Dear Reader –
As will become clear shortly, this week I was reminded of the first letter I wrote to you all back in May. This is now the 8th in the series, and if you’re not signed up already to receive them in your inbox, or if you know someone who might enjoy them, the link to subscribe is here.
*All hyperlinks, as always, in bold.
The Big Thing
But back to the very first letter - the big thing that week was an open call I put out. I was looking for somebody who had never been involved in a theme night before to sing a song on the first ever theme night album, which will be released later this year.
7 weeks later and not only has the singer been chosen, but the song has been recorded and is getting ready for release. The full story of this process, as well as the identity of the singer is revealed in the below video.
Where else but Sligo?
The man featured in this section today isn’t even from Sligo, but the kindness, imagination and drive displayed by him in this story makes it no surprise that he has made his mark here since he moved to our town.
I got an email a while ago that I had been tagged by him in a post on Facebook. As mentioned in the video above, I’m currently running a Kickstarter campaign to help fund the making of the debut Theme Night album and a special souvenir book to help us celebrate our 10-yr anniversary later this year. The idea being that if you pledge support to the campaign, you receive a reward in exchange.
For example, if you contribute €500, you’ll receive a whole lot of goodies, including me coming to your house or a premises of your choice to play a gig. Any witty readers will no doubt say that there should be a reward for €600 where I don’t come to your house (thanks Robbie Fitzpatrick for that one), but the hero of this story saw this reward and an idea formed in his head. Here is the post in which I was tagged.
10 days later, and thanks to his idea, and the generosity of local people and businesses, an additional €1000 has been pledged to the campaign, so I am really looking forward to playing not one but two gigs in local nursing homes later in the year.
Brendan Tierney - take a bow. Sligo is lucky you’re here.
You can follow Brendan’s latest project - The Sligo Show - here.
What’s New?
Something different in this section this week. The video featured earlier in this letter was written, shot and recorded pretty much in 12 hours yesterday, so it’s certainly new. Thanks once again to my In The Lamplight colleagues - Rory Maitland and Luke Devaney - for their help on this one.
Below are 10 creative decisions that shaped it, and here is a handy link to watch it again and save you scrolling up.
The opening. We wanted some footage of me walking for a second or two before the music started and I began talking, but I didn’t do that on the take we wanted to use. So we looked back at the interview footage and found this quick snippet before the interview began. Joanne was in the initial shot but after a quick zoom in to keep her identity secret, we had our opening.
The location. The first video we released in relation to this campaign was filmed inside, so we wanted something outside this time, but also something recognisable as Sligo. We had some great locations in mind, but at 3pm yesterday there were low clouds everywhere so they were all ruled out. So what about town instead? Maybe a walk to the Hawk’s Well, starting in the neighbouring Peace Park - perfect.
The first-timers. We wanted to show footage of theme night debut performances, but not by people who are too well known locally as singers. We also wanted a variety of age-groups represented, and lots of movement, as the sound wasn’t going to be used for these videos. Hence the choices.
The spiels. This was interesting. The words with which I told the story were written early yesterday morning before I met Rory. However we knew that they could change depending on the final edit, and the other words and pictures we chose. So we did the preliminary edit of the video first, and then went back and tweaked and then recorded my words, so the story would hang together better.
The walks and the stops. We wanted my walking journey to help tell the story, not just to be a series of walks around town. The Top Gear-esque stops at the end of some scenes to emphasise certain sections of the story were Rory’s idea!
The reveal. We knew we needed to get the big reveal right. One of the big hooks of the story was that although viewers can hear her voice, they don’t see Joanne’s face until halfway into the video. So this had to be done right. We initially had it later in the story, but we decided to try moving it slightly earlier with some different words beforehand, and it worked.
The footage. I had asked Luke to take some footage of the recording sessions in the Hawk’s Well a few weeks ago. I didn’t know I was going to make a video like this at the time, I just thought it might be handy to have it. And it was!
The beeps. The beeps, shouts and waves we got from passing traffic when filming outside the Hawk’s Well were lovely, and just what we wanted (!) as we were trying to get the last link shot before getting home to fly through the final edit.
Kill your darlings. Rory’s phrase. There were so many really nice moments and lines that we would have loved to use, but didn’t in the end. It was so difficult to bin them, but sometimes in the service of the final product, you just have to kill your darlings.
The music. Rory’s favourite part of making a video is adding the music. It can make such a difference, as some clever people recently showed here. But when we found this piece of music and added it, it turned what we thought was a decent video into one with which we were delighted!
Finally…
Going back to my first letter - the featured song was Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘America’. Here is another of my favourites from their 1968 Bookends album.
Till next time - Kieran.
