The Making of Politicians (Part 2)
In songwriting one of my mentors Pat Pattison’s favourite edicts is “show before you tell..” to write a line which elicits a literary image that drips down over the ensuing story. It may be a metaphorical construct that excites the mind then you come and get your story started. Each verse adds a little more to take you to the chorus where everyone gets their Oxytocin flowing and sings out loudly at the top of their voice (our dream!) The images that went with the Politician sound-bytes on the clip were obvious choices but how & where they were introduced was the art & skill of Jerome & Jarrod at Stepping Stones. We brainstormed lots of concepts & ideas to illustrate the lyrics & slowly formulated a shooting plan.
From there it became a team effort of delegation of tasks to the team as it unfolded. The site visit to the old Sanitarium Cereal factory in Warburton was a trip back in the wayback machine. An art deco style building earmarked for a resort development in a beautiful part of the Victorian ranges, is currently a dark, cold & dusty shadow of its former glory. However for our purposes the open space & textured walls provided a landscape to project the contrast between truth & the other stuff Politicians occasionally sprout. The props were sourced; Flags, TV show host wigs, US Flag Boxer shorts, Fancy suit, Cuban cigars, Fake US dollars, Flash paper, Skateboards, Globes of the world were booked & the test shoots eradicated any sneaky smirking smiles from my perpetually happy demeanour! If I was to sell myself in the clip I had to immerse myself into my roles as artist & the “Politician”. A lot of time singing to my no.1 fan in the bathroom mirror! Then it was off to the make-up department of the Myers store at a shopping complex in Melbourne to get the right tones to match my face to my head. A difficult task to keep a straight face again but the results are there to see!
The actual shoot was an event in itself which I will expand upon in the final instalment next week or so! Stay tuned
