I have to confess that there was a time during my employment at Atlantic when I probably would've taken a weed bung. Fuck man, for a while I would have been happy to get paid my salary in weed. And Jaffa Cakes. And peanut M&Ms. Yep, zoots were a big part of my daily routine. In fact my first 2 years at Atlantic were spent in a long pot coma; it was like a controlled C.I.A experiment to study the effects of stress on the weed-addled brain. The findings were revealing. Basically commissioning videos is one of the few jobs that you can do while you're baked. The others are being a rapper and working in the Slam City warehouse.
The most stoned I've ever been was on a Peter Andre video shoot back in 2004. The song was called 'The Right Way'. Katie Price, or Jordon as she was known then, was playing the love interest - both in the video and in actual real life. We shot on Camber Sands. Skinner and I smoked our first banger at 5.30am on the way to set. And then it was end to end burners for the rest of the day until we wrapped. Oh shit. At one point my vision turned black and white. After that a sandstorm blew in. My eyes were so raw. I freaked out and thought that my cornea were gonna die of drought and peel off. I had to drink 9 cups of tea to make it better.
Peter and Katie arrived in a motorcade of blacked out Range Rovers. They appeared on the horizon and drove right up the beach. It was a beautiful scene; imagine David Lean waking one morning from uneasy dreams to find himself transformed into Hype Williams. The Andres were chaperoned by their management, themselves a husband and wife team. He wore a gold Rolex on one wrist and a gold Rolex strap on the other. She was a gargoyle of a woman who looked like she'd eaten the Rolex factory.
The first set up was a love scene in a nearby beach house. After the first couple of takes Peter and Katie decided that they wanted to do an x-rated version for the tabloids. Normally in these situations the sparks like to hang around to try and 'get they look on'. Not this time though. Someone might as well have farted in that room. As soon as Peter and Katie lay down everyone booked. They looked like oily orange aliens. The D.O.P was left in there on his own. Skinner and I hid in the car giggling. When I saw the footage in the telecine it was just a horrible parody of love making, as rigidly choreographed as any porno. Peter's passionate facial expressions were so strained that they seemed to thicken into a grimace. In the end he just looked like he wanted to rape her. Or take a dump.
Good times. You can watch the video here:
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