Will Norman

0:00 [Applause]

0:05 hello thank you very much I'm will Norman I'm a director I direct music videos and promos and I'm here today to talk to you about music video that crosses the world of grime with the world of model Railways now I'm very aware that I'm in a room full of designers artists illustrators you people live and breathe Aesthetics Design's not really my remit but don't worry I've got you covered with a presentation that goes all out also thank you to it's nice that and nicer Tuesdays cuz this really is a big platform to Showcase my work all right there's a lot to talk about here but first why don't we watch some of the video boy I got B turned your back on the music now you're back on the music stop and go man was packing the snow then now man's packing for snow hot and cold man was spit on the pavement now man spit on the pavement young and old bro was whipping the mat now he's whipping the mat and roll you buil your world kick back and you living it never forget give back just a little bit couple them man Ain with the big fish so help them up don't act cuz you're in it unless they a masch work and a beging it back up the pack or worse and a shing it I ran the race came first I was leing it look up you see that c I'm ahead of it oh my days I got B oh my gosh I got B you know what I got all my days I goty I was too poor for tres before we two different levels in two different buildings on two different floors girl I got too many women so never return if you hit ♪

1:58 the all right [Applause]

2:07 so that's half of the video but you get the idea at this stage right.

2:08 So we'll start all of this off with a quick Grime history lesson.

2:13 This is JM me he's one of the biggest figures in Grime alongside his brother skepta he founded Boy better know the biggest Grime Collective and JM has this side to him.

2:25 That's really quite creative and out there with his music videos he's not afraid to really just go crazy so when he played me that tune which is really just infectiously fun I thought we can really push the boat out.

2:40 So I started by looking through some of my old music video ideas things that I've stored that are just waiting for the opportunity to come to life. And I saw this the London Underground themed model Railway I thought this can work it's vibrant it's fun it's definitely something I haven't seen before on a London Underground so let's go for it and as you can see photographic evidence I've all been fascinated with models and Miniatures and in my music videos before I've played with scale I've made people big and micro so it made sense but the thing about model Railways is they usually depict a quaint idilic Countryside scene and I really wanted to do something different I wanted to show grittier more realistic scenes from a city so it could include things like chicken shops or the poce or iconic Grime videos so I pitched the idea to JM me and he loved it to be honest at this point I really didn't know how I'm going to make it work but for me.

3:49 That's part of the excitement so I started with the Miniatures I started thinking about how I'm going to make them. And we're apparently in this age of instant AI creation where computers can do everything.

4:02 So I found this software that could take a 2D image and apparently turn it into a 3d figure so I took this 2D image of Asin who's the other artist on the track I cut him out I gave it to the software and the software gave me this the results not too impressive here's Ain here's jme looking absolutely horrific so instead I asked JM if he could make 3D scans of himself and Ain using an app called Luma Ai and it's really easy to use really fantastic you just use a phone go around someone or an object you can turn it into a 3D object is fantastic gave that to JM me and he did not disappoint so this is better now we're really on the right ♪

4:58 track but JM isn't the only one getting creative on this video actually the whole cast was really handson because once we've got those scans I sent them to cassus Kane who's the DP on this music video and he actually 3D printed them into Miniatures so there we've got JM me.

5:15 And we've got eight in and I thought that these two are looking a little bit lonely so I bought them some few friends that I found online hand painted them myself and put them in this cute little box I don't know why that's funny so now at this point in the video you could really say that we're gaining steam but now obviously we need a model Railway and as you can imagine getting a London Underground specific model Railway is really quite Niche hard to track down but through a ton of digging I found John Polly John Polly is King in the model Railway world World he's really a big shot here he is featured in the Metro and John and his team made one of the best model Railways you could ever see in Abby Road look at this beautiful detail you've got the red and blue carriages you've got the detailed tube stops you've even got High Street shops this really was gorgeous but during my digging I found an old foreign post announcing that JN and his team of model makers had had their creative differences and would go their separate ways a split I was heartbroken but I'd come this far I really wasn't going to be derailed so I persisted I gave John a call.

6:48 Anyway and thought maybe he's got some alternative ideas and as luck would have it John said that he and the model Railway boys were getting back together to release their first track in over for a decade a reunion.

7:03 This is Colton Vil again the blue and red carriages the tube stations it even came with London buses it had everything what's more John loved our video idea and said that his team could make it happen but the only day they could do the filming was the day of my best mate stago in lisb that's when cassus Kane stepped in and saved the day Cass said that him and the gaffa Adam would be able to manage the whole shoot by themselves and they hired out this a special starlink anteni that would get us internet anywhere so from the remote filming location I'd be able to remotely direct all the way from Lisbon and by the way cassus Kane is actually here tonight very nice cassus Kane doesn't just happen to have one of the best names you ever hear in your life he's also one of the nicest guys one of the most talented DPS and more than anything he just really cares about what he does as you can see he's gone above and beyond numerous times in this.

8:18 And I think that's one of the keys just find people who really care another person who really cares is Eric barbarini he's shooting here tonight he's got a lot of friends lot lot of Eric fans in the house and Eric's been a a friend of mine for a long time always been a really good sounding board for ideas and actually last week we went out for a drink and I showed him this and to get some feedback and he gave me so many helpful notes obviously the part where I Praise Him extensively is not included in that. So in short I would like to say surround yourself with people who really care or be selective with who you chew choose yeah sorry about that I'm not proud of that one all right back to the video the plan was in motion the shoot was set up the stago had begun so whilst my mates were out on the streets of Portugal I'm in a hotel lobby on a 6-hour zoom call to direct this miniature shoot and here are the model Railway boys this is fun so here we have Roger Robert but it was our leading man Howard who really stole the show I got get this right I got I've got bar are we saying I got bar or I got bars bar oh sorry that's right we can reset very such a complicated script I mean you know I used to do hand lits what's happened to me can I have a tele prompt for this cuz it's a bit complicated there's a piece of paper that says I've got bars on it.

9:58 So I got BM so good all right here we have some BTS this is Cass shooting on a slider that just enables us to get these really nice tracking shots in tandem with the train you'll also notice we're shooting on this very peculiar looking probe lens now this. Basically just means we can get really close to the Miniatures and feel like we're part of this model world but my favorite shot was not none of these it was this.

10:30 This is eights in riding in the carriage and to do this we simply placed a 360 camera inside of one of those carriages and just pushed it along the track oh I love that sound I love that sound all right. So after six hours on a zoom call the miniature shoot was wrapped Cass and Adam packed up I said a big obado to the model Railway boys and finally headed out to rejoin the stago again I got moves okay. So finally we had our backgrounds but now we needed to actually get jme and as into this model Railway world.

11:23 So we set up a separate green screen shoot that's a blue screen this is a green screen that's me. That's me.

11:34 That's me. That's not me and over here we have a computer set up with OBS that's a streaming software and we're using that because it's got a live chroma key function with that we can basically cut out the green background and see what the shots are going to look like which means we can instantly preview the hottest link up the hottest collab of 2024 jme X Howard and I have to say that both jme and aim were fantastic on the day they gave us so many good energetic performances yeah all right and move sweet and move sweet and move and you know the drill sweet and move sweet and move no that's not enough mate more more more degrees than that yeah sweet and move sweet and move that's right I'm telling you the truth scandalous all right. So now it's a simple case of editing all of this together.

12:41 So we take the shots we comp out our cast we delicately place them into this model Railway world.

12:46 But we noticed that the backdrops here are a bit too dingy this is basically a small shed that we shot in and really when I envisioned this idea I thought about something grander basically like a fullscale replica of London. But in miniature so we did background Replacements and I'm cutting out the background there. And I'm swapping them for these now these I know these are lovely these are basically like Lo London model Museum murals that I made in mid Journey and I made that.

13:23 And I made this. And I also use mid journey to generate those other AI cutaway scenes such as tower bridge and an estate and the iconic Grime videos so here we of course have skepta shut down and unknown t homon b which is technically drill but we're not going to get into that. And we have side by sides and again and of course we need to have storm Z shut up now calling these Grime videos is really doing the med disa service they're more like cultural touch points these were huge videos huge moments so that's why I included them and these took ages to generate in mid Journey so I'm not going to go into detail about how I did that but for anyone interested I'll probably do a breakdown on my Instagram so you can see it there so at this stage we've pretty much got all the images in this video I take them all over to Chris Bell at wash London who creates an incredibly vibrant and beautiful grade that really unifies all these disparate shots together.

14:31 So we're almost there we're almost done I show JM the video and he has one small change he wants the words I got bars to pop up whenever we hear that initially he's thinking maybe we do blue maybe we do pink letters but I had a different direction in mind now I'm at this talk essentially about art.

14:53 So I need to tell you what it's like to be an artist okay as an artist when you're creating art it's incredibly important to take inspiration from anywhere my music videos before this had been influenced by the mind-bending monochromatic work of mcer or sometimes it was the Stark black and white evocative images of German expressionism and for TMNT it was the darkest reference of them all Enid bighton magnumopus NY the little man with the red and yellow ♪

15:35 car nodding I really want to watch all 40 seconds of that.

15:40 But we can't I'd actually been watching that clip so many times during the Mak the feel of it the tone of it is just right it's oh gorgeous.

15:49 So it felt right to be able to pay a Marge to Enid bighton by actually copying that beautiful bubble lettering and having it here. And I want to give a quick shout out to witty boy for creating these letters they're lovely and of course a quick shout out to Enid Bon for creating nauy so that's it the video's done jm's delighted aton's delighted Howard's delighted John Polly is delighted and Howard actually asks if he can get a signed copy of the track but here jme goes above and beyond he does one better and actually sends Howard a signed London Underground train complete with custom BBK graffiti look at this and by the way those trains are not cheap you can go on eBay and see how much I'm not going to say the number but they are expensive and actually I think that illustrates one of the points I'd like to make work with people who are great people who are open to these kind of ideas I've been really lucky to work with artists like jme manga stair Big Zoo power man really talented artists who are just open to sometimes potentially making themselves look silly but when it pays off it's it's really good so thank you to those guys so that's it we're actually at the end of the line thank you very much I'm will Norman and I got bars