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(This post originally appeared on
The Ivy Vine Mailing List)
Date:Sun, Jan 11, 1998 5:00 PM EDT
From:TheIvyVine
Subj:How I Spent My Saturday Afternoon (or) Ivy's First
Video
To:TheIvyVine
Hey, everyone!
Well, now they've done it. As of Saturday, Ivy have done
their first official, label-financed video! Yayayay! Soon, you'll have
to be bugging 120 Minutes to get it played...more on that soon.
The next single will be "I've Got A Feeling," and the
video, naturally, was for that song. The director is a guy named Toby Tremlett
and he did the Sneaker Pimps' video, if that makes things any clearer.
The band gathered with a whole bunch of crew and extras and other paid
people in a big warehouse in Long Island City on Saturday, to spend just
about twelve hours filming their very first true video. When I arrived
all of the pre-prep had been done; they were just getting started on the
first few takes. To set the scene: the back two thirds of the warehouse
had been painted white, and the edges touching the ground had been rounded
off, to give it this "out in the middle of nowhere" look. Towards the far
back stood what might have been an elevator, or two small adjoining rooms
adjacent to one another, painted a kind of "retro-futuristic" (which is
what I |
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| was told) design, with silver doors and a
pulsing blue light inside. On the top sat two clear globes, which also
pulsed with a clear white light. When I asked what the heck it was, nobody
was fully certain, except that it was a kind of futuristic photo booth-cum-mail
center in which you can instantly mail your picture to someone. I think.
Sounds like email to me, and you don't need a pulsing blue light for that,
but hey, maybe I'm just not as creative as I think. Above the photo booth
thingie hung white, round paper lanterns.
Oh wait, I get it. No, wait, it's not "I Get The Message,"
in which this setup would kind of make a punny sense...no...this video
is "I've Got A Feeling." So scrap that. I don't really get it. |
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| In any case, the band were positioned quite far away
from the photo booth thingie, standing near more intermittently flashing
lights and more round white lanterns. Dominique was standing on a box in
her stockinged feet, Adam and Andy wore suits (Andy in pinstripe with a
green jagged stripe shirt underneath, Adam in a retro 40's outfit with
high buttons) and held their instruments. adam and andy conferenceAchem.
Held their guitar and bass, that is. The camera was placed very close to
Dom, and in a couple of takes the guys hardly had to do anything because
they were in blurry shadow. Dom was wearing a blue-black dress with a low
cut front, very fitted, pulled off to the side a bit at the waist, her
hair in a shaggy kind of Jackie Onassis cut, lips very red. It was cold
in there, so during the looooong setups between takes she wore a brown
furry-collared jacket.dominique vamping You've seen this kind of video
before: the whole design is fairly standard. Band stands around playing
instruments, singer in extreme close up to the frame, camera cuts off part
of her face some of the time. I'm guessing the edits will be sharp and
sudden, when this all gets put down.
At one point the cameraman focused in on Andy's hands
playing guitar, a kind of side-angle, and then did the same for Adam's
bass. Later on, some activity was supposed to go on in the booths -- there
were actually extras on this video, mostly "types" (though they seemed
like nice people): blonde bimbo, fruity flamboyant androgyne, enigmatic
mysterious Asian (hair braided, natch), nerdy uptight geek. Can't say what
Rafa was supposed to be. Rafa drummed with Ivy on their last tour, and
now drums for Lloyd Cole and a band called Audrey, and he was there to
be an extra, but his whole costume consisted of a black shirt and black
pants. So...who knows. The "normal" guy? In any case, they were all going
to be filmed doing things in the photo booth thingie. |
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I was there for about four hours or so, and it is agonizing
how long these video shoots take. Watching them, all three minutes or four
minutes of video, you'd think it takes an hour or two and you're done.
Forget it. This is boring, long, and hard work, yet fun in a way if you
let it be. While I was there they did four or five takes of this close
up, then everyone adjourned upstairs for lunch (Ivy's things were dropped
off in the room marked "Ivy," which was across from the room for the extras
marked "Talent," which we found amusing).
After lunch I snapped a few photos of the band (all of
this will go up at the website soon, don't fret) and they stood around,
being adjusted and lit and standing by their taped spots for just ages
and ages. The way a take works is this: after everything is in place and
the lighting is right, the assistant director yells that they're going
to start filming again (can't remember the exact wording) and the "slate"
(the black and white thing with the moving red numbers) goes up in front
of the center of the shot, usually inches from Dom's face. Slate goes down,
three or four loud thumps are heard to count down seconds until the song
starts, and then playback begins of the song. Everything is lip-synched;
the band don't have to really be playing the right notes or even vocalizing
if they don't want to, but in general they do make noise and play the right
way.
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The playback guy, Felix, was very nice and explained
how later he was going to record some "dialogue" for the video, but Adam
said "I'm gonna veto that," if it happened. "It makes it look like a bad
rap video," he said. So...don't expect any other voices in the video except
Dom's. The song runs through, the camera moves along the track they set
up, or stands still, or does what it needs to, and the director and other
viewers can watch the whole process through monitors set up immediately
behind everything. When you watch the finished product, think of this:
behind everything else you see on your TV screen stand about ten or fifteen
union guys building sets, a tin roof, lots of hangers-on from the label,
the makeup lady, the hair lady, me, the extras, and various and other sundry
people. It's an incredible effect, the way this all works.
Well, there you go. I've got several good photos to share,
and plan on uploading them very soon. I left before the "extras" were filmed,
so what goes on in the video all the way through I'm not certain about.
But I'll fill you in on anything as I learn it.
Phew! Time to take a breather. Hope everyone had a nice
weekend!
Best,
Randee
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Date:Mon, Jan 12, 1998 1:10 AM EDT
From:Andy From Ivy
Subj:Re: How I Spent My Saturday Afternoon (or) Ivy's
First Video
To:TheIvyVine
Randee,
Loved your description of the process!
We got home around 1am that night.
By the way- the "booth" is supposed to be a place where
you can privately record and then download your video "love-letter" onto
a CD. (Thus the silvery CD each person is holding while exiting the booth.)
--Andy |
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