When it comes to releasing records these days it almost feels as if the music is the easy part. There are so many ways to promote a record online, but they usually involve video. Of course in the old days you needed a film crew for a few days, an exotic location, possibly access to a sailing ship or some fast cars and a budget of half a million pounds.
These days everyone has access to a film camera through their mobile phone and in the past I have filmed a number of my videos just on my iPhone. Occasionally I get the chance to work with a crew and a studio and when I do it’s a real joy.
Performing at the opening in October.
As always you still need to start with an idea. It was last October that I was invited to the opening of the new Coach House Pianos Showroom in Fforestfach. Their new headquarters was launched to coincide with the celebrations of their 40th Anniversary. This family run business has gone from humble beginnings in a small old Swansea Coach House to now being one of the world’s leading piano specialists supplying world class pianos all across the globe.
On the day of the Grand Opening I was given a tour of the facility. The headquarters has a whole floor dedicated to old and unique pianos. At the old facility I was introduced to a Grand Piano once owned by Queen Victoria as well as a Steinway which had been the resident piano at Abbey Road throughout the 1970’s a piano played by everyone form Pink Floyd, Elton John and …me!!! Each piano in the collection has a story to tell.
The ground floor main show room has the most incredible selection of Steinway, Yamaha and Bosendorfer pianos (to name just a few brands). When asked would I like to play one I didn’t know where to start. It was like walking through piano heaven.
We were also given a guided tour behind the scenes. Each piano is unique and even the brand new pianos go through a detailed inspection by the team before they are sent out for delivery.
Coach House also specialise in servicing and refurbishing older pre owned pianos. In their workshops were various pianos in different states of ‘undress’ as each part was cleaned or re calibrated to make sure that when they leave for a new home they really are ‘as good as new’.
At the end of the tour I was shown the studio. This is a purpose built facility to photograph the pianos from every conceivable direction. If people are considering buying a Grand piano they have the option of visiting Swansea or going along to the Coach House showroom in South West London. But if the prospective buyer is overseas or simply wants to get a good look at the piano before visiting either showroom Coach House can literally give them a 360 degree experience.
I was intrigued. A studio with computer controlled cameras and full lighting rig…and a turntable to film the piano from every angle. Now that would be the perfect place to film a video.
Over Christmas I was going through the various recordings we had trying to decide on the next single. One stood out, Moving On, a classic Piano ballad. Maybe it was just that we hadn’t released a ballad for a while or maybe it was the Coach House studio in my mind, but we decided that it was time for ‘Moving On’.
I had been invited to the Grand Opening by Dan Rusling, Head of Client Experience, so I thought that would be a good place to start. I sent Dan a copy of the record and a short explanation about what I wanted to do. It was probably less than a day before Dan came back to say we should have a chat but in principle he thought it wouldn’t be a problem.
Some test shots.
A week later I spent an afternoon in the studio together with my long-time partner in crime Ian Parsons. Stuart Williams is the Digital Marketing Manager for the company. He had sourced the studio and even built a lot of it himself, so he knew how to get he best out of the gear. We tried a lot of test shots and agreed it would be pretty amazing if we could make it work. I sent the test shots to Dan and a day later he said we had the green light.
We had the venue and equipment now what were we going to actually film?
This is where we went back to go forward. We had uploaded the new single sometime at the end of January. To do that we needed an image for the cover. I had found a picture which I thought told the story of ‘moving on’ which featured a young man walking out of a doorway into the bright blue yonder. I sent the picture to Ian Parsons to get his thoughts and we both agreed it was good but not quite right. That’s when Ian suggested using AI.
Lots of people are wary of AI or won’t use it out of principle but Ian and I see it as just another tool. We sent AI the picture and asked it to make the man’s coat longer, make his suitcase smaller and put a hat on his head. Then just for fun we asked AI to animate that image with the prompt, ‘make the little man walk away into the sunset’. We were actually sat in a coffee shop with a pretty slow internet connection but it still it only took a few minutes to do everything we asked.
We started promoting the record before filming the video using that image and one of the comments on Facebook came back saying the photo was very Rene Magritte. That got me thinking. Magritte was a Belgian surrealist artist whose most famous image was called ‘Son Of Man’. The more I read about him and his work the more it seemed to make sense. Magritte explained that the painting of a man in a bowler hat with his face hidden by an apple suggests that everything we see hides another thing. For me that was also true of the song ‘Moving On’.
I managed to borrow a Bowler hat from Deb Clee at the Grand Theatre, I bought some apples from Swansea Market and a bright red tie online. After that it was all about getting as many different angles and shots to keep the audiences interest. Along the way Ian also managed to AI some falling men and cartoon sailing ships and with the use of more technology we managed to put it all together.
So that’s the story. The video is now online, and the record is getting played on the radio. Now then, what will we do for the next video???