It took 90 minutes to record Kites Over Malvern with the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra. Making the music video turned out to be a slightly more protracted affair…
Composer Andrew Webb-Mitchell joined us in Brno to record his mighty orchestral song cycle Songs of Awe and Wonder in July 2011. I don’t mind saying, the shrift we made of things tended towards the shorter end of the spectrum.
After recording the song Kites Over Malvern (inspired by the life and music of Edward Elgar), I found Andrew reviewing the takes in the control room.
“That seemed to go pretty well,” I said.
“Didn’t it just!”, said Andrew.
“So, I’ve been thinking. You know what this song needs?”
“Ah yes, you’re so right. The LSO and Haitink.”
“Eh? No. A music video. I can just see it: the sweeping landscapes, the babbling brooks, the soaring kites, the forested glades, the young, thrusting hero hurtling over the hills on a clapped-out bike. You know, a bit Merchant Ivory and all that.”
“Excellent idea! How are we going to manage that, then?”
“Ah, you just leave it all to me. I’m an old hand at this sort of thing. Give me a couple of weeks and I’ll get a film to you. Three at the most.”
“Andrew, we’ve encountered a small hurdle. Actually, it’s more like a medium-to-large stile. Either way, I’m pretty sure I’ve got it surmounted.”
“How distressing and yet comforting.”
“It’s Hui, you see.”
“I do?”
“We can’t get him a visa to the Malverns.”
“They have their own consulate?”
“Yes. I mean, no. I mean, we can’t get him over here to do his forested glades bit.”
“He’s the tenor, right?”
“Right.”
“The one who does all the singing, right?”
“That’s him.”
“So he should probably appear in the film quite a lot, right?”
“My thinking exactly, which is why I’ve found the perfect double for the Malverns. It’s quite uncanny.”
“The Chilterns?”
“No.”
“The South Downs?”
“Paris.”
“Paris.”
“Paris.”
“I forget. Remind me exactly which arrondissement you feel most closely resembles the Worcestershire-Herefordshire borders around the time of Edward VII.”
“I was thinking the 8e.”
“We’ve got a slight availability issue with the brooks.”
“The babbling ones?”
“Those. Except they’re not.”
“Babbling?”
“Brooks. I can’t find any in the Malverns.”
“But you’re going to tell me you’ve found a perfect double for them.”
“How did…”
“Where are you off to this time, then? The ALPS, eh? Ha!”
“…”
“Tell me you’re not serious.”
“I just don’t feel we should compromise on the babbling elements in this film.”
“You’re telling me there are no streams between Malvern and Switzerland?”
“Oh, I see! Sorry – we’re talking at cross purposes. Not those Alps. Did you think I was going to go all the way to Switzerland just to film a stream?!”
“Thank goodness for that. You had me worried for a moment there. Which Alps did you have in mind?”
“The Southern Alps.”
“New ZEALAND?!!”
“Thanks for sending over the latest edit, Mikel.”
“Oh, you know, all in a day’s…”
“You remember the brief I sent you?”
“The, er…”
“The brief. Specifically the bit where I asked for a young man on a bicycle pedalling his way to the summit of the Malverns to fly a box kite.”
“Ah, yes, a lovely spot of briefage if ever I…”
“A young man I asked for. A youthful man. A man newly emerged from the chrysalis of boyhood. A young man with his whole life ahead of him. A man charged, nay, seething with the unbound optimism and heady hope of stupid youth.”
“Yes, I think I…”
“It’s you, isn’t it?”
“What is?”
“On the bike. Don’t take this the wrong way, Mikel, but my rusty abacus suggests to me that you’re sliding swiftly towards the dirty end of forty four.”
“Let me see now. I think I’d have to check my production notes.”
“But you’d remember that, surely? You’d remember hurtling along Cotswold lanes strapped to a box kite with a great fat camera roped to the top of your head?!”
“Ah, you see, therein lies the trouble. The old grey cells aren’t what they used to be.”
“I think this is the point I’m trying to make.”
ENTR’ACTE
“Karis?”
“Hmm?”
“Can I stick a camera to the top of your car while you drive it up and down some winding country lanes?”
“No.”
“OK.”
“I said no.”
“Absolutely. That’s fine.”
“Good.”
“Only we’d get some marvellous smooth shots that would make it look as though I were cycling along pitted and potholed roads with surprising grace and élan.”
“Nope.”
“Of course. I completely understand.”
“I’m glad.”
“Elgar’s daughter was called Karis. Did you know that?”
“She was called Carice.”
“Was she? Still, bit of a coincidence, don’t you think? It’s almost as though he were willing you from beyond the grave to…”
“Exactly which part of I’d-really-rather-you-didn’t-tear-a-hole-in-my-lovely-shiny-paintwork-with-that-absurd-camera-on-a-suction-pad don’t you understand?”
BOTH: “http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tiPOMd14eQ”
“What if I dug a ten-foot trench outside your house and filled it with gravel?”
“Done!”
March 2012
“Mikel, I’ve been thinking. Elgar called his mistress “Windflower” so we should probably have a shot of some windflowers wafting about gracefully in the breeze somewhere, don’t you think?”
“Great idea! I’ll get onto it.”
May 2012
“So did you get the windflowers?”
“Sorry. I got a bit tied up with some gravel.”
“Some what?”
“Nothing. I’ll go and film them now.”
September 2012
“How did they come out?”
“How did what come out?”
November 2012
“Good news! I’m off to film the windflowers today.”
“It’s November.”
“Ah.”
“We’re getting really close now. I’ve only got the kites and the Malverns left to film.”
“It’s called Kites Over Malvern.”
“I know that.”
“Are you telling me that after a year and a half you’ve only managed to film the “Over” bit?”
“My point is: we’ve encountered a minor technical problem with the box kite.”
“How minor?”
“It can’t fly. Strange, it flew beautifully before I gave it the red paint job.”
“The red paint job that you administered using the special lightweight fabric dye?”
“I’m not really sure. It had a picture of a bath on the tin.”
“That makes sense.”
“I think I’ve got a solution.”
“Of course you have.”
“We need to find somewhere windier.”
“RAF Lyneham?”
“No, but I like the way you’re thinking. I was thinking more along the lines of somewhere in the middle of the North Atlantic.”
“Please tell me you’re moving to Rockall.”
“Where?”
Click to enlarge images:
Kites Over…………MALVERN!
“So, that seemed to go pretty well.”
“It did?”
“Which one shall we do next?”
“Next?! I have to be frank, I’m not really sure I…”
“I was thinking we could have a stab at Earthscape. What do you reckon?”
“But that’s by far the…”
“I’ll get stuck in straight away and let you have a first edit in four weeks.”
“How many?”
“Five at the most.”
You may also be interested in:
- Andrew Webb-Mitchell (composer)
- Songs of Awe and Wonder
- Dances of Life and Death. The first Songs of Awe and Wonder film we made. Inspired by the dancer Anna Pavlova
- Hui Jin (tenor) on SoundCloud