Radio Sheffield began broadcasting on 15 November, 1967. To celebrate the 50 year milestone, the station produced a special music video involving ‘common people’ from the local area. Helen Bailey talks us through the process from ambitious idea to final edit:
The conversation went something like this: "let’s make a community film to mark our 50th birthday," said the boss "how about our own version of Sheffield band Pulp’s 1995 hit Common People. We can do it in around two months can’t we?"
Ok… I’ve been involved in some fairly ambitious projects at 成人论坛 Radio Sheffield before but this has to be the biggest thing we’ve ever done. And bear in mind, we’re a radio station, so we’ve got absolutely no experience in making music videos!
The first task was to get the song arranged so it was suitable for a choir. I’m not sure Jarvis Cocker and the rest of the band had a four part choral harmony in mind when they wrote it in the 90s, but it worked out to sound quite amazing. Once the arrangement was done we had to get a choir to record it. We appealed on air for people who could sing and were amazed with the response. We never knew we had some many tuneful listeners!
The song was recorded here at Radio Sheffield, with a 70 strong choir, none of whom had heard the arrangement before we came to record it. Three hours of rehearsal time with an amazing musical director later, and we were ready to record it. The choir worked hard that day but no one complained and the result is brilliant thanks in no small part to our lovely engineers.
The next stage was to think about the film. We wanted to feature locations around South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire so the film had a sense of the whole of our patch. So we scouted around looking for suitable locations. Film maker Marco Van Belle came up with the concept for the film which involved a big crowd of people coming together at the end – so those scenes ended up based in the – the Sheffield nightclub where Pulp played their first gig.
Assistant Editor Mike Woodcock directs the extras
We wanted as many of our listeners to be involved as possible so again we took to the radio to appeal for people to come and be extras in the film. Our amazing audience didn’t let us down and soon our receptionist was inundated by calls and emails from people wanting to get involved. I have a feeling most of our listeners have a secret desire to be stars.
Horace the British Bulldog, came with listeners Stephen and Rebecca Wragg to appear in the crowd scenes
A Sheffield scout group, a bull dog (and its owners) plasterers, teachers, ex-miners and bus drivers all turned up on a Sunday in October to be part of the crowd scene in the film. It was a long day as filming days can be with take after take to make sure we had the right shots, but everyone was so enthusiastic about being involved, people still had big smiles on their faces by the end of the day. As the choir and hundreds of extras sang the final chorus of the song in the Leadmill the hard work all seemed worth it.
Mayor of Barnsley, Jeff Ennis
Two more days filming around South Yorkshire saw us working with listeners on the Supertram in Sheffield, a sweet shop in Rotherham, an old cutler’s workshop, the Mayors parlour in Barnsley, and Doncaster market. My colleague Dan and I will never forget singing our hearts out to Common People on the supertram to encourage the extras to sing along in the right time to the track.
Radio Sheffield listeners film as extras on board a Sheffield Supertram
I wouldn’t be surprised to find I’m banned from Supertram for life for being a noise nuisance!
Then it was over to the film maker to edit it. The whole experience was hard work but extremely rewarding. I loved how the people of South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire got themselves behind it. A real sense of everyone coming together not just to celebrate our birthday but to celebrate the local pride we have around here as well.
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