REM
As well as people in the town, we were also filming the progress of the stage at the castle. Being huge music fans, it was amazing for us to see what goes into putting a show like this together, from measuring where the stage will go to putting all the lights in place. Stirling Castle truly is an incredible place to see a band play. The set up is such that you can stand virtually anywhere and have a great view of the stage. When REM came on stage the first night, we had to remind ourselves we were working and stop jumping up and down! For the live sections, we tried to capture the feeling and excitement of being there. Of course, being the middle of summer in Scotland it was absolutely freezing cold and pouring with rain. The footage we shot of REM on stage shows the rain and wind blowing and the view from the fans' perspective. It's anything but glossy but it looks real.
And we realised what a coup we had when we heard the tour manager refusing entry to a local news crew, saying that no press were allowed on the tour. I think that's why there's such a relaxed feel to the interviews with the band as they didn't have hundreds of journalists asking them questions for days, just us! We talked to Peter when they had just arrived in Stirling and right before the first concert, Mike before the second night so he could comment on the setting and Michael after the last concert to reflect on the whole event.
Soon it was all over and we were back in London trying to recover from our 18 hour working days and the fact that we had spent every penny we had (and didn't have). All the amazing footage we had shot had to stay in a box under our desks for months on end until we could afford to do something with it. It would be almost a year before we had a first cut of the film and were shaking with nerves on showing it to Bertis. As it turned out, we had nothing to worry about. He loved it and has been incredibly supportive, not to say instrumental, in bringing about the film's release.
