It’s no secret that rock bands are some of the busiest groups of people on Earth. Between constant touring, studio time, general tomfoolery and—God forbid—a home life, there really isn’t a great deal of free time. Returning from a brief hiatus, the Pigeon Detectives wanted to hit the ground running, smashing out a music video and content for an electronic press kit at the same time.
If, for some strange reason, this project was ever to be adapted into a biopic feature film, its title would be Pigeon Detectives: Two Birds, One Stone.
While on paper this sounded great—maximum returns for time spent—there were some logistical challenges involved. Namely that in order to be in a music video, and also feature in an EPK, the band members had to be in two places at once. Unfortunately, much to our producer Nick’s anguish, the lads hadn’t quite mastered time travel in time for the shoot date.
After some heavy spitballing, we pitched a video that centred around a band performance with an art concept element that would only require one band member at a time. We also made sure that we’d be shooting in a location that would work for both the promo and the EPK, while located near the band’s base in Leeds. Not wanting to make things too easy for ourselves, we opted to throw some heavy prosthetics in the mix—what’s life without a little jeopardy, eh?
After rocking up to our mansion location, all we had to do was send the first band member into makeup for prosthetics, whilst sending the second member upstairs (where a second crew unit was set up) to be filmed for the EPK. By the time they were done, the first member would be done in makeup, meaning we could shoot their part in the art-concept section of the music video (still following?) then send member two downstairs into makeup and member 3 upstairs to shoot their part in the EPK. Once they were done, they’d head downstairs into makeup, prompting member 1 to head upstairs to be interviewed for the EPK. This process was then repeated as necessary. Straight forward, right? No problem!
Once everyone had finished being interviewed, having their face glued, and playing their part in the music video’s side element, with the sun setting, it was time to reunite the band and shoot the full performance section. Unsurprisingly, shooting the main section of the music video was the simplest part.
A 12-hour shooting day, all that was left was to pack up and embark on our 6-hour drive back down to Cardiff. We’d like to recount in vivid detail the sheer determination and quite frankly questionable music selection that proved vital in returning the crew safely to Wales, but the less said about that the better.
