Though I may not have made it as a dancer, when I was in Feet First dance I was given amazing opportunities to be in two music videos.
There used to be a Wylam based band called Vinyl Jacket, as Feet First was Wylam based and I think my teacher knew the band we were given this experience.
The first video was for their song Painting Station
This was in 2011 and I remember my mum had to drive me and a couple of the other dancers into Haltwhistle. We were going to what looked like a disused workshop, it was blooming freezing. Our costume was just a black top and black leggings so luckily I had layers to keep myself warm.
Now we were given the routine that my teacher has choreographed a couple of weeks/days beforehand so we had time to rehearse before the video. We were told what the video was going to be about and what it was going to look like and it sounded like fun.
I was so excited to do the video as I had never done anything like that before, if you watch the video then you will see it was totally bonkers. I found out we were not just wearing black, oh no, there were costumes involved and I had to wear a flower head. And I had no idea why but I was loving every minute even if it was cold and we were doing the routine over and over again.
It was hard work and I think it was a full day of filming, I remember at the end of the video we had to jump and fall back on the floor, I defo hurt my back that day but it was worth it as the video looked great.
Then a couple of years after that, Vinyl Jacket wanted some more dancers to do another music video with them and in this one, I am the thumbnail on youtube.
This music video was called Red Light and again the music, the story and the costume were all a bit bonkers. It was filmed in an office space in Prudhoe. I think there was a bigger budget for this as we had a director and a makeup artist who is local to Northumberland called Sophie Pasola and were all very exciting.
Again my dance teacher choreographed the routine for this video too, this was a bit more difficult as it was done in the dark and we had to dance on thick sand. I felt pressured to get this one right and you can see that I am late on a few counts- nerves got the better of me.
Anyway, it was a lot of fun and a great experience. The band have not really performed or created any new songs in a while but if you want to check them out, click here
Gemma's Journey 