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   CLUB SANDWICH 73

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MINING THE FILM AND VIDEO ARCHIVE

It's coming up: a fond look back at one of the best remembered of all Paul McCartney videos

COMING UP

Club Sandwich 73

            Let's face it, we're dealing here with a man who has made more promotional videos than virtually anyone else in the business. We're dealing with someone -who, with the Beatles, essentially pioneered the art of the modern short film/video clip as a promotional tool. We're dealing with someone who has had the top directors lining up to work with him.
            We're dealing with Paul McCartney, and, in this feature, one of the best - if not the best - videos he has made, 'Coming Up'.
            Now, we're not trying to age you or anything, but you probably first saw this video fifteen years ago, when its cleverness and trickery not only surprised audiences around the world but also turned the heads of people in the video-shooting business.
            (And it still looks great today.)
            If, by some chance, you don't remember it, then the photographs accompanying this feature will already have reminded you - 'Coming Up' is the video in which Paul played ten different parts, and Linda two, all of which were combined, seamlessly, into a single performance. Granted, we may be familiar "with such fancy techniques in 1995, but we were not so familiar with them in 1980, when, to remind you of how unsophisticated we were, the CD had still to be invented, the domestic VCR was in its infancy and, as Douglas Adams noted in his Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy, man thought that the digital watch -was it.
            The video's multi-character concept came about, of course, because Paul had played all the parts on the studio recording. As the reasoning went, why not go the whole hog and play all the parts in the video too? Why not indeed? Once the director, Keith 'Keef Macmillan, confirmed that it could be done effectively - albeit by means of a computerised lighting technique never previously tried out - they set to work.
            (Again, to underline the point, computers in 1980 bore almost no relation, certainly no visual relation, to the computers of today. The one used to drive the lights in 'Coming Up' was probably about the size of a battleship and only marginally less manoeuvrable.)
            After a good deal of preparation and set design, shooting took place over two days at Ewart's TV studio in Wandsworth, south London, on 26 and 27 March 1980. Those were long days, as Keith Macmillan recalls. "We started at 10 in the morning and finished at about 4 the following morning, working something like 18/20 hours each day. I don't quite know how we did it, actually, and it would frighten the hell out of me to do it like that now. But what's amazing about Paul is how much stamina the man has, even at three o'clock in the morning. I'd be dying on my feet and he'd still be at it, saying 'I can do it better, let's do a re-take!' The man has extraordinary energy."
            This was not the first occasion that Paul had turned to Keith for some direction. (In the video sense, that is.) The other Mac had already notched up 'I've Had Enough' (1978), 'Goodnight Tonight' and the eight new videos for inclusion in the Back To The Egg TV special (all 1979), and he would later add 'Waterfalls', 'Ebony And Ivory' and the award-winning 'Pipes Of Peace' to his CV too. "What used to happen," says Keith, "is that I'd get a call from Paul - 'I've got a new single coming out, I'd like to do a video, let's have a chat about it' - and I'd go see him. Then we'd brainstorm it, indulging in -what I call 'creative hooliganism' - I used to come up with some ideas, Paul would too, and we'd knock them around: costumes, concepts, everything - and some good pieces of creative work would result. Then we used to go away and do it. I really enjoyed working in that way, it was like a meeting of minds."
            The multi-character idea for 'Coming Up' meant that Paul spent much of 26 and 27 March 1980 rushing in and out of the costume and make-up departments, being transformed from Paul 1980 to Paul Beatle circa 1965, Hank Marvin, Ron Mael, Dave Gilmour, Andy Mackay and a rogue's gallery of other musicians, some pastiches, others not.
            The band was named The Plastic Macs, and this moment of wittiness summed up the humour of the entire production, for, as Keith Macmillan explains, humour was one of two vital factors that made the video such an outstanding success. "There are some wonderfully funny little bits in the video," he observes. "I love the moment where the saxophone player goes out of sync -with the others, then notices it and they exchange a little look between them. Paul did this deliberately - it was his idea, and a very, very good one. Also, the eye contact between the guitarists - they look at each other, their arms go up, the guitars swing up - it all adds to the feel of the thing, pretending that this really is a whole real band."
            Clearly, Paul has an acute sense of timing on camera, for the video is full of little nods, winks, acknowledgements and reactions from one musician to another and yet, to repeat the point, they're all Paul. This meant that he would be nodding, winking, acknowledging and reacting to a blank space beside him with split-

Club Sandwich 73