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Feature Articles About Smokie | Next  |
The Video Shoot For 'Uncovered Too'
The task - to complete a music
video, a photo shoot, and a 30 second TV commercial
The time scale - 1 day
The country - Denmark
Monday morning 9am and it's time for makeup, then on the coach and heading
for Denmark's most southerly Island - Mon Cliffs. These cliffs stand
a staggering 600 feet tall, and drop directly down to the beach, and the
sea below. Now life isn't all fun and games when you are a
pop star, and Smokie certainly found this out the hard way when they arrived
at the cliff top and discovered they were going to have to walk down all
600 steps to the beach - although to be perfectly honest, it was the walk
back up that was concerning them! And so began a very long, hard
working day!
Once down on the beach the boys had a few runs through of each of the
songs, just to get the feel of the whole thing, and soak in the ambience
and atmosphere of the place. Once they were relaxed (and recovered
from all the steps!), the violinists arrived ready to play their part.
The girls looked stunning in their black dresses, and set against the
ruggedness of the white cliff face, and the power of the sea, seemed to
capture pure magic.
The shoot lasted around 3 hours, and then it was back up those dreaded
steps! By the time everyone got to the top the whole team was completely
silent - well, you try holding a conversation after walking up 600 hundred
steps, everyone was completely exhausted! Still, once at the top,
the boys got to break for lunch and regain some of their energy.
You had to feel sorry for the film crew however, as they had to do this
trip not once, but a staggering 10 times in order to get all their equipment
back to the top - are these guys fit or what!
The cameraman was strapped into a helicopter with the door open, and so began the first take. In a James Bond style scene, the helicopter flew incredibly low over the beach, filming the girls playing their violins, then immediately climbed 700 feet to zoom in close on the band standing at the edge of the cliff. The noise from the helicopter was immense, yet the band had to endure it time and time again. Maj-Britt from CMC was in radio contact with the helicopter pilot, and was coordinating the whole event from the ground - no easy task when the timing has got to be second to none, and each time the helicopter came around it got closer and closer to the band and the cliff face. As if directing the pilot wasn't enough, by now a crowd had started to gather on the beach, and it was up to Maj-Britt to try to get them to move on.
On almost the last take, a Danish man and a young child seemed to appear on the cliff behind the band as if from nowhere. No one could understand how he had got there, and everyone was yelling at him to move out of the way. He was completely oblivious to everything that was going on around him, and simply out having a fun day with his child. However, he soon became aware of the noise from the helicopter, and the look on his face was priceless, as it suddenly appeared about 20 feet away from him! The whole crew were convinced he was about to faint as soon as he caught sight of the helicopter heading towards him. Still, he managed to laugh about it afterwards, which was good, as it seemed to amuse everyone else!
The helicopter flew around and came back in for a further shot, and seemed to miss Terry's head by merely inches (I'm sure this was not the case, but wait until you see the video and judge for yourselves!) This time the cameraman got the shot he'd been trying for and it was a wrap!
Still, things didn't finish there, and it was time for the stills photographer to get strapped into the helicopter and take his shots of the band. Once again the boys had to stand incredibly close to the edge in order to get the best shots, but by now they were hardly bothered about the 600 feet drop - such pros!
Again a crowd had gathered on the beach, but this time they were allowed to watch, and some of them even managed to get an autograph or two.
At around 5pm it was time for a further break, but by now the band and crew were so excited about how it was all going, it was all anyone could do to make them sit down for 5 minutes.
After a quick cup of tea, some makeup adjustments, and a biscuit or two the guys were headed out into the forest to start the whole thing over again. Unfortunately though, after 2 hours the light was beginning to fade, everyone was becoming weary, and the girls were beginning to feel rather cold to say the least. Everyone agreed it was time to call it a day, and the band was shipped back to the hotel. It didn't stop there though - once at the hotel the photographer needed to get some individual shots of the band - the work just never ends!
Over dinner (and it was about 10pm before that happened!) the atmosphere was buzzing, and the whole team were elated with the way the day had gone. It seemed to be the general opinion that the only thing missing was a few shots of the band simply walking along the beach. With not much time left before their return flights to the UK, it was decided that the band would have an early morning call at 7:30, and shoot the final section before they left.
7:30 arrived and disaster struck - the heavens had opened and there was no way any filming was going to be done. At 8:30 it was decided that they would drive to the beach anyway in the hope the weather would clear up. An hour later and there was no sign of the rain ever coming to an end and it was beginning to look like the band were never going to get off the coach. By 10am the general consensus was the shoot wasn't going to happen, and the coach left for Copenhagen. Fortunately however, Mike had spent a lot of the day before filming the making of the video on his own digital camera, and so we may get to see a glimpse of his handy work in the new video!
All in all, the entire shoot was an incredible success and certainly the most spectacular and memorable one Smokie have ever done. The whole band were thrilled with the way everything had been co-ordinated, and with how smoothly everything had run - even if they did have aching legs due to all the walking! It was a long day but well worth all the hard work, and everyone is convinced, the end result will be fantastic!
The new album 'Uncovered Too' will be released in Scandinavia on the 8th October 2001.
