sex, lies and super eight

many moons back i worked for a small video studio where we shot test commercials, corporate videos and the occasional low budget telly programme. during quiet periods when we weren't at the beck and call of the usual coked up idiots that formed our client base, my colleague matt (possibly one of the funniest, most beautiful blokes i have ever had the pleasure of knowing) and i would experiment endlessly with lighting, super 8 cameras and whatever we could get our hands on. matt was friends with a bloke called ben, who was in a band called miranda sex garden, who were signed to mute records. we ended up producing a very low budget electronic press kit (ie a video) for them, and as a result got the gig of making a promo video for their forthcoming single.

ben, matt and i met several times, drank a lot, talked a lot of bollocks and mapped out a storyboard and budget on the back of a few beermats. ben was to direct; i was director of photography and matt was also on camera.

upon seeing our budget the record company brought in a producer, which was probably a wise decision, though she only turned up for one of the shooting days and then spent most of the day on her phone. this is what producers do. she did raise her eyebrows when two of ben's mates turned up to roll around naked on the floor. other than that we were left alone. apart from the one studio day (which was unbelievably chaotic) we filmed guerilla style, trespassing all over the place. we even got my then four year old daughter holly to appear - her fee of a tube of smarties (or two) helped keep the budget to within manageable limits.

i'm still amazed that we got away with it to be honest (though i guess that if mute were prepared to release what is essentially a huge slab of atonal wailing as a single, then i probably shouldn't be). i also served as offline editor and remember mute supremo daniel miller turning up to view the results. he seemed to love it.

i'd almost forgotten about the whole thing till i came across it recently via the wonders of youtube. them were the days.