Ask for help

My friend Bruno got asked at a wedding if he could help a teacher’s students with a music video they had been working on, he said yes in a general way and then forgot about it. When he ran into the woman again at a funeral and she asked again he had to commit.

So he called in some favours - John Ashmore to be director of photography and tonnes of equipment from another friend for sound, lights, etc. They shot the kids’ dance routine like a professional video and then it fell on me to do the editing.

I’d prevaricated, knowing it was going to be a good few days solid work - unpaid, at the end of a contract with all the uncertainty of not knowing where my next job would come from. But then I generally go over to hang out and drink beers at least once a week anyhow and we’ve been windbagging for years about ‘collaborating’ instead of just downing sodies and lying to each other about our big plans.


The footage was beautiful and the kids put their hearts into it. Their dancing was so well synchronized that once the footage was lined up cutting from shot to shot went pretty smoothly - the hours piled up, but it was fun - we were going to give these kids a present of a professional music video for the time we’d be shooting the breeze anyhow. Who knew what kind of impact that might have? Would it encourage one of them to become a dancer? A filmmaker? Or just be a fun experience from their years at primary school?




And what it got me thinking was that I hoped it would possibly teach them, in some small way, that if you need help, ask. Because people like to help. It’s making all the crew happy to share their skills, and at the end of the day it’s going to be a nice little product so it might actually serve to attract other work.

http://youtu.be/6kZnrTb3d1Y