Solent Students at Abbey Road Studios
Two talented BA(Hons) Media Production students, Jimmy Upstone and Jordan Harris, were part of an all-student crew who had the fantastic opportunity to shoot a music video at the iconic Abbey Road Studios.
Abbey Road is arguably the most famous recording studio in the world, home to recordings by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Amy Winehouse, Kylie, Ed Sheeran, Lady Gaga and many, many more. We caught up with Jordan Harris about his experience at the legendary studios!
Katya: How did you get the opportunity to go and film at Abbey Road?
Jordan: So, this whole Abbey Road project is basically a big Solent student collaboration. Originally this project was posted into the 'Overheard at Solent' Facebook group (a Facebook group connecting students to work experience and opportunities) around Sep - Dec 2019 by Philip Marshall, a Music Production student. He was getting his band recorded at Abbey Road Studios and looking for a video crew to film it all, then everything would get turned into live band music videos to accompany their album release. I've really enjoyed shooting for music, and had been thinking about getting more music-based work for some time. After contacting Philip and showing him some of my recent work he put me into the video team.
Katya: What was your role and what did you do at the studios?
Jordan: I was originally just assigned to the video team, creating a 5-person crew for the whole day. Leading up to the big day we had multiple meetings to talk through the plans for travel, accommodation and what the band wanted from the day. We all left together from the University on 12th March to go to London and stash all of our equipment in a hotel, then on the 13th we headed off to the studio!
With the day at the studio, the band was recording 4 songs. Our job as the video crew for this day was to capture each member of the band for each song. There were separate soundproof booths for the backing vocalists and one for the main vocalist, so two camera ops would be positioned in these rooms through the day. Then the other 3 camera ops would be in the main room to capture the guitars, bass, drums, and keyboard. The band would record around 5-8 takes per song, which allowed our video team to capture various angles. We would focus the first few takes on wider shots, then the next takes on getting the sweet close ups. For the first two songs (My Haunting Child & Credibility), I was filming the lead vocalist in their small booth, then I was in the main room for the last two songs (Turn The Page & Castle Of Stone). Being in the main room was a lot of fun as it meant I could walk around during the song and get as many shots & angles of each member, there was a lot more room to experiment. Overall, we were in the studios moving around and shooting for around 12-13 hours, a really exhausting but fun day!
A few days after Abbey Road, I mentioned to the band that I would be interested in helping out as a video editor, as they had mentioned they were still deciding what to do with the edits. At the time of writing this I have just finished up the cuts for my two videos (Castle Of Stone & Turn The Page), racking up about 40 hours of editing between the two. Next, I will be working on colour correction and colour grading for all four videos. I'm really happy and proud of the videos I've edited together as there's so much work and time that goes into each one.
Katya: How did you find the experience and what did you learn from it?
Jordan: Walking into the studios was the first surreal part. We're just a big group of students making some music videos, then we're opening the doors into Abbey Road Studios. We were using the same studio used by The Beatles & Pink Floyd to record their most iconic albums, a place with some real musical significance.Overall, the experience has been amazing. Working in a high-end studio, with high end equipment, as a student crew. Everyone worked so well and professionally together across the whole project too. The filming ran smoothly, and we've got loads of incredible looking footage. The quality of work on this project is just something I didn't expect I'd be involved with as a student. I'm very grateful that I've had the chance to get involved in such a big production before I graduate as it's given me portfolio pieces that I'm really happy with, and a lot of useful experience if I want to go further into this field of work. I'm also really excited for the release so I can finally show off this massive project that loads of us have been working on for so long!
We are so proud of fantastic work the team created, and all the hard work that was put into this production. A big thank you to Jordan Harris. Be sure to check it out at ‘Marshall Kings’ on YouTube.
Photo Credits: Marc-Alain Zimmerli
Written by Katya Gait
Edited and Published by Chloe Webb
BA(Hons) Media Production
Solent Media
