Blowing up a tree

So most of January and February was taken up creatively by The Massacre Cave. We launched our album on the 14th of Feb, and before that there was a lot of stuff to be done, from the CD packaging to T-shirt designs, to almost daily social media posts to drum up some engagement before we launched. One thing we knew we needed was a music video. Unfortunately a video I had been working on went up in almost literal smoke when the hard drive I was working from broke, so we needed a new video and fast. Seeing as the rest of the band live 165 miles away I'd had an idea to film myself. I had come up with the idea of using my drone to film me performing some sort of ambiguous ceremony. After filming some test footage it quickly became apparent that it was going to be boring and more people needed to be involved. The idea evolved and soon I'd written myself out of the script and decided to film it all from the ground and leave the drone at home. My first choices for actors were Johnny Lynch, Saira Renny and Ailidh Morrison, chosen mainly for their big characters which I hoped would carry across on screen. I also wanted Wes Fyffe to feature as he is the most photogenic person I know. I consulted with Saira Renny on ceremonial practices and after writing a script storyboarded the whole thing. Storyboarding is ESSENTIAL keeping things on track quickly on the day. Luckily a break in the weather coincided with everyone being on the island and available at the same time, and Brendan Greene was also around to help behind the scenes. Together we found a (dead) tree, "planted" it in a bog and primed it with a mixture of petrol and diesel. Hannah Morrison did everyone's make-up and that the cast brought their own costumes, which luckily for me, were better than anything I could have imagined. When the actors were all ready we had to wait for the sun to dip behind the headland and then had only 2 hours to film everything before it got too dark. Luckily, thanks to the storyboard and everyone being (and looking) absolutely amazing, we kept on schedule and at dusk we blew up the tree and had just enough light to finish the last few shots before everyone went inside for a well deserved warm drink. Over the next couple of days I got close ups of the actors lip syncing to lyrics and took more scenic shots of the tree needed to complete the video. Between hailstorms I attached Ash tree buds and bramble leaves to the tree to make it appear that it had come back to life and filmed a smoke coming out of the ground at base of the tree. That concluded the shoot. I had filmed the band playing the song in front of a black background at a rehearsal some weeks before and this allowed me to add us all into the video in post production. It all came together well in the edit and I was able to get the video ready on schedule to be "released" on The Skinny's website on the 18th of February. So what started as a scramble to make a replacement video to the one that was lost, turned into an unexpected community effort which surpassed everyone's expectations. I hope you enjoy it, and if you don't like the music, please just turn it down and watch til the end, because you won't want to miss Wes's entrance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBPy_kkEFok