Our Blog

Wing Music Video Shoot

Sat, 30 Apr 2011 14:02:10 +0800

All the while that Stef and Danny were here in Taiwan shooting our documentary Wing was calling up to try and arrange for Josh, Niall and myself (Jesse) to be the band in his new Music Video ‘I Really Love You’. The date changed 3 times due to the availability (or lack of it) of the famous director. Eventually he decided on the 29th April. Sadly Niall had to leave the country that day for his ‘Visa run’.

It meant that there was a rather entertaining search for another band member who could play bass. Wing’s first choice was Stef, whose popularity had been proven at the tree planting event. (see picture below)

We thought about Julianne, who is often stopped on the streets for photos (because she is beautiful), but she was working. Another of our friends Eric was a possibility, but he was recovering from sickness. Every other foreigner that we could think of was also working at the time of the filming so we stuck to a depleted Transition cast of Josh and me.

The before the shoot Wing called me to arrange the location. Later on that evening I got a call from Josh... the location had changed. Classic Wing style! I didn’t mind as the new venue was about the same distance from my house except in the opposite direction.

When we arrived Wing was filming sequences with a female actor. Needless to say it was very melodramatic. They took several takes walking towards each other, but then passing each other by without a glance. They would half-embrace, but then one of them would turn away with a dismissive wave of the hand or an angry gesture. It was great fun. The setup was fairly high budget so there was an army of guys setting up and taking down lights, reflector boards. I was especially impressed with the padded chairs that they had brought for the crew to relax on. They looked like they had been stolen out of an olde english tea house.

Whilst Wing was acting, a makeup artist did my hair for me. She also painted out a few of my spots! We had a good chat in chinese about her work and England (she like many other Taiwanese would love to visit). A few minutes later Wing came over and said ‘alright guys, we need to shoot the band section’. Then looking at me ‘hey, don’t forget to do his hair!’ The makeup artist looked rather uptight and replied ‘i’ve already done it, he hasn’t got lots of hair left!’ It was Wing’s turn to look a bit embarrassed... ‘no it looks great’! Come on lets film!‘ Ha ha, brilliant.

It reminds me of when Wing got back from China (a few weeks ago). We went to a Thai restaurant with him. Hannah had brought Eden along (Niall & Hannah’s daughter). When Wing saw Eden he looked confused ‘why is he wearing girl’s clothers?’ That classic moment kept us amused for an evening.

Anyway back to the video, we filmed the band parts in the warehouse section of the complex. It was a great experience. We all knew the song well because we had recorded the guitars and drums for Wing. I did a few takes and then the director was happy. I must be so professional now! ha ha, either that or I won’t feature too much.

Here’s a little video of Wing shooting another video. I was very impressed with the radio controlled helilcopter that they used to get the aerial shots. Another toy for Stef and Danny to play with next time they come to shoot videos!

Documentary Part 4, Taipei

Thu, 21 Apr 2011 13:52:25 +0800

Taipei turned out to be the hardest leg of the tour. It seemed a bit more disjointed. Maybe that was because we live quite far away and it was harder to organise. The previous legs of the tour we had got together to pray every morning and also spent a short while each evening discussing what we would do the next day.

However we pressed on and some great stuff happened nonetheless. We managed to introduce our producer friend Henry, which was very interesting. He likened a good producer in Taiwan to a firefighter. The best producers here are the ones who can produce tracks and sometimes even albums in a matter of days. Taiwan is heavily influenced by overseas production and this often results in a sound that does sound formulaic. Working to such tough deadlines leaves little room for creativity and I think this is shown in the quality of the average pop music. The Taiwanese musicians that stand out are the ones who take more time to create music that they believe in.

One of the highlights was definitely the morning that we spent at a tree planting event. I thought that it was going to be a small event where we put a few saplings in the ground and headed off back home. Matt had asked us for an acoustic performance so I thought that meant a small crowd too. I couldn’t have been further away from the truth. 15,000 people turned up to the event including the Taiwanese president! We performed 1 song with Wing and then were bundled from the stage where a mob of girls were waiting..... for Stef! ha ha ha. The presenter onstage had mentioned the fact that we were shooting a documentary and he said how handsome Stef & Danny were, all in chinese. They were blissfully unaware that everyone’s attention had been turned on them. We found it ever so funny. In the end we left the site with Stef having to run through some bushes to escape the attention. The popularity didn’t go unnoticed and Pastor Ku (from Newlife church) offered to sign Stef & Danny up as models on the spot!

There were also lots of other famous musicians at the event, quite a few of whom we were friends with...

Meanwhile, the tension was building up for Danny. Taiwan is only an hour and a half’s flight away from Busan where his girlfriend Eun Mi lives. After a week or so of toing and froing he bought a ticket and decided to head off to Korea for a day! Wing said it was ‘ingei de’ (exactly what he should have done!).

In fact, all of the Roberts offspring were offered modeling jobs in one week! Julianne was also headhunted by a makeup artist who was working for Wing. Julianne seemed quite excited, but I think from the people I know in fashion the working environment can be even worse than working in music. We’ll wait and see!

Another Great thing that we did this week was play a concert at Gabee cafe. The boss liked us so much when he saw us last time that he said for the documentary he would invite 50 friends, close the shop and let us film anything we want. It turned out to be a great show apart from that Julianne couldn’t find it! My phone ran out of battery and she was trying each alley to find the place. In the end she managed to get through to Josh and we found her. The boss gave her some free waffles and a world championship winning coffee to help make up!

Documentary Part 3, Hualien

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 13:52:13 +0800

Just unbelievable! During the filming so far we had tried to save as much money as possible. It just so happened that when we arrived in Hualien, the last stop of the tour, we were going to be staying in the most prestigious 5*hotel in the whole area... for free! We were going to perform a few concerts on the roof terrace in the Taroko gorge. I had been there once before.

So we arrived and were taken to our room. I was still pinching myself to see whether it was true. We walked into what seemed to be a big clothes cupboard. It was like Narnia, we walked through another door and there we were, in the presidential suite! When I had contacted the hotel about this (and then asked Kohan to follow it up) I couldn’t have imagined that we were going to be given the presidential suite.

A few hours earlier we had searched Transition and Hualien on the internet. We were shocked that at least 20 different newspapers were covering the performance in the hotel.

Back to the Silks Place and promotional manager, Shane, gave us a guided tour. She wanted the concert to be as good as possible. We reviewed the sound system and then were told that dinner was at 5pm. The dinner was a 6 course affair and one of the best meals I have ever eaten in my life! There was deep fried soft shell crab with avocado, green pumpkin and sour cream soup, and a delicious steak with roast potatoes. mmmmmmm. A great mix of western and Taiwanese ingredients. We asked to meet the chef to thank him. It turned out that he was an Indian guy who originally came from Mumbai. He was obviously highly trained, highly skilled and a great character.

The concert started and we realised that we were in for a tougher ride than the previous gigs (that had gone better than we could expect). The sound system started to cut out and the mix wasn’t good. The guitars weren’t amplified and this was a mistake as the sound of the river below was actually quite loud. We persisted the best that we could but all the time I was singing I felt like we were fighting a losing battle. It was such a shame as the setting was absolutely perfect. We were under the stars, a fire burning, river flowing below us. The chinese tourists were curious to begin with, but seemed to gradually lose their interest. One remarked to Kohan in passing that he would buy all of our cds if we were going to be on Chinese Central Radio. Josh tried to speak about some of the food he ate in Beijing. He then mentioned that he couldn’t find Shui Jiao there, but its ok because he found some in Taiwan. This offended a few people who promptly left.

At the end we were surprised because there were a lot of people who seemed to really enjoy the performance. However we arranged for a PA to be there the next night. It was our mistake to not insist on certain specifications for us to use. Anyway the staff all seemed to enjoy it and were dancing and singing at the back. We had time to relax in the rooftop jacuzzi afterwards until 12, drinking a beer and contemplating what a mad tour it had been so far.

Again Stef and Danny had done so well considering they had just been chucked in the deep end with everything.

The next day we spent interviewing and shooting pictures in the gorge. I wished we could have spent a week there as the environment was so inspiring and the hotel was great. We got to know the staff much better each time we went for dinner or breakfast. That was different to many of the posh places that we had stayed in before.

That night we had another performance and it seemed to go much better than the other one. The PA turned up and was workable, although the sound man wasn’t too friendly and loved adding 80s reverb to everything. I kept asking him for less reverb, a theme of the evening! Quite a few people had travelled especially from Hualien city to the hotel in order to listen to our performance. This night a couple who asked us whether we had time the next day to go on a local Hualien radio station. They were djs. As it turned out our train tickets were in the late afternoon so we did have time. Amazing! WE arranged to go the next day.

The final night arrived all too soon and we were pleased to find out that our friends Jimmy and Sunny had taken up the hotel on the ‘Transition super fan offer’. They were staying the night to watch the performance and then eat a luxury breakfast for a large discount. It was great to connect with them again. They had had a hard time recently - teething issues with the english school that they run, not dissimilar to those that we faced ourselves.

In the morning we packed all our things and went down for breakfast. I was first to leave my bags at the front desk and the staff helpfully assured me the luggage (including 2 guitars) would be loaded onto the bus that went to the station (1 hour away). I went to the breakfast area again as it was 10:45am and Jimmy had just surfaced. We chatted for a short while, but we were interrupted by my phone ringing. It was Josh ‘where are you, we’ve gone!’ I was didn’t know how to reply. ‘I’m still at the hotel, I thought you guys would let me know when you were going!’. It turned out that as the other guys took their bags down after me the bus was ready to go. Onboard lots of the tourists shouted at the staff saying that they were going to miss their train. The guys couldn’t wait for me and had just left!

Wow, a good thing that Jimmy and Sunny were there. I relaxed for a while longer with them and also chatted with an English family from New Malden who were surprised to have stumbled upon a Bristol 3-pieces concert the night before. It was good fun. We then made our way to the radio station. I found the interview hard to get into as I came in half-way through, but the other guys had made a good impression and struck up a good rappor so it wasn’t a problem.

We headed for the train and back to Taipei, the final leg of the tour!

 

Documentary Part 2, Kenting

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 11:12:42 +0800

I’m sitting on the train... but not THE train (the high speed rail). I’m on a train that I have never taken before. It’s the one from near Kenting, through the mountains and up to Huailen. Rather than the 1 and a half hour train from Taipei to Kaohsiung, the train to Hualien takes 4 and a half hours. So we have a lot of updating we can do.

Some of the scenery is spectacular.

So at 11am a friendly driver arrived to take us from the Kaohsiung hotel to the Kenting B&B. That was another great decision. He drove fast and pretty directly. Carting around that amount of luggage on the mrt and then taking a bus would have killed us (or at least me!). Our various filming and music equipment filled the van. After a stress free and direct ride we were so grateful to arrive on the doorstep of the B&B.

We arrived at lunch time and were recommended by the B&B owners to head to a restaurant around the corner for lunch. Taking their advice was one of the decisions of the day. The boss was friendly and gave us a bowl of seafood soup for free. That afternoon we went onto the beach, rested for a while in the rooms and prepared for the evening. The guys were suggesting recording 2 music videos. Firstly one for a new song called ‘Things don’t always work out’ and the other for a song called ‘dui bu qi wode zhongwen bu hao’ 對不起我的中文不好 - (roughly translated as) sorry my chinese is not very good. Stef and Danny took some shots of the nearby beach.

For dinner we decided to eat cheaply, so we searched the roadside stalls for something nice. We chanced upon a friendly young surfer who was making Korean hotdogs and salads. He agreed to give us a slightly cheaper price after being interviewed on our documentary. Great fun!

The second day we had breakfast on the patio, soaking up the atmosphere whilst watching the birds and the waves. Later on Niall, Stef & Kohan went to hire some scooters for us. As we didn’t have scooter licenses, the only ones that we were able to hire were electric scooters. Josh was very proud to point out what a green band we were and was excited that the scooter had a range of 30km and a guarantee that if the battery ran out, the owner would come and replace it for free.

We had decided that the theme for ‘things don’t always work out’ would actually be us riding scooters around whilst everything looked perfect. There would be an intentional contradiction between the songs content and the feel of the video. I was meanwhile trying to record the vocal in my hotel room, because the song hadn’t been recorded yet! It was going to be a mad project whatever the outcome! I also called our friend Sharon to see whether she could help write some chinese lyrics in half an hour. She was up for the challenge and sent some straight back.

We went for lunch and in classic style ended up at a place that looked to dirty to enter. We were extremely worried about the food, but in true Taiwanese style everything that emerged from the grimy looking kitchen tasted greta. After lunch we set out to film. I had my small Marshall amp sellotaped to my scooter and had to ride along the main street of the town mouthing the words of the song. We caused quite a stir on the high street. everyone seemed to be looking at us. I felt pleased that we were being noticed for doing something positive rather than being noticed like a lot of other foreigners are, for being drunk!

After playing a brief while on the beach we rode on. My battery light started flashing and I sure enough ground to a halt. I had only ridden 7km! We were on a straight road in the middle of nowhere. It was then I noticed 5 men in orange suits standing around a scooter lying in the road. There was a man lying on the floor. I ran over to ask if everything was ok. They were coastguards. They laughed and said they were just doing pictures for the boss. I didn’t quite understand the implications, but seizing the opportunity asked them whether they would be happy to re-create the same scene with me lying on the floor looking like I had crashed instead? We had time to burn whilst we waited for my battery to be replaced. They agreed and what followed was a great experience. I had to lie on the floor looking like I had crashed into a bin. Stef and Danny swarmed around shooting angles and the coastguards saved me several times, picking me up, putting me back on my scooter and giving me a push start before I rode off. So great. We were invited to sign some stuff and take pictures with all the coastguards. That was fun.

After returning for a shower and some dinner we played a small concert for the B&B owners Kenny and Jenny and any of the guests that happened to pass by. It turned out to be one of the highlights of the shows that we played, because each of the guests seemed to really connect with us and our songs. There was a Swedish guy & his Taiwanese wife and a guy from Berlin and then a few Taiwanese passers by. The atmosphere was special and we were able to perform our newly written chinese songs for our friends. They seemed to really appreciate them.

The show finished and we proceeded to the main street to film the second of the 2 music videos.

Documentary Part 1, Kaohsiung

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 11:12:31 +0800

The guys have adjusted very well so far. They arrived at 6pm in Taipei Taoyuan international airport. Josh got them from the airport and we saw them that evening. The next day was spent scouring Taipei’s many camera shops for extra lenses, lens adaptors and other camera goodies. Stef commented that Taipei reminded him of LA.

The next day and the tour commenced, we were going to head around the island in a week. First to Kaohsiung, then Kenting and finally Hualien before returning to Taipei.

Before we set out there was an important decision to make. We had to get from Taipei to Kaohsiung. 180 miles or so. It would be one crazy journey. We needed to bring all the equipment for an unplugged concert and electric guitars for some of the music videos that we were going to be. There was a brief debate, one that has been present during Transition’s time in Taiwan. Bus or High Speed train. The cost or the time. This time I won, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before I would have to concede and ride the bus with so much baggage.

We arrived in Kaohsiung and I conceded that we would not take a taxi but take the underground. Dragging 2 guitars, a rucksack and a 30kg suitcase I quickly started sweating and then my blood sugar went low. I hadn’t anticipated using that much energy that quickly. This soured my mood and it was all I could not to be very grumpy! Niall wore a similar long suffering expression. We ended up at a wrong station. Josh went to check the upstairs (that he had applied to film in) and found that it was an even better place to shoot our music video. There was a white grand piano that we could use. When Josh had originally applied for everything

The video shoot went smoother than we could have imagined. The Kaohsiung bureau of film sent 2 guys to drive us around the city to different locations and to help us prove that we had the right to film in the various locations. This was a Godsend. They turned out to be ever so helpful and actually very funny. We were never sure whether they were serious or joking and it turned out to be quite fun guessing which was which.

We made a quick getaway to the bureau of culture. It turned out to be quite a grand building. Anyway, the minister of culture had agreed to be interviewed by us. It turned out that he was an award winning director of documentary film. He was a funny guy. His aides told us how they were assuring him before the interview ‘it’s ok, you can speak chinese during the interview’. He felt good about that, but then apparently just before the interview he grunted ‘I’m a real man, I’m going to speak English!’ ha ha ha - Josh conducted the interview very well asking him what made Taiwan a special place for music and also within Taiwan what is distinctive about Kaohsiung.

So everything was going great. That evening we got ready to become the first band to play a concert on the 74th floor of the highest building in Kaohsiung. The Viewdeck had specially arranged for us to have an acoustic concert there. We had hired a sound system for 5,000 NT$ in order to ensure the quality of the sound was high. We sound checked and got accustomed to the space. 5 minutes before the concert was due to start, we wondered whether we would be playing the concert to ourselves. That would look good for the documentary. Then miraculously about 50 people seemed to turn up from nowhere. We started to play and couldn’t believe our eyes. Some tourists drifted in and out, but all of the seats had people on and when we finished each song we were greeted with loud applause. Fantastic! As we played we could see the sun setting through the windows (apparently the first time that there had been a great sunset in Kaohsiung for over a month due to fog and cloud).

The concert ended and again to our surprise we sold loads of cds. In fact, exactly 5,000 so we could cover the cost of the sound system. Perfect!

That night we got back feeling ecstatic. But we received an email from Andy who had been working with us on our chinese album project. He had heard a rumour that we were signing a contract with a different record company behind his back. Instead of talking to us about it he had got his lawyers involved and was angry. His email could be considered comical if it wasn’t so annoying for us to try and deal with.

I'm not just threatened to sue you. I'll sue you if you want to take this issue further.

You can't even take care your own problem and need a mentor.

The money issues I'll have all document ready when we meet.

I had UDN newspaper and Taipei Artists Agency Association ready to support me for this issue. That's also the reason I don't want to get rainbow heaven involve. But I still have very little faith we can solve this problem nicely.

Andy
從我的 iPhone 傳送

We called our friends in Taipei to try and get help to sort the problem out. We weren’t sure why he was trying to sue us.