Chapter 14: The Videos - Show 2 - Cameras, Cameras, Everywhere

As announced earlier there was going to be some videos shot during the concert tour. It was going to be one more product that Bill could add to the business. "The Girls Playground Music Inc." would be doing more than just music. The first release would be on tape but as soon as the DVD format gelled, Bill was already planning on that medium as well.

They all sat down before the second show which was the first to have cameras on the stage. The girls were a little concerned about the camera people getting in the way, but Kenny, the video producer, assured them that the camera people doing the handheld work would be away from them as much as possible doing close in shots using a zoom feature on the cameras, but they would get close at times. The "trainees" would not be doing any close in work.

He told them if there was an issue during these preliminary tests, to point them out so that it could be fixed for the later "live" runs. The close in guys are all professionals and this isn't their first rodeo, they know what they're doing and have no problem dealing with the musician's requests.

After the video briefing the band all sat down to review the play list for the second show to make sure it was adequate for a video run. For videos they wanted to make sure that they played some relatively difficult music showing what they could do. After about a two-hour discussion they came up with the following list that they were all happy with.

Show 2 Set 1 41:18

The Feeling Begins - Peter Gabriel

Strange Brew - Cream

Lady - Beck, Bogart & Apice

Jive Talkin' - Bee Gees

Heart of Glass - Blondie

The House is Rockin' - Brian Setzer -- Big Band version

For What it's Worth - Buffalo Springfield

Forty Thousand Headmen - Traffic

Jamie's Cryin' - Van Halen

Dance Hall Days - Wang Chung

Werewolves of London - Warren Zevon

My Future's So Bright... - Timbuk3

Low Rider - War

Show 2 Set 2 41:24

Freedom '90 - George Michael

Won't Get Fooled Again - The Who

Lola - Kinks -- Sing along

Playin' with the Boys - Kenny Loggins

Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin' - Journey

Whatever gets you through the night - John Lennon

Forbidden Fruit - Leah West

Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin

Show 2 Set 3 42:45

Fanfare for the common man - ELP

Timothy Leary - Moody Blues

Dance Sister Dance - Santana

Dueling Banjos - From Deliverance - Done by Heather and Maryanne/switching once

Beach Boys Medley 22:37

Be True To Your School

Dance, Dance, Dance

Catch a Wave

Little Deuce Coupe

Fun, Fun, Fun

Shut Down

Surfin' Safari

Surfin' USA

Surfer Girl

In My Room

California Girls

Encore - (2) 13:08

Walking towards Paradise - Robert Plant

Dust in the Wind - Kansas

Where Have all the Flowers Gone - Kingston Trio

Find the Cost of Freedom - CSN (Acoustic) -- Vocals a Capella

In choosing that list their level of difficulty went up tenfold from the first show the night before. Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, Moody Blues, Big Band music, Stairway to Heaven, Won't get Fooled Again were all very musically intense pieces. Chelly would be spotlighted on much of it because ELP was orchestrated with synth, Moody Blues would have to be synth for the orchestra, and she'd have to play the orchestral part of the Big Band selection. Then Heather would be featured in Stairway to Heaven. Chell was also going to play the simple synth routine in "Won't Get Fooled Again" which the Who couldn't seem to do without a tape player on the stage. Everybody was going to be highlighted on that piece including Bob.

Show number two in San Francisco was upping the ante by a lot, but the girls were excited about the program. They knew the music cold and it was challenging which really brought out the best and made them shine the brightest. Those lucky enough to have been able to get tickets for both shows were going to be stunned by the second show. If they thought they were impressed Friday night, wait until things play out on Saturday night.

Videos would introduce the girls to people that couldn't get to a concert or afford tickets. As quickly as the shows were selling out there was a demand that live shows couldn't meet, at least on a schedule that Bob was willing to put the girls on.

Bob was being very careful to make sure Bill didn't over schedule the girls live performances. Bill being on the tour with them helped him keep his perspective. Bob knows how easy it is to get "burned out" on the road. The last band had taken on a fourteen-month two hundred eighty-show tour, which almost had them in a different city every night. It's one of the things that caused the band to split up.

That tour had been so grueling that by the end all the members were at each other's throats. The petty bickering wore them down more than anything else for the last few months of the tour. Oh, they made a LOT of money, but at what cost?

There was no way Bob was going to allow that to happen this time for any amount of money. Bill and Bob didn't really need any more money. The girls were quite happy with the income they were already getting from their talents. There was no reason to burn them out with overly ambitious tours. The prospect of the international "Around the World" tour was daunting enough, and he knew the weeks they were going to schedule in Hawaii would be badly needed by the time that tour was over. He had warned the girls about over extending, and they took it to heart, so when Bill scheduled four short tours a year, they were not unhappy. Each tour was between two and eight weeks and had eighteen to twenty five shows. The girls still made a lot of money but held on to their sanity. Some will argue the point but money can't buy your sanity back, and even if it could, what's it worth?

So to meet the demand of the public, bring on videos.

They started acclimating the girls to a camera crew at the second show. There was a hand full of roadies that didn't have any activities once they had set up their assigned equipment, so they were given instruction on doing camera work. There would be at least 18 cameras shooting the highest quality video that was possible at the time.

Eighteen cameras you ask? Yes eighteen cameras.

They wanted to capture everything they could get so that the producer would have a multitude of shots to cut with. There were three cameras in front of the stage, one on the right, one on the left and one in the center. Those cameras were duplicated further back in the venue, usually much higher up and into the balcony of the hall. Those six cameras were on remotely controlled X-Y-Z axis mounts so that the video "producer" could sit in the booth, move and focus each individually with a joystick and a knob.

There were to be another three cameras that were on the X-Y-Z axis mounts that were to either side and slightly behind and above Janell to be able to catch all of her drum action as well as other activities on the stage. There was also one on the same kind of mount directly behind and way above Janell that could pan the entire stage and audience.

Something Jan never compromised or really thought about until the first video came out for their review was what she wore to work. There were a few chuckles, but about the middle of the second set it was very obvious that Jan was soaking in sweat. It was also noticed that she was constantly drinking from the water bottles or Gatorade. It gave everyone an additional appreciation of Jan's abilities and physical condition. The young woman worked her ass off every performance. Afterwards she was as "bouncy" and energized as during the first few numbers of the show and that was after two and a half hours of work. She was soaked to the skin, but not even breathing hard.

The other nine or ten cameras were hand held. Five were in the control of "professional camera people" and the newly trained roadies would handle the other four.

Each hand held would be "steered" by the producer using a small radio link to each individual. When he wanted a particular shot, he'd call the camera that he'd staged for that area of the stage and tell them what he wanted. That camera would do what was requested until the producer confirmed it was in the right place and to hold the shot for now. The inexperienced road crew personnel handled these kinds of shots from a distance, but by the fourth show, they were also veterans of camera work and it showed in the video quality obtained. They certainly weren't pros yet, but their work improved at each show, and by the end of the tour Kenny alluded to being able to use them for other camera work.

Those four roadies were filming every concert. The rest of the crew didn't always come to all the shows and what the four roadies did was fill work. Similar to an audio fill-in, video works the same way. The overall producer would give them a list of things he'd like for them to capture so that at the end of the tour it could all be mixed into a cohesive film. The fixed 10 cameras were also at each show, and Billy would manipulate them at times to focus in on something that was happening so that the producer would have that to look at and use if he wanted. It turned out that Bill was pretty good at working with video as well as audio.

One of the problems the video crews and producer had was that the girls didn't play the same music or sequence at each show. The exceptions were the encore and the Beach Boys Medleys. Some of the tunes they did were repeated in those thirty scripted sets, but not very many, so if the producer needed a fill in for a specific song he'd ask the girls to play it at some point in the show. They would always insert it somewhere so the cameras could get the shots. They also managed to tell the camera people before hand where the tune would be in the sequence so they could be ready to fill the producers request.

Individual close ups were done by the 5 professional camera operators. They were familiar with how to get close in shots of each musician without disturbing or distracting them.

It was interesting to watch the girl's reactions to having cameras that first time. Bob thought Maryanne was going to falter during the opening because the camera was nearly in her face to catch her playing the doudouk, but she managed to ignore the distraction and carried it off perfectly. She did mention it after the show.

After each show the entire crew would meet and discuss the methods, what worked, what didn't, and this was the opportunity for the girls to express their feelings about having a camera that close while she was playing. Adjustments were made, so that some of the close ups were done with zoom equipment so the operator could stand back a little further allowing the subject to play without having to worry about running into a camera.

That made a big difference in the process of filming, so when all the raw video was reviewed and the music mixed with it no one would know that the camera was fifteen feet away when it showed a close up of one of the girls faces during a tune. There were times when the camera had to be close to get the effect, but the girls knew ahead that the cameraman was going to move in close so were ready for the intrusion. It all worked very well in the end.

You would think that the girls were professional actresses the way they handled the camera crews after about the third or fourth go around. They seemed oblivious to the filming going on and just did their "act" the way they would if there wasn't a film crew crawling all over the stage. If you asked them, they would tell you that they just ignored the cameras. Their comment was, "even when they were "in our face", we were busy doing something, so it was fairly easy to just "pretend" that they weren't there.

Of course it took a few shows before they could do that, but it was the reason Bob and Bill had scheduled the beginning at show two. They wanted the girls to be very comfortable with the camera when it came time to do the "complete show" video."

Other than Jan, none of them was particularly over active while playing; I mean Heather didn't jump around like Pete Townsend. Chelly and Maryanne were a bit more animated, but they had varying things to do. Bob? Ever see John Entwistle? For the most part that's about all the action you got from Bob, but like anything there were exceptions, but it seemed it was part of the "fun" act they did because they'd all dance around together.

They also played to each other as much as they played for the audience, and it was very obvious that the entire band really enjoyed what they were doing. Bob sang songs to each of the girls at some point. Everly Brothers, "Let It Be Me", Jefferson Airplane, "Today", and a multitude of others. The girls would sing certain songs to him as well making it obvious, even to a casual observer, that there were a lot of feelings between the band members.

They talked about filming the instrument swap medley just to see what it looked like. They would bring the film crew into their "Playground" to do the filming on the medley. Playroom three was large enough that the camera crew could work it like a stage. The fixed cameras were no problem either, so there was some consistency in the look. That session could be used as an extra on a tape, but when DVD's were out they could put all kinds of things on a disk. It would have to be a two-tape set, but that's all right, it would bring more income.

Then it was on to Seattle, Portland, San Diego and LA before returning to San Francisco to close out the tour. Maryanne's folks attended the second San Diego show while Judy, with Janell's mom and brother, attended the second show in LA. All thoroughly enjoyed the performances their daughters had put on and were beaming with pride when the shows were over.

In San Diego, the Ellis' danced around backstage with the roadies and probably passed a doobie around with the group while enjoying the performance. They seemed to be pretty stoned by the end of the show and Maryanne just looked at them and laughed.

Looking at her father with a big grin she asked, "Enjoy the show stony?"

He sheepishly looked at her and nodded his head with a huge "shit eating grin" on his face. Must have been a "Sativa" and not an "Indica"...

In LA Michelle and Janell's moms were a little more subdued, but not a whole lot! It was very apparent that all the parents were having a lot of fun.

It was during the second night of the fourth stop, in Los Angeles they ran through an entire filming sequence. They tried a couple of the things they had been working on to see how they played on video. This was to be the "first" live video that was supposed to be recorded for release, but the last show in SF was the targeted performance in reality. All the other stuff was practice to get the girls used to cameras.

Most of that practice video wasn't usable but there were a couple numbers they did in Seattle that were priceless and would either make the "show" video or be one of the out take bonus extras.

One was an interchange between Michelle and Maryanne. They were both doing the keyboards, Michelle working the synth while Maryanne played it straight at least in the beginning. Bob and the others didn't know that they had practiced this so it was a total surprise when they began their "act". Bob and Heather were both blown away by the routine and Janell, unflappable Janell, just played right with it like nothing out of the ordinary was happening.