FELIXSTOWE – THE MUSIC VIDEO
When the run of Guardian Angels The Musical finished in Ipswich in June 2016 I thought it would be a shame if some of these really great songs were never heard again, so I came up with two ideas.
Idea 1 was to produce a 1 hour version of the show for the radio:- a musical theatre show on the radio, and was surprised how well that worked:- you can’t see it, but you know exactly what is going on !
Idea 2 was to produce a feature film with the back stories of the actors and actresses filmed on location in Harwich, Ipswich and Felixstowe, and with the “show-within-a-show” filmed live in a local theatre.
Of course the problem with any theatre show, and especially a feature film, is getting a sufficient audience interested in coming to see what you have produced. If you can do this then anything becomes possible.
As I write, the music video “Holiday In Harwich” we very quickly made to promote the Guardian Angels Musical, has now had nearly 8,000 views on YouTube. I wondered therefore whether it might be possible to write a follow-up song telling people about the delights to be found on the other side of Harwich Haven, and thus the song “Felixstowe” was born. When editing the video we came up with two versions, one filmed purely on the way over from Harwich to Landguard Point on the Harwich Foot Ferry, and the other that shows the story in the song, namely two girls taking a cycling trip to Felixstowe on National Cycle Route 51. As luck would have it both versions ended up with the largest container ship in the world, the OOCL Hong Kong in the background !
As I write the combined views of “Felixstowe” in its first two weeks on YouTube are over 5,500.
Chris Brindle
July 2017