Charley Weber Portfolio

Like a lot of creative people, my first love was really for music and as a kid I was surrounded by no shortage of amazing talent to observe and admire. Dad, a friend of Jimi Hendrix, had persuaded him to let dad shoot a multi-camera 16mm film of Jimi and Traffic performing at the Christmas on Earth festival (1967) at the Olympia Exhibition Hall. That is how I became taken by Jimi, his music, his presence – a whirlwind of talent –  and also exposed to film, by accompanying dad to the Wardor street editing house tasked with putting the film together and making changes. As I recall, his notes were mostly to make the mix louder and get rid of any medium or head shots of Jimi, seemingly to avoid making the unforgivable mistake the studios made with Elvis in forbidding the cameras to film him and the spirit from the waist on down, his gyrating hips being considered a corrupting influence in the 1950s. This was the sixties and a very different ball game.

I write in detail about what it felt like to grow up around musical genius’ in Ragamuffin’s Tale: growing up in counterculture, people like George Harrison, Jimi Hendrix, Steve Winwood, as well as the Stones, who we ended up being page boys for at Mick and Bianca’s wedding. It was pretty remarkable, but it had its darker sides as well, as mum, dad and many of our creative friends got into trouble experimenting with drugs or more precisely got into trouble when the drugs started using them as opposed to the other way around. This book is more about adult experiences mainly in film, but also in live music events overseas and how I hopefully reflected some of that creativity back unto my work, as an adult. Although I wouldn’t place myself in that category of successful iconic artists, I am endlessly curious about how things and particularly creativity works, so in some ways, at least since taking a Master’s in Digital Arts and Tech, a reasonably qualified observer and explainer of how creative people, skills, systems and different places do work.

When I left school it was the fashion to play reggae and ska. Although it was a lot of fun, and much weed was smoked in any number of extended jam sessions, musically I noticed nothing much was developed. So eventually, knowing I wanted to work in or around music, and in a more structured way, living a hundred yards from one of London’s most exclusive showcase and rehearsal spaces, Nomis Studios, I put two and two together and decided to try my hand at making music videos instead, because with the introduction of MTV, in my mind there was clearly going to be a considerable demand.

Although I still record and publish music, apart from a few pieces in film and documentary,  I found it almost impossible to earn a living from it, and possibly from the daunting prospect of having to follow some of the acts I grew up with, on leaving school and having been partially exposed to music film through Watch Out For Your Ears, the performance film dad shot with Hendrix, I decided to try my hand in that field.

However, so clueless was I about the process of making film when I started out, that for the first video I made, for a young George Micheal lookalike, whose father was also a Greek restauranteur, using a three tube JVC camera and a ¾ inch U-matic deck in a studio with a single spotlight, my unusual process initially was to record one shot at a time to music playback and then move the camera setup around the performer to ‘expose’ or build up shots recorded sequentially one at a time, which I pre-rolled into to an editing recorder attached to the infernal camera which was forever slipping out of registration. Up until fairly recently, with the advent of large memory chips, editing video was a more complex affair, which used analogue tape to record on and required at least two tape decks, one as a source machine, and a second recording or editing machine and a video controller. If you wanted to create a dissolve or a fade, you needed three tape decks. Two to play and one to record the cross mix of the two analogue signals. Now we record straight to hard drive or memory chip, and you don’t need the collection of tape decks.

Suffice it to say that my first film was pretty awful as far as music videos go, but fortunately the client, who like Michaels was the son of a wealthy Greek restauranteur, was so enamoured by the vision of himself recorded on camera, like Narcissus he was blinded by self love, it made him oblivious to any other artistic considerations. Which for me meant I somehow got paid. Although it wasn’t a huge amount, being artistically a critical, perhaps being exposed to great artists growing up, I might have thought twice about paying the invoice in full.

The process of shooting and editing for film or video are similar, in that both require capturing multiple takes of each setup or scene with which later to log, edit and notate the strongest takes to then assemble in the edit from time code and your visual notes. If you are shooting on film, there is an additional stage of transferring to a video or digital master reels and editing reels, which are encoded with timecode, you can use to create an offline edit. Generally the process follow the same rules developed from earliest experimentation in film storytelling, after producing penny whistle arcade content, which were flip card or Zoetropes, from silent films, followed by colour and voiced Hollywood produced extravaganza like Ben Hur (An Empire of Their Own – How the Jews Created Hollywood), the process has essentially remained the same. 

The nineties were a boom time for freelancers in film, so much so that I was so busy at a certain point my dreams were imprinted with visual timecode across the bottom.

Suffice it also to say that, while digital tech for film advanced in strides during the eighties and nineties, with non-linear editing systems, :like Avid entering the market, for much of that time as editors we were still working on ¾ inch Umatic tapes to create a locked picture cut, as creative or offline editors. We would then pass on an edit decision list for producers to conform the final, high resolution, broadcast print with dissolves and titles in a much more expensive online suite. They follow a process of artistic and technical learned evolution and development.

The next stage of my evolution or progress as a music film maker, was to rent a small office down the road at Nomis studios, although I wasn’t quite ready technically and creatively yet. It was a tiny office, surprisingly inexpensive and I presumed being in that environment of professional touring bands might exponentially increase my chances of success. Sure enough, when I moved in I met the manager of the Smiths, my literal office door neighbour. Not a bad start. 

When I had gained a little more experience as a producer, being commissioned to produce a classically shot 16mm music video under the mentorship and guidance of my main cameraman, Steve Organ, on examining the results, I began to get an idea of what I liked and didn’t like from each medium, creatively and technically and where I hoped to improve in order to cater to the new demand for music videos and manager’s market flowing through Nomis. Definitely the tube cameras, with their registration issues and uninspiring image reproduction were a problem and needed improving. I could upgrade to an Ikegami, high end broadcast tube camera, incredibly expensive, which still required calibration and registration before a shoot, or explore new CCD chip cameras which were  just starting to enter the market. The process of carefully researching actual camera image outputs, and not just going with the market leaders, I still use before buying. The market leaders aren’t at all necessarily the best. The best, which to me meant more of a film look, warm and flat, not too buzzy from frame interpolation, with artefacts often giving slightly pastel and overdriven colours, turned out not to be from Sony or Ikegame, but from new innovative Panasonic’s chip cameras.  I bought three of those, a JVC vision mixer and a CEL video frame processor which created a Genlock or black burst signal to sync all the cameras up with before they entered the mixer, so that when I mixed or cross faded, the signals remain stable,  not wobble when the frames and fields tried to synchronise into a harmonious multi-camera stream.

For the market at that time, which was for new bands with management contracts, so some backing,  but not full record company deals, there was no better way for a music act to enter the fray and showcase their acts than a strong song combined with a decent video showcasing the band performing in a live stage set. However, not shot traditionally like a gameshow, in my view the main tv shows like Top Of the Pops still operated like that, but with an edgier, more rock n roll film style; with dynamic camera moves, on a live stage with stage lights and all the chaos captured in a performance, followed up with a few edits to tighten things up in post production.

The new Panasonic image sensors and cameras – now mostly branded under Lumix – helped a lot and by experimenting with the settings on the timebase corrector, I was able to arrive much closer to approximating the textured look of film, by removing one of the interpolated video fields – which if you were working at the BBC would be a definite no no, but working independently was not a problem and removed the ‘buzz’ in video – which asthetically is awful but technically offers higher resolution. The interlaced HD format is still often used in films shot by inexperienced directors and cinemtagrophers. Even with a great director and cast, I find films shot on interpolated HD difficult to watch and enjoy, as they remind me of a version of old UK or Soviet era TV programming – dull, low budget and lacklustre pop videos, soap operas and TV dramas.

Of the first acts we filmed in this way, with several passes of a live vision mix, then edited using the multi-cam takes or an isolated recording running on one of the cameras, after the first day of production it quickly became apparent that we were onto something. After a few edits I invited the managing director of Nomis into my by then larger office and David after watching some of the videos agreed, this was a great system and offering something new for the managers and their new bands, or even more established acts looking to market and showcase new material or projects.

The walk-in trade generated by shooting in a place like Nomis helped attract the attention of artists and managers who were either rehearsing next door for a tour or showcasing a new act on the large showcase or A stage, which we often used to shoot. A major walk in was Roger Taylor, from Queen, who later developed into a client for a larger project. Of the established acts who became clients and shot videos for there, they included: The Anti Nowhere League, a punk band and singer who at the time wrote an album called ‘The Perfect Crime’, which was a thematic almost punk prog-rock album, detailing his attempts to break free of a ruthless biker gang which in his youth he had pledged a lifetime oath of allegiance to and which he was having a hard time breaking free from. Although Animal now laughs at his attempts to distance himself from his edgier earlier days as a biker, it was powerful to hear is story.

ELP under Sun Arts Management performing as Emerson, Berry & Palmer – with a new singer and a reworking of The Byrds’ ‘Eight Miles High’ was a blast. They brought along to the set a trio of supermodels banging on huge timpani drums, somewhat in the vein of ‘Addicted to Love’ ; David Cassidy became a client with a powerful song called ‘All Because of You’ Written and performed by he and his wife, a talented and established songwriter in her own right,  Sue Schiffrin. Imagining David would perform as an older version of the character he played in the Partridge Family, before he went on stage I gave David a confidential pep talk, important but limited direction not to hold back during the performance – to go for it!  As it turned out I needn’t have worried, as seasoned performers, he and Sue tore up the stage. Had I known more about where they were coming from,  I might have toned down any direction to say ‘You were only meant to blow the bloody doors off’. We got more than enough strong performing material to edit a good video to accompany their extremely strong pop/rock duet release. Roger Taylor, who was releasing a solo project under the name of The Cross, became a client offering a more substantial budget. Having recently spent several hundreds of thousands on a huge video for his first release – Cowboys & Indians – Roger was curious and also impressed at the results we got on such a tight budget, so suggested a mid-range budget project, for his second single release off the album through Virgin Records.

Of the lesser known but still fascinating new bands we produced videos for: The Wonderstuff, who were actually already signed to Polydor in 1987 and about to unleash their talents on the world with Eight Legged Groove Machine. They stood out and  impressed with a great track ‘I Didn’t Like You Very Much When I Met You ‘. Who embodied a we could really care less about all this image stuff, a very grunge punk attitude. Another standout track and performance was by Dark City, signed to Virgin, ‘Busted’. They were from a band managed by Mim Scala, an old friend from Nellcote and his management company. 

The key to the concept or model was to assemble an unusually good crew of three cameramen, inside a rented showcase studio, plus a live lighting rig and guy, and split the costs between 3-5 management companies or bands in one day. I would direct and vision mix live and tidy up the edits in post. still seems a good working model for starting out. 

All of those acts we managed to shoot, edit and deliver videos and get paid for. Although after a while the amount of story you can actually tell in performance video did feel like it was creatively limiting. Which is when you may begin to think about more explorative, narrative driven developmental areas of filmmaking. 

You may instead choose to grow your business into a live performance outfit shooting events and stadiums or live broadcasts. 

The Cha Cha Club 

In order to grow and expand into more narrative storytelling, for me it meant brainstorming ideas with a friend, John De Borman, a features lighting cameraman I grew up knowing in Shepherds Bush, who shot films like the Full Monty. He became the head of the British Cinematographers Association and was connected to at least one of London’s big music video production companies, Limelight, who we ended up making a music video for at a slightly elevated budget, although not a remarkable artist or song, but through Limelight, using me as the producer and John as director.

John brought a lot of experience and was also well connected with the Chelsea Arts Club circle, actors and creative people in London, like Cleo Roccos of The Kenny Everett Show and Madam Whiplash fame, as well as a talented comedic actor, later turned director, Peter Chelsom. What we came up with was a semi-structured format, with a few plants and characters, with scenes sketched out but improvisatory for the actors and still a very rock and roll TV show, which ended up with us producing The Cha Cha Club.

The show revolved around a fictitious couple of owners who fronted a club and its slightly Latin influenced party house band, lead by Cleo Roccos and Dominic, her male musical partner in real life in their busy Chelsea events performing outfit. The main comedy plant came from a character played by Peter Chelsom, Monty Carlo – a play on the producer Carlo Ponti. Monty was an over-the-hill film director who never seems to have any money and is forever blagging free drinks, while telling tall tales about his work in the movie business. Cleo Roccos played it straight, as herself, and was the main foil as she and Dominic might stop at the bar between for a drink to chat with Monty and Frank the barman flown in from Stringfellows New York. Each episode had two guest live bands – which for the pilot were Matt Bianco and Then Jericho.

Technically the equipment and cameras we used for the Cha Cha Club were the same, but except we took over the top showcase  floor area of Nomis, including the waiting area, which the art department transformed into a club bar area, and because of the crowd or live audience we needed to shoot around and in front of, for a semi live TV show, it was crucial to have communication and talkback between the cameras and vision mixer or director of the shoot and the actors navigating the various comedy setups we had planned in our rough, partly improvised script.

If you are thinking of shooting a semi-live but partly improvised tv or internet show on the hoof, you will need a talk back system to navigate through the chaos. At the time we used a crystal set loop of wire which encircled the whole shooting or stage area. Anyone within that loop of wire with an earpiece could pick up direction from the mixing or mobile desk. Although using crystal set tech – a sort of battery-less radio system – it isn’t always easy to hear clearly over the noise of a crowd,  I’m sure there are now much easier Bluetooth and wireless systems you can use much more effectively and also affordably.

Editing your own project or work is not something I would recommend, as you may already be too close to what you wanted to see in your head or need a break from the project and will benefit from a fresh set of eyes and a good editor. So as the Producer/Editor I found that very challenging and after a week or two, the first cut I showed the lead cameraman, Steve Organ and the director and lighting cameraman, John De Borman, was pretty lacklustre. They weren’t impressed and so I went back to work and after a few weeks managed to pull a tighter cut together. Although not perfect, the show had a lot of potential and a more rock n roll heart or soul – than a mainstream TV production – which we were aiming for.

When we finished the shoot and edit I sent a bunch of ¾ Inch screeners out to likely TV and production companies, like Channel 4 and MTV, hired a screening room in Wardour street and invited as many journalists, family friends and the crew to the screening as possible. From all of this effort we managed to get one fairly decent write up from Time Out. Which was followed by several weeks or even months of no response from the TV companies. During this time however,  I managed to get through to the head of MTV in the UK and set up a meeting with him. He liked what he saw but said to get a production with MTV I’d have to meet with  the head of programming at Viacom, the MTV parent company located in New York.

I explained all this and my frustration at the lack of any response from the UK TV companies to Cleo one day while driving her home from Nomis, trundling through London in the production van. Cleo ever a bright spark, came up with an interesting idea which driving her home to Chelsea, which was to hold a Cha Cha Club preview party in NYC at Stringfellows, the manager of which in London owed her a favour, which he’d said to call in if ever she needed to. She was never just a pretty face, at all, even on the Kenny Everett show, she was incredibly clever, although she leant into the airhead role perfectly. I asked her to explain the reasoning and string of events behind this very interesting sounding clubland favour. Cleo explained that one night out at Stringfellows London, she spotted the leader of the Liberal Party, David Steel, working the press and cameras which looked like he was working on his appeal to younger voters. Observing this with the manager and sensing an opportunity for the perfect press storm.

She told the London Stringfellows manager to hold her drink as in her considerable charms she made her way over to where the leader of the Liberal party was engaged with a member of the ever hungry British tabloid press and a foot or two away from this iconic politician, she lost her footing, tripped and landed her considerable breasts directly onto the face of Sir David Steele, causing a maelstrom of flashbulbs to capture the magic moment in 35mm which were then spread across the front pages of most front pages of  the press the following day. The amount of the resulting entirely free national publicity was such that the club manager felt compelled to offer a return favour, if ever she needed one. Cleo’s point was just that, with the amount of work we’d put into the pilot and the interview with MTV Europe, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to call in that favour, if she could swing it, to organise a preview screening party for the Cha Cha club at Stringfellows in New York. So she called in the favour and I set up a meeting with the Viacom executive in New York.