Famous For Being Famous - the videoshoot diary of Andy Warhol

"In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes." Andy Warhol, 1968

"I'm bored with that line. I never use it anymore. My new line is 'In 15 minutes everybody will be famous'." 

Hi 

Last Saturday night (bank holiday weekend) I went out with Brendon the video Director and shot the video.

It's on the site now. 

The video idea was based on the original inspiration for the song, which i wrote after a tour in New York of the Andy Warhol 'Factory' locations - just me and a few Japanese obsessives.. Lyrically it refers to 'Hello' Okay' , the mags, and 'Citizen Fame', so the idea was to go and shoot London's Soho as Andy Warhol with a camera attached to my front, facing out at the Joe and Joe-ess Publics. As much to get punter's reactions. Then we spun the camera around to me/him. Me becoming Warhol, then becoming me again. 

I got into the part in front of a mirror and somehow the sinister scene in 'Taxi Driver' of the character getting into the part came into my head. We had a laugh with it too. We met the blonde, Jennifer, a society girl, by chance and she took us around clubs (she kept calling me Andy McWarhol...). The best reactions were those who didn't care less. 

We started with jumping on the tube and headed for Oxford Circus, got some weird looks straight off the bat. "Are you famous?" was the standard line. I had a hip flask of red wine to keep the nerve. Then a nice lady came up and said, "Hi, Andy Warhol." Yeah, i thought - somebody got it. From then on i was pretty shameless.

I have the GIANT Warhol book at home and regularly have a flick through - i love that era of New York and his direct quotes - as good as any of his visuals i think. I suppose the video idea was a bit at odds, because i think of Warhol as cool and able to get in anywhere (he said "I'd go to an invite of an opening of a can of soup if invited"...) but the narrater of the song is obviously a bit desperate and as the journey of the night panned out, we didn't get in some clubs because of the camera - which became perfect for what the song is about: 'GIVE ME SOME ATTENTION PLEASE!'

I was walking down an alleyway in Soho at one point and a guy came up and asked if he could come to the party, so he tagged along for a bit, but was a bit pissed off when there wasn't a party. It was quite liberating to be in costume on a Sat night in Soho - i went anywhere, up unknown stairs, into bars - we even tried to get on a pink party bus stopped at the lights at Piccadilly Circus but the door wouldn't open. Finally i get to be a blonde, i was thinking.

The steady-cam camera gives an odd view of the world, a bit fish-eyed, and when it's turned back on me it looks like the world is revolving around me - any artists' dream!! We stopped for drinks along the way and got home at 3am, having gone everywhere and nowhere, but 1968 in NY still eluded.. 

Hope you enjoy the fun!

Colin

View:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mf5d8sm_XDQ

Comments

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