BTS: Warriors Music Video
20th MAY 2013
CoCo and the Butterfields' new music video Warriors will be marching triumphantly onto our Youtube channel from 22nd August 2013. The video transports the viewer to the fantasy world of Erebos, following the story of central characters played by the band members, on their journey through a tale of turmoil and conflict. The story is fast-paced, harking to themes from largescale productions such as Lord of the Rings, Robin Hood and Game of Thrones, a world of kings, magic and most importantly, warriors. Not quite having the budget of such endeavors, however, producing Warriors was a great test of the band's resourcefulness!
The Erebos map was largely designed by band frontman Tom Twyman, artfully scribed onto a scrap of leather by banjoist 'Handsome Rob' Wicks. The human name 'Erebos' derives from Greek mythology as a term for 'deep darkness' or 'shadow', as a fantasy extension of the band "shadow puppets" motif. It was only later that the similarity with "Erebor" from Middle Earth was pointed out, but Tolkien probably had the same idea to be fair.
As work began on the video itself, the story was designed around "sync" points in the song. That way, a shot list and storyboard could be developed with the right sort of lengths in mind.
Locations were all to be found in the band's home county of Kent.
The array of intricate costumes were all made from scratch by violinist and frontwoman Dulcima Showan, no stranger to textile design, as she often performs in clothes she has created herself.
Everyone in the band contributed to the devising and building of the props, mostly fashioned from discarded materials and a helpful wood full of twigs.
Here, we see Tom adding some of the final creative touches by artfully hitting the tribe hut with a tall stick. Production on day 2 was stalled momentarily as some number of these harmless props were heartily and inexorably consumed by resident goats.
The support actors and extras in Warriors are all friends and family of the band, who were kindly forced to volunteer their assistance. The band were keen however to extend an invitation to Orlando Bloom, once Canterbury resident and star of the Lord of the Rings film series, to see if he would fancy taking up his bow once more in Warriors. Maybe next time, Orlando.
The "stunt" horses were provided and supervised by a local equestrian society. The sudden arrival of 5 armed and mounted soldiers charging up and down the common raised eyebrows, to say the least.
Camera work, hasty VFX and editing were undertaken by manager Danford Showan, making the project completely autonomous, and certainly among the most ambitious of DIY music videos. A large greenscreen was constructed in order to film and replicate numerous soldiers, with other crowd techniques used to replicate items like the pyramidal huts in "Amiclud".
CoCo and the Butterfields are very pleased to champion hard work and creativity in the face of such challenges, without the need for great expenditure, as well as the do-it-yourself attitude that underlies many of their projects.
The Warriors video will be available on Youtube from Aug 22, 2013.
