Behind the Scenes - John Rush: Gold and green
A year ago we were shooting footage for the last music video we made before lockdown. John Rush - Gold and Green:
John arrived with a fully developed idea. It was very simple:
Great location - The legendary Barrowlands Ballroom
Cast - John playing solo and a pair of ballroom dancers
Concept - Simple well shot performance video with cutaways to the dancers
Location
Getting access to a great location like the Barrowlands does half the work of the video.
It is one of the most legendary venues in Scotland and the UK. It’s an old ballroom which wears it’s vintage fixtures and fittings with pride. For many Scots it’s the location of their first and/or best gig memory. Playing there is a career highlight for many musicians.
We decided that using the stage would just make it look like any other venue. We could show off far more of the venue by featuring the floor and the roof:
Lighting the scene
We used a large spotlight(Halogen redhead) positioned behind John to cast shadows into the foreground of the shot. As the dancers moved across the frame, the light shines through them. This adds to the “theatre” aspect of the location. There’s then a pair of soft boxes pointed on the foreground to pick out details of the subject.
Shots
Other than the simple scenes of John playing and our dancers dancing, we added some B-roll of the iconic location of the building to introduce the scene. If it hadn't been raining on the day of the shoot, then we would probably have tried to get an establishing shot of John and the dancers arriving showing the external few of the location. I’m kind of glad we didn’t as it would have been a bit too on the nose.
Effects
We’ve kept it simple. Black and white to accentuate the lighting and lots of dissolve fades to suggest nostalgia. For the same reason, we’ve slightly slowed the footage of the dancers. John fades away leaving the empty venue to suggest his role as the songwriting narrator.
Titles
Lastly titles were really easy. We found a font that as was similar to the iconic Barrowlands sign as possible and flashed up the song name and artists name to split up the instrumental intro while establishing the scene.
As always, if you like this and you want to see us do more. Like, Share, comment and interact.