As another shoot passes in an attempt to keep my Lyric Project moving forward I am left feeling a little concerned I may have permanently scarred my lovely and ace model for the day!
Allow me to explain further. My idea was to shoot two lyrics from the same song. The Script’s “The End Where I Begin”. The two lines – “Sometimes tears say all there is to say” and “Sometimes we’ve no choice but to walk away”. The song itself is one that describes love and the after effects of it going wrong. Most of us have been there at some point. The song itself really has a positive message in that our hearts heal but our hearts get ‘scarred’ and we should learn from ‘our mistakes’ in the future.
The two lines I selected are to me the most poignant. As a talker, it’s good sometimes to realise that actions and reactions are always much more powerful. “Sometimes tears say all there is to say” speaks for itself. When love is over, we can analyse, talk, plead, beg but in reality, nearly always, its best to cry, the action says it all. The ‘walking away’ line also resonates with me. Again, its so simple yet so true. However, I particularly like the reference to choice. Often it isn’t what we want at the time and we try to prolong a relationship, flog a dead horse but at the end, despite what we may in our heart want, our head tells us to walk. Just go.
As always, the simplest of good lines can mean so much. So clever and yet so thought provoking and hurtful at the time.
I put out a casting call for a model that could cry. Erin came forward and told me she was an actress and could perform the task. We arranged the formalities and I picked her up from the station. I wanted a typical setting for the shots and decided my street would do perfectly. My thinking was that often these things (relationship splits) become more public than we want them to in our desperate time so I felt outdoors and in a ‘typical’ street would suit the shots nicely.
We spent a bit of time getting to know each other and discussing the song and the shoot requirements. When it came to it, I left the room and let Erin prepare herself. After a few minutes we walked the short distance up to the location not saying a word and me hearing the odd snuffle from Erin behind. I fired off the shots. Poor Erin stood for about 10 minutes crying. Sniffling, lip quivering and clearly upset. My instincts were to tell her how well she was doing but I didn’t want to break her spell so I shut up. In the end, I felt so sorry for her I told her that I just wanted to give her a hug and couldn’t keep it going any longer. I had about 60 shots, various angles, close up, further away, above, below etc and felt we had enough.
We took a break and reviewed what we had. I felt quite cruel and secretly was quite glad it was over.
The rest of the shoot was fun, happy and hopefully made up for misery I had put Erin through in the first half. I even got to be in the shots (albeit out of focus) and managed to do a bit of acting myself! Erin had to expertly walk away from me, not too difficult a task obviously given what I had just put her through!
Amazing Erin claims to be happy to work with me again so hopefully I haven’t scarred her too much this time….
All images © Squash Imagery, Ellis Imagery Ltd
Squash Imagery 