Behind the Scenes: Allan Purvis - Trouble (Part 1)

If you're joining me today after reading the last blog post, you'll know that my colleagues and I were recording singer-songwriter Allan Purvis for his new EP, Lovable Scamp! As part of the recording, Allan and I desired to make a music video based around 1 of the 4 songs from his EP, and after much discussion we settled on making it for his brand new synth-rock anthem "Trouble".

"Trouble" is a powerful, hard-hitting pop-rock anthem combining elements of rock, dance, electronica, and synth-wave to create a striking symphony about the awareness of mental health, and seeing as the song has a heavy message based in its lyrical and musical contents, I believed it was only fair to ensure the video was striking and impactful, carrying the same message and soul its source material had.

Work began on the video during the studio sessions earlier in the month, as I recorded Allan during live takes of "Trouble". This means that as the EP was being recorded, so too was the video, and it was imperative that neither one became botched due to the other. As a result, I utilised a stand and very slow, methodical movements when necessary to achieve the perfect shots needed for the video.

The equipment I used for recording the video consisted of a Canon EOS 700D Camera with a carbon fiber Nat Geo Tripod. I had the option to use multiple lenses as they were available to me, however I opted to go with the Canon Zoom Lens EF-S 18-55MM to achieve the best shot compositions possible for each scene.

The studio footage was used as the foundation for how the video's story would play out; as the song focuses on mental health issues and regressing mental anguish and anxiety, I opted for the video to have 3 separate paths; the up front professional side of Allan, the intimate, troubled side of Allan, and the intimate yet professional studio side of Allan.

This led to the video focusing on Allan seeking to let out his anguish and troubles in different ways, with one being him performing on-stage as his dream, the other being him having this song captured into waveforms, and the last being his mental anguish overcoming him and expressing it in a more aggressed manner.

In order to achieve these intimate and anguished scenes, Allan and I agreed to meet at UWS Paisley where we had previously recorded the EP only a few days earlier, on Saturday 7th March. As the campus was mostly inactive during this time due to the understandable panic of the COVID-19 outbreak, we had more than ample timing to get as much footage as we needed for these sections of the video.

We began filming in the Robertson Building cafeteria with Allan attempting to write the lyrics of the song into a notebook, signifying his initial attempt to let out this anguish into a more meaningful format. Filming here didn't take too long and we managed to capture the necessary shots, making much use of macro shots to establish scenes within the music video.

Afterwards we had time to head around Paisley Town Centre and look for good locations to film Allan out in public by himself looking depressed, adding to the anguished, anxious sections of the video. The small park near the Piazza and right next to the river proved a perfect location for these types of shots, as no one could interfere with recording due to it being a public area, and it provided the best shots of people walking by just far enough that they aren't captured on tape out-right, as the focus was adjusted to keep Allan as the focal point of the shot.

One of my favourite shots we captured at the park before moving onto the river shots was the shot of Allan going to lie down on the park bench, mirroring the exact same pose he strikes on the cover art of Lovable Scamp. The cover art was taken by us immediately after the final recording session had finished, and by complete accident I had recorded a 5 second clip of Allan striking the pose on video.

I actually didn't realise I had this clip and I was praying I could still manage the shot somehow without it, but when I found the clip, it matched up amazingly with the bench shot, leading to a smooth cross-faded shot immediately after the first chorus.

After capturing the park shots, we moved onto the river shots, having Allan bellow the lyrics to the pre-chorus and chorus as he looks on, anguished with troubles in his head as he emotionally releases his mental frustration through his slightly manic act.

The river shots also lead to the end clip of the video with Allan walking away from the camera as it blurs and fades to black, potentially signifying that he could be free of his mental frustration, or he could be going to take his frustration out in another way. The end shot was one of the only scenes in these intimate and anguished shots that was static, the other being when Allan sits at the base of the statue immediately before the first pre-chorus.

This was done to add a sense of hecticness and mania to the shots, to signify that something isn't entirely correct in these scenes. The studio footage was almost always static by comparison, aside from one shot of the Vox guitar amp that was too low down for the stand to accurately capture in frame.

We ended the recordings at UWS Paisley by going to one of the classrooms and getting in to record shots of Allan lying down on one of the tables, as well as Allan entering the toilet to wash his hands and face as if to wake himself up from a state of delirium, and sing the second chorus of the song.

It was at this point in the video that I really wanted to signify that the troubles in Allan's mind are taking over and are causing things to not seem clear, leading to the second chorus and the footage leading into the solo to be a lot more heavily distorted and almost non-sensical with how they flow in and out of each other.

After capturing all of these shots, we arranged dates for Allan and his bandmates for his other band, as well as Danny from dB Audio and I to meet at The Bungalow, a small local recreational hall next to the Paisely Campus, so that we could film footage of the song being performed live on-stage for the final segments of our video; the up-front professional side of Allan. We met the following week on the 14th March and began recording the final shots for the video.

This would prove to be the trickiest segment to properly edit later on, as unfortunately there was some problems with Andy, the drummer, being able to hear the song since we had no monitors on-stage to feed the song through to him.

As a result, a lot of the footage that was captured was unfortunately rendered obselete, due to the on-stage performance being out of time, however the excellent lighting at The Bungalow allowed for us to capture some incredibly saturated and vivid macro shots that helped diversify the colour composition of the video greatly when edited, with many reds, purples, blues, and greens being incorporated over the more bleak, dismal settings the shots from the previous week provided.

The macro shots were of each band member performing the song individually, meaning that were in time, leading to such shots being used in the editing stage. Allan, John, Andy, and Liam provided ace work with the solo performances and I actually managed to make some use of the group performance for a couple of shots at the beginning and middle of the video.

Danny from dB Audio had control over the stage lightning, allowing for vivid, colourful shots for the on-stage sections that proved massively beneficial for the overall shot composition of the video.

After it was all done, we packed up and took a couple final pictures of the whole band together to celebrate a job well done in recording and performing!

The editing stage began next, however I'm going to cover that in my next blog post coming tomorrow. Stay tuned to learn about the editing stage, and stay safe!

- M3