The track ‘The Only Ones’ was probably one of my favourite tracks off the Lost Souls album by Caskets. When I originally heard of Chris’s concept for the music video I thought it was mental. On this occasion, I was asked to not only shoot the BTS photos but to also camera operate a second camera alongside the amazing Oli Duncanson. Oli picked me up and we drove from the south up north. The traffic was awful and we were worried we were going to miss our start time. the drive up took over 6 hours as opposed to the usually 3.5 hours. We arrived at 10 pm and started shooting straight away. Little did we know we would be filming til 4:30 am the first night. So if you haven’t already go check out the music video for ‘The Only Ones’ by Caskets. It will make you understand this a lot better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk7L6UyM--I&ab_channel=SharpToneRecords

We filmed the music video on a plot of land near the area of York. Shout out to Cris Greaves who sorted that. So there was going to be a lot of fire on this shoot, so safety first. The boys organised the Yorkshire Fire department to be on site for the music video. The first night we prominently filmed the wides of the whole band with the fire barrels behind them. It was very damp so keeping the barrels going proved difficult. There were many stop-starts to keep the intensity of the fire going. When there were enough wides, we then shot the wides with the cabs on fire. Chris organised these cabs to be purposely built so that when they were set on fire they would collapse inwards. As cabs are built like tanks and normal ones wouldn’t have had the same effect. During one taking Chris being the dancing extraordinaire, went a little too close to the fire. The next thing we see is him running offset, stripping off his skinny jeans, to find they caught on fire a little. Chris’s legs were fine, only a little warm and pink luckily. The only causalities of the night were someone left the van spare key behind the cabs, R.I.P Van keys.

Another event of the night was a couple who came onto the land who were neighbours to see what we were doing. Chris walking over ready to be super nice and apologetic for the noise was surprised to find out the lovely guy was one of the guys up top at Tanglewood guitars. They just wanted to watch what we were getting up to and thought it was great. And that’s how Caskets relationship with Tanglewood started. At 4:30 am we decided to call it a night/early morning because it was too damp to get the big bonfire going.

After what felt like 4 hours of sleep (it was more than that) I and Chris went for a fun trip to B & Q in search of new things to set on fire as the bonfire stake was too damp to light. We got it all, Log burners, Firelighters, Scrap wood and offcuts, if it could fit in the van, it was getting set on fire.

So if anyone has met the Casket crew on the road, you might have met our lovely tour driver Sim. He was the handyman behind building the narrative set for the video. after constructing the room, everyone constructed the Ikea sofa and hung the props to make it look like a room. Oli Chris and part went off the shoot the flowers on the lampost daytime shot and It just became a waiting game until the sun dropped.

Finally, it was dark. We lit the narrative set with an overhead large softbox on a Godox SL60W continuous light running from a generator. The two actors are long time band friends Pat Anderson and Jess Ayton. With no acting experience, they gave an unbelievable performance for the conflicted couple. Once the narrative of the couple was finished it came the moment we had all been waiting for. Setting fire to the set. It took a while for the fire to get going properly but once it was up there was not a lot of time to nail this shot. People were on hand to watch the fire to signal Pat to move. It was pretty amazing and then the wind took it and made a big old fire vortex thing. Just to everyone is aware this was filmed in the middle of a damp field with people on hand to control the fire.

Next on the shot list were the bonfire solo shots. Once the fire was going we knew we only had like two takes of each person. Starting with James and finishing with Chris. It was pretty epic looking. And the heat coming off the fire was unreal. James ran as soon as he could even though we were a good 5+ meters away. Sadly no one brought marshmallows. These were probably some of my favourite shots from this shoot. Also, Chris Did his guitar swing and the fire popped as he slammed his foot down.

The last shots of the boys were shooting solos over and through a burning barrel. For this, I took the left side and Oli shot the right side. It was super smokey.

Once the narrative of the couple was finished it came the moment we had all been waiting for. Setting fire to the set. It took a while for the fire to get going properly but once it was up there was not a lot of time to nail this shot. People were on hand to watch the fire to signal Pat to move. It was pretty amazing and then the wind took it and made a big old fire vortex thing. Just to everyone is aware this was filmed in the middle of a damp field with people on hand to control the fire.

The last shot for the night was the car hitting scene. Now it isn’t as easy as you think to pretend to get hit by a car. Craig drove the car. after a few attempts, and myself pretending to show the body movements. the shot was done! No Jess’s was harmed in the making of this shot, however, I did scratch my apple watch when I showed her how to move. The light trail effect Oli used in the edit really makes this shot. Now it was time to go to get 3 hours of sleep before driving back down south early as Oli had another Video to film, What a machine. Oli went back the following week to shoot the corridor storm out seems and Chris’s home to really add to the narrative.

So yeah that’s a lot of what went on for the shoot of The Only Ones. As always if you have any questions feel free to drop me a DM. Cheers!

Charlie