The Fisher family loves musical theatre. You could say my three daughters secretly aspire to be musical theatre performers. Or was that meant to say ‘obviously’?
A Christmas ‘Musical Theatre’ session.
They have seen many of the best shows and have all the big tunes in their collective memory. Charlotte even majored in dance and performance at Macquarie University, with vocal studies as an elective no less. I’m inspired whenever they get together for family gatherings, sometimes with a few glasses of wine, and end up singing all the classic modern show favourites. Their sheer enjoyment always makes me wish I could be there to share it with them, but I’m currently stuck overseas.
The ‘Phantom of The Opera’ was supposed to run for a season in Sydney over September/October this year (2021), but thanks to the resurgence of the delta covid variant in Australia and the on-again, off-again nature of lockdowns, the production has been postponed until next year. When I heard this news, it saddened me but it also gave me another ‘Crazy Nige’ idea.
I made my first amateur music video recently based on the song ‘Run’ by Snow Patrol and you’ll find a post about it here in my blog. I chose that particular song because of its theme – people being separated under difficult circumstances. Making the video was quite a lot of work, but I didn’t mind as it gave me something to do while Penang state was in lockdown and hotel operations temporarily suspended. When I shared the video with the girls, they loved it.
Fine tuning.
Back to the crazy idea. If they couldn’t see the musical, I would make a show for them and therefore had to have one final go at a memorable music video. Not just any video mind you, I wanted to tackle a challenging one with a big show tune. What else but ‘Music of The Night’ from Phantom. It doesn’t get much bigger than that, especially when you are a hotelier, not a trained singer, and are pushing 60.
Ok, so maybe Nessun Dorma, but that’s classic opera and for me that would be sheer folly.
Now, due to the fact I recently made the Snow Patrol music video, I had already gained valuable experience with downloading, editing, mixing and blending audio and video files. However this production would require taking creativity to a whole new level. I needed to make it very different from the last one, so I decided to produce it in black-and-white and shoot the whole thing at night, whilst wearing a formal dinner suit.
Do what?
Yes. That in itself was quite a daunting task considering average daytime temperatures here in Penang. You can imagine what my neighbours thought when I set off after dark on my scooter, wearing a dinner suit, carrying a back pack. Late night joggers stopped in their tracks, probably thinking “what the hell..?”
Mad foreigner.
The hilltop shoot was way more difficult than I had imagined. Not only was it very hot wearing three layers of clothing with an ambient temp of around 29C at 9.00 pm, but the humidity was tremendous as well. I had to towel down between practically every shot and there were 17 shots. Honestly, I began to think I had bitten off more than I could chew and was being far too ambitious. Still, I decided to press on.
Getting the right lighting, correct timing and avoiding traffic was also a bit difficult. Then, just when I was about to shoot the final five shots with my tripod mounted camera and Dji Spark drone, I discovered that the council had dumped a large pile of sand right in the centre of my principal ‘shot location’. WTF. That shunted the whole programme back by a week or two while I tried to work out a compromise and find another location for the drone footage. Luckily I did find an alternative site close by.
Yeah, thanks for that.
Besides that unexpected setback, there were some funny moments. One night I was mid-take when the Imam of the nearby mosque cranked up his call to prayer, completely off key, causing all the dogs in the local area, near and far, to start howling.
Another night, after I had found a solution to the ‘pile of sand’ problem, I was shooting torso and face close ups when a police car turned up. Due to the heat and humidity issue mentioned above, I was only wearing a dress shirt, bowtie and the jacket part of my formal suit. Below that I was wearing shorts and thongs (flip flops). The area was set with lights, camera tripod, speaker and other very necessary accessories as well as my 4WD, with the back hatch open. The Police drove up, slowed down, looked over and paused, said something to each other and then drove off. I would love to know what they said. “Crazy foreigner” perhaps…
Learning the lyrics.
Phantom of The Opera. Aside from the famous Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, there was also a black and white silent ‘horror’ movie made in 1925, based on the book written by Gaston Leroux. I decided I also had to feature that classic film in the video.
The final concept ended up being quite simple; A journey at night, to the top of a hill and back, framed as a cinema show with clear opening and closing imagery. The climbing, out and up for the crescendo, only to return to the depths, was maybe a bit of a cliche, but who cares, I made the video for fun not for profit, or to get a film grant…
Adjusting the key, and other technicalities…
The actual song itself is bloody difficult and not easy for the average singer, let alone a very amateur one. I tried to improve my chances by learning some simple vocal warm-ups. But even though I dropped the key from tenor to baritone and in spite of my best efforts, I didn’t quite manage to stay perfectly in tune and hit every big note. Therefore a disclaimer: People, if you cringe easily then don’t watch the video. OK?
Anyway, the final result is what it is. I had a brilliant time making it though I think I’ll call it quits after this. I need to move on to find a much easier project of some kind, probably one with a little less humidity…
That’s it. If you are interested in watching the video, then click this link. According to YouTube there might be ads in it, apparently due to some of the material being covered by copyright, but I haven’t noticed any just yet.
Please remember, first and foremost, I made this music video for my daughters, though I hope you will enjoy it too. I certainly enjoyed the time spent making it.
Stay safe.
…and please get vaccinated.
