end. So was it all in his mind? Or well…hopefully it’s going to be interesting…” We nod again, but in truth we’d lost Sam around the time he said (or, at least, we thought he said) “a kind of ‘trap’ sound of music.” Could he possibly mean the Sound of Music, and maybe an oblique reference to its sugar-coated stars, the Von Trapp family? Somehow we doubted it, but we thanked Sam for his time nonetheless and then set about the serious business of hanging around in the cold while the riggers continued to rig and the Director practised his directing. It was around this time that the crew’s generator popped a fuse. Actually, it didn’t quite do that, but what it did do was billow out clouds of dense white smoke as soon it was fired up. And the more it ran, the more smoke it belched. “Did they ask for a smoke machine?” the electrician asked wryly. The genny wasn’t the only casualty on the day. The Producer (the person ultimately responsible for pulling everything together) had compiled a list of problems which she and her team were hurriedly doing their best to resolve. As they did so, Tinie, arrived and promptly disappeared into a waiting camper van (presumably with a decent heater, as he didn’t re-emerge for ages) to have his hair done and prepare himself for his camera call. Some considerable time later the replacement generator arrived on the scene – only for the crew to discover someone had forgotten to put any fuel in it. More delays ensued while a runner was despatched to find a petrol station. The day continued to drag by interminably. Cold was replaced by Chill, only to be replaced by Freeze as we continued to hang on for the action to start. As we did so, the motorcycle stunt riders buzzed their bikes, pulling wheelies up and down one of the aerodromes old and potholed taxi ways, while the dancing girls practised their steps and shivered. With darkness looming, filming finally got underway. Too cold by now to care, we left them to it. We had our interview and enough behind the scenes shots to cover our story. We would leave it to Henry Scholfield, an “Amazing director…a very clever guy with amazing ideas,” according to Sam, to amaze us in due course. We made the right decision – we later heard that shooting carried on well into the night; it was apparently almost 11:00pm before Henry called it a wrap (or should that be rap in Tinie’s case…?) It would, we agreed amongst ourselves, be interesting and exciting to see the outcome despite what we had endured on the day. No matter how great the video, none of us would ever quite forget just how miserable the experience had been. The glitz and the glamour of the pop industry? Well, we didn’t see any of that, for sure. But maybe Henry and his crew did – just how would Tinie’s new video turn out? In the event, the outcome was totally different, poles apart from what had been planned. The faulty generator and the ensuing delay while a replacement was organised led to a total rethink by the production crew. With time running out, something had to give and the decision was taken to dispense with the truck sequence altogether. A great disappointment for Gary, of course, and we can only suppose that Tinie was irked at losing his dramatic transition scene. But such is life. In the same way that former Formula One driver Nigel Mansell’s ambitions were blown apart by a puncture in Adelaide in 1986, a simple equipment failure put paid to Gary’s video star aspirations. But, just like Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator (and Nigel in 1992, when he finally clinched the F1 World Championship) we’re confident Gary’s head-turning custom Scania truck will be back and basking in the limelight before long. Just make sure the generator works next time… A selection of photos from the day: from Dunsfold’s bleak runway (complete with pensioned off Jumbo Jet) to driving rain, burgers, burnouts and dancers, Tinie Tempah’s video proved to be a gruelling test for even the most hardy
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