically anything other than myself in my music videos. Its partly because I don’t like being in front of camera that much and I also like to be in control of what’s happening behind the camera. I’d realised that a mutual friend’s girlfriend designs and creates puppets, so I asked if she had any spare ones that I could borrow for a quick music video. This was in the middle of the pandemic so I had to make sure that by collecting the puppets, I wouldn’t be breaking any legal rules. As the months rolled on and the lockdowns lifted, I managed to drive over and pick up 2 puppets that she very kindly leant me for the purpose of the music video. When the puppets first arrived my co-creator and general fun-having-collaborator, my wife, set about by just playing around with the puppets and getting used to the feel and mechanics. It was surprisingly difficult, but we were getting better each day. The plan for the video was to simply have one puppet looking lonely and sad whilst working from home and pining after their friend/partner who was away for whatever reason. We then did a quick photo shoot around the house, seeing what menial tasks we could get the puppets to do and how they looked on camera and from there I started to throw a storyboard together. There were a few goals that would be required from us to represent visually, these were the following: 1 - The puppets are in a close relationship 2 - One puppet is away for a long time 3 - The passing of time 4 - The monotony of life when you are alone. Talking it through with my wife, we managed to come up with some ideas to portray these key themes. 1 - We would have photos around the house of the two puppets together to show that they are in a long lasting relationship. 2 - We can use a close up shot of a calendar that will clearly state that the other puppet is away and won’t be home for a few months 3 - The calendar will demonstrate the passing of time, plus time lapse footage. 4 - Boring everyday tasks. When we had a weekend free, we decided to try some test shots again of specific tasks to see how they would go. They went really well - we had a nice opening shot of the puppet waking up in a double bed but on their own, along with making a cup of tea, working on a laptop at the kitchen table, washing the dishes, having a shower etc… Things were looking good! After a busy period of time for myself, I managed to convince Heulwen to pick up the puppet once more and this time I set up the lighting and camera in the specific ways to capture the shots. We had recently got the Kitchen all painted and looking nice, so I knew I wanted to use that area. I have planned a wide shot from one end of the kitchen, and I would slowly zoom into the puppet who was sat at the other end of that kitchen, doing work on the laptop. The issue being that It was obvious that a human was kneeling under the puppet and controlling them. I managed to do a little Hollywood magic and the result came out better that I thought it might! Between myself and my wife we managed to get a good chunk of footage. My friend Steve also came to the house for a little while to help with some of the other shots. Then it was Christmas time and things got busy, so we put things on hold for a while. Then after Christmas we took the decorations down and finished the shoot. For the end of the video, the puppets are finally reunited, so I roped in my friend Robin to come and help Heulwen and myself finish the shoot. It was tricky at first with the shots of the two puppets in frame, as there is another human that you need to tactfully leave out of the frame. After we wrapped the shoot, I knuckled down to the editing, and because I had my storyboards it all pieced together quite nicely. Here is the final piece and below that is a quick snap of one of the early storyboards.
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January 2022
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