I fell asleep on the wee plane. The turbulence woke me up as we descended towards our destination. Down below us, and over to the right, two flat dusty runways lay across one another in the middle of absolutely nothing.
We banked in and watched through the cockpit window as the cross became bigger and bigger, and bigger, and then we were down. Perfect landing.
We got out and looked around. Nothing. We were in South Africa, desert in every direction, total silence save for the sound of ourselves and our luggage being thrown into the back of a van, and it was awesome.
My jaw was on the floor, and still is as I write this, with one morning remaining, before we board our little plane again and head back to the madness of western city-life.
The journey to Canarvon was short. It lay beyond some hills. I'd seen those hills in documentaries but they look even better now in the baking sunshine, with the clean breeze blowing on my face.
The first sign of life was a man walking by the side of the road. He stopped and waved at us as we drove past. WOW. Cool. We waved back.
Then we passed two more guys who waved as well. So we waved again. I must have got a good 40 or 45 waves in before we pulled up to the hotel. Nearly every single person waved. Why don't we do this at home? It's such a beautiful, gentle, peaceful exchange.
I remembered when I was 12 and going up to Auntie Babs' on a Friday evening on the 140 bus and sitting at the front and talking with the driver, and loving the fact that he waved at his fellow drivers when he passed them on the road, and wishing for the time when I was big enough to drive a bus and wave at my fellow busmen. You can imagine how I was feeling as we rode into Canarvon? I was in wave heaven.
After sleeping for an hour we went for a walk around the town, checking all the spots where we would be shooting.
Canarvon hasn't been touched since the 1930's it seems. The buildings are simple, some painted in vivid colours, others bleached out from their last coat of paint 30 years ago.
Families sitting outside their home were unfazed by our presence, curious but unfazed, and happy to let me take photos of them as they sat chilling in the baking sun.
It wasn't like taking a photo of someone in the west, who, as soon as they are aware of the camera, become slightly affected and edgy.
Here, when you asked, they just nodded and you clicked and they didn't change a bit. Just smiled the biggest smiles with their whole face and looked down the lens, into your eye and into your soul. So relaxed.
It's no wonder all these National Geographic, and Magnum photographers come out here and get such amazing pictures. The pace of life is unlike anything I have ever seen.
Tom, our director and his producer Siska had been out a week earlier looking for a location. They spent 3 days and travelled thousands of kilometres, until they found the perfect spot.
This is the first music video that Tom has directed. All of his work to date has been concentrated in advertising. He wrote ads, before recently moving into directing.
He wrote the ad for Guinness with the surfers, the ad with the old swimmer who's a hero in his local town ("One day I'll lose" he says,
" You'll never lose" I say). and the ad with the snail race, again for Guinness.
His showreel is flawless. The looks vary but overall there is a beautiful, humorous, gentle, feminine tinge to everything he has created. Anyways, he chose the perfect place to film Flowers in The Window.
We would begin filming at 6am the next morning, so the rest of the day was spent hanging around and getting to know some of the locals.
I sat on a street corner and did some drawing and was joined by a 27 year old man who looked like he'd been in the wars. Big scars disfigured his face, made him look twice his age.
He didn't speak English so I drew a map in my sketchbook and pointed to Scotland, and we sort of spoke to each other although one hadn't an idea what the other was saying.
We awoke the next day at 6am and after breakfast drove over to the swimming pool where filming would begin.( A shot of me walking by the pool past some beautiful pregnant swimmers).
The sun had just come up and already things were getting hot. I had factor 60 sun block on. Tom had told us that we had to avoid getting sun tan or burn. We would be shooting over the next three
days so continuity was important. The crew were South African and all vey friendly.
After the pool we moved to the towns main drag. The local folk stood all around in the shade and looked on while we watched 3 pregnant breakdancers doing their thing , laying down the lino and doin' the electric boogaloo.
Tom had sourced some hip hop tunes with the same meter/bpm (beats per minute) - Jay Z's give it To me...gimme that sweet that funky that gucci stuff, blared, the dancers got down and we all watched. It was cool.
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