After hours of sitting in front of his video screen watching grown men dance very badly, film-maker SavvyBee from Digital Works thought it’s about time to give a little insight to the making of the song of the year … Ok maybe not that good … But not a bad bleedin’ effort
And now the nominations for best music video: SavvyBee for Come on You Brentford…beep, beep – beep, beep – beep, beep – BEEP, BEEP…eh, what? Oh another bloody dream.
Seriously though, people have been saying such nice things about the video and congratulating me on a great job that I feel it’s time to put the record straight. Don’t worry this isn’t going to be an acceptance speech where I thank my agent etc. but if I go through how the film was made perhaps you’ll understand the massive effort made by loads of people to make it happen.
My first involvement was when David Lane asked me to come along to the recording studio one Sunday to get some footage of the band recording the song. The studio is on an island in the Thames. Of course I dreamt of it being Eel Pie Island which famously hosted the Rolling Stones all those years ago. It wasn’t!
Meeting the band for the first time, they reminded me of the Girl from Ipanema: tall and tanned and young and lovely. Well perhaps not tanned, and not that tall either, and they are not all lovely. Young though, definitely young. And talented. Even on first run-through it was clear they had done a fantastic job on covering the original song – which was so cringingly 80s it sounded like the theme tune to Grange Hill.
A word for both the producer and manager, Wolsey and Bob. Bees fans (well Bob goes via Highbury) and mighty fine fellows. They were so encouraging to a young band, really helping them through the recording and producing a mighty fine piece at the end. Everyone in the studio was happy to run through the song several times so I could get enough footage to cut the entire song together just from the recording studio. The backing chants in the song were sung by the band, the Beesotted crew and some extra Bees fans that turned up on the day. If you listen really carefully you can hear me – back row third from the left.
Although everybody has been putting their time in for free there are some things that have to be paid for and take a bow Leicester Bee – Dan Suh – and his company Korea Foods. And don’t think he’s just been throwing a bit of money at it there’s a lot of time and effort being put in by a lot of people at Korea Foods to keep the fundraising efforts going including Da-Ha.
So we’ve got the studio footage but we need to get the Brentford angle and what better than the fans themselves. Much of the filming of the fans had to be done before anyone had heard the song so this is where BillytheBee comes in. Armed with an early cut of the song on his iPhone and an external speaker he is standing next to me playing the song out loud and jumping up and down singing along encouraging the victim to sing along too. There’s me desperately trying to get people to look into the camera but all they can do is look at Billy and try and follow the song.
It was partly because no one could string two lines of the chorus together in time with the song and partly because we wanted to keep the energy up that we decided to cut every two or three words to someone else. It works a treat on the video but trying to get people to sing it was hilarious. Most people cracked up laughing at Billy’s antics after two lines, some just watched Billy open-mouthed and refused to sing and some just went potty for it.
Next up was the launch party following the McFranchise game, where I believe we found ourselves top of the league for the first time this season. What a terrific atmosphere. The band played the song twice giving me the chance to double up on the footage as well as a fine set of original songs and covers. They even did ‘Jordan Rhodes’ by John Denver. Take me home…all together now…Jordan Rhodes…
Billy managed to get some great footage of the crowd bouncing around singing the song and I caught the top of the league chant which I snuck in at the end of the video. But when Benham, Warburton, Weir, McParland and Royce turn up to support the event you know you belong to a very special club and we knew there was still one more thing we needed to get before we could finish the video. The players.
Step forward Mark Warburton. A quick phone call to him from one of the Beesotted crew and he promptly gave the thumbs up for getting the players involved before passing us over to Mr Brentford. Peter Gilham arranged for us to go to the training ground and cajoled some of the players to come over. Some didn’t need any persuasion and the two French lads Diagouraga and Calvet did us proud, really going for it. Richard Lee was a little embarrassed as he found himself on his own in front of the dining room with all his colleagues looking on and laughing. George Savile did his best Kevin and Perry impersonation saying there was no way he was going to do it. Once the others went for it he had to prove he could do it better ….. and he did!
I feel I did very little compared to the talent, time and effort put in by According to You, David Lane, BillytheBee, Dan Suh and many others. So I dedicate my MTV music award to them…beep, beep…oh bugger!
SavvyBee
@savvybee
