While making You Only Went Out To Get Drunk Last Night for Kid Canaveral, Alex came up with an idea for what ended up being my favourite scene in the video. She suggested that our 'character' might tip-toe through the bedroom, drunkenly attempting not to wake his partner. This was perfect. It added a gag to what was pretty much a filler sequence. After a few sums, it looked likely that I'd be able to time the shots with the quietest part of the song which gave a really nice build-up to the finale.
Executing the idea proved fiddly. It was 2am and we had very little equipment to speak of. Our bedroom, while not tiny, is also pretty tight for floorspace. These limitations took most of the directing decisions out of my hands - we had to go under the bed. We had to animate the boots from above, pinching the cuffs with our fingernails.
Up until this point, our roles had been set. I'd animate the objects and Alex would work the camera. This scene was different. We swapped back and forth a number of times trying to get something, anything, to work. The problem was two fold: animating the boots was uncomfortable (really uncomfortable. lying-with-your-weight-on-the-edge-of-a-wooden-footboard uncomfortable) meaning we'd only get a few minutes before the 'mover' had to abandon their post and start over; also, you were working blind with no way to tell if your hand was in shot, if you'd moved too far or if what you were doing would achieve the desired effect.
We got there, though. I turned out to be the better animator / endurer of pain and Alex was the better filmer / communicator of how things looked. There was a lot of 'Dave, I can still see your fingers on that left boot' going on. The end result, while not exactly beautiful, is pretty much exactly what I tried to achieve. A success in particular because neither of us knew what the hell we were doing.
On a related note, Kid Canaveral are nominated to support Graham Coxon. You can help their chances by heading to the page and liking their video entry under the Edinburgh Liquid Rooms dropdown. Good idea that.
EDIT: a direct link to the vote page for the KC video is here. God you're a lazy bugger.