“The Director Handed It to the Extra” — Jimmy Page Had Already Tuned It D

November 5th, 2019. Bermondsey, South London. Arch Studios, a converted railway arch on Tanner Street, 8:40 in the morning. The studio had been a working space for film and video production since 2014 and had the specific quality of converted industrial spaces that have been adapted carefully. The original brick of the railway arch overhead, the concrete floor that had been sealed and leveled, the professional lighting rig that descended from a steel gantry at mid-height, the acoustic panels that absorbed the railway noise that arrived every 12 minutes when a train went over. It smelled of brick dust and the specific chemical smell of large lighting equipment and the coffee that was arriving now from the catering van that had set up outside the arch entrance. The shoot was a television commercial for a streaming music platform, 90 seconds of footage that would be cut to 45, featuring various musicians in

various settings, of which this arch was the final day’s location. They had been shooting for 3 days. The crew was at that specific point in a 3-day shoot where everyone is tired and competent, and the patience for anything that slows the schedule is thin. The call sheet showed eight people on set and the camera crew and the director.

It also showed, in the additional talent section at the bottom, a name that the AD had added 3 weeks earlier when the production company had learned that a certain person would be available to consult on the vintage instrument element of the shoot. He had arrived at 8:15, said hello to the AD and to the prop handler, and had been in the corner of the arch since then, looking at the instruments on the prop table with the specific quality of someone for whom a table of vintage instruments is not a prop table, but a collection of things that have histories and that deserve the kind of attention they were designed to produce. This channel exists for the prop table in the corner and for what happens when someone with 60 years of knowledge examines it quietly while the crew sets up. Subscribe and turn on notifications before we go any further. Marcus Webb was 37 years old and had been a commercial director for 9 years

and was good at his job in the ways that a commercial director needs to be good at it. He could manage a shoot. He understood the visual grammar of advertising. He could look at a location and understand immediately what it could give him and what it couldn’t. He could work fast when the schedule required and slower when the shot required and he had a clear and consistent visual aesthetic that his clients returned to him for.

He was not a musician and had never been a musician, which did not prevent him from having strong opinions about music. The opinions that non-musicians develop when they engage with music primarily through its imagery and its cultural associations rather than its production, which are often accurate opinions about how music looks and less accurate opinions about how music is made.

His opinions had shaped the creative direction of this campaign, which leaned heavily on the visual iconography of music, vintage instruments, analog equipment, the specific physical texture of things made by hand in rooms that smelled of wood and electronics without requiring that anyone on camera actually make music. The music was pre-recorded.

The instruments were visual language. The camera was looking for the look of music rather than its substance and for the purposes of a streaming platform commercial, this was entirely coherent. Marcus knew what he wanted and he was good at getting it. The gap in his knowledge was not a gap in his professional competence.

It was a gap in what he was listening for. Subscribe and turn on notifications before we go any further. The session musician on the lighting case is why this story matters. Daniel Pharaoh was 23 years old and was on set as a session musician. He had been booked to play guitar on the original track that had been recorded for the commercial and was present on set because the production had originally intended to use his playing live, which had been changed in post-production to a pre-recorded track, which meant that Daniel was now on set without a specific function. He had been told he was welcome to stay for the day and that his fee was unaffected. He was sitting on a lighting case at the edge of the set with the expression of someone who has been told they are welcome to stay and who is not entirely sure what to do with that information. The prop table held six vintage

instruments, all sourced by the prop department from a specialist hire company that supplied production houses throughout London and that had, over 15 years of supplying productions, learned that the instruments they provided would be treated in one of two ways. As objects to be played, which happened occasionally when a production had musicians actually performing, or as objects to be photographed, which was the more common arrangement and which required a different kind of care.

The visual care of someone who knows how things look rather than the technical care of someone who knows how things sound. They were good instruments. A 1962 Fender Stratocaster in sunburst, two acoustic guitars from the early 60s, a 1968 Les Paul Custom in black with its original hardware, a lap steel that nobody had touched because nobody on the prop team was sure how to position it.

And a 12-string acoustic from 1965 that had the specific quality of 12-string acoustics that have been stored in variable humidity, which was that three of its strings were noticeably out of pitch. They had been arranged on the table with the visual logic of the prop department, which was they looked good together.

Their playing condition was the prop department’s secondary concern, which was not negligence but simply the correct priority ordering for a production that was planning to use them as visual elements rather than musical ones. At 8:20, the man at the prop table had picked up the 1968 Les Paul Custom.

He had tuned it quietly by ear in the specific way of someone who has been tuning guitars for 60 years and for whom the process is not a task but a kind of conversation with the instrument. Pressing the strings, listening, adjusting, pressing again, listening to the harmonics at the 12th fret, the fifth fret, the open string, until the guitar’s internal logic was consistent and it spoke with a single voice rather than the slightly discordant voice of an instrument that has been stored rather than played. He had set it back on the table. He had picked up the 12-string acoustic. He had tuned it. This took slightly longer because 12-string acoustics have 12 strings and because this specific one had been in variable humidity storage and had moved in three positions simultaneously, which required a sequence of tuning that was not straightforward but that he knew because he had been tuning 12-string

acoustics since the early ’60s, which was the era this one came from. He had set it back. He had worked through four of the six instruments in this way, doing what he had been brought in to do, which was to ensure that the instruments on set were in the condition that instruments should be in, whether or not anyone was planning to play them.

He was examining the fifth instrument when Marcus arrived on set and began the sequence of decisions that was about to be interrupted. Subscribe and turn on notifications. What Marcus is about to do with the sixth instrument is the reason this channel exists. Marcus looked at the call sheet on his iPad. He looked at the lighting setup.

He looked at the hero position, the mark on the concrete floor where the featured performer would stand. He looked at the prop table. “The Les Paul,” he said to Sophie, his first AD, “that’s the one for the hero shot, the black one. Can we get it to where we need it?” Sophie confirmed this.

She turned toward the prop table. The man at the prop table had heard this. He had the Les Paul in his hands, the 1968 black Les Paul Custom that he had tuned 8 minutes earlier, and he was examining the nut carefully because the nut on a guitar of this age and this condition was often the thing that would cause tuning instability in a warm studio environment after a cold start.

Marcus looked at the man at the prop table. He looked at the Les Paul in the man’s hands. He looked at his call sheet. He said, “Could we get the guitar to position?” The man set the guitar on the table. He looked at Marcus. He said, “It’s been tuned, ready when you need it.” Marcus nodded.

He did not register this particularly. Instruments being ready was the prop department’s job, and the prop department had apparently arranged for this person to handle the instruments. He moved to the monitor position. He said to Sophie, “Where’s Jason?” Jason was the featured performer in the hero shot, an actor in his early 20s with the right look and the right energy and no ability to play guitar, which was irrelevant because the track was pre-recorded and Jason would be miming.

Sophie located Jason. Jason was brought to the hero position. Marcus looked at Jason and at the position and at the lighting, which was correct. “The guitar,” Marcus said. Sophie picked up the 1968 black Les Paul Custom from the prop table. She carried it to Jason. Jason took it. Jason held the guitar in the position of someone who has held a guitar in a music video before, which he had twice in other productions, which is a different position from the way someone holds a guitar who plays it.

The difference is in the left hand, primarily, the fretting hand, which in a player has a specific relationship with the neck that produces from the way the thumb rests, and the fingers curve a particular posture that is immediately readable to anyone who has that posture themselves. Jason’s left hand held the neck of the 1968 Les Paul the way a non-player holds the neck of a guitar, which is as an object rather than as an instrument.

This was not Marcus’s concern. The camera was going to be at a specific angle. The fretting hand would not be the focus. The man at the prop table was looking at the black guitar in Jason’s hands. Daniel on the lighting case at the edge of the set was looking at the same thing. Marcus said, “Let’s do a rehearsal pass.

Jason, feel free to get into it, move with the track, feel the energy. This is about the presence.” The track came up through the monitors, the pre-recorded piece that Daniel had played on 3 weeks earlier in a recording studio in Bermondsey, the same neighborhood, a mile away. Daniel heard his own guitar playing through the studio monitors and watched a person who could not play the instrument hold it in front of the camera.

Are there moments when you have watched something unfold and had no vocabulary for what you were feeling except that it was not right? Tell me in the comments. I read everyone. The man at the prop table walked from the corner of the arch to where Marcus was standing at the monitor. He walked at the pace of someone who is not in a hurry and is not going to create a situation but has something to say that needs to be said.

“Could I ask you something?” he said. Marcus looked at him. He had not looked at him directly since arriving on set. He processed now the long silver-white hair, the dark coat, the specific quality of someone who is not production crew and is not talent and is not client but is something else that Marcus could not immediately categorize.

“The Les Paul in Jason’s hands,” the man said. “Is the plan to shoot it as is or are you planning to go close on the instrument?” Marcus said, “Wide to medium. We’re not doing close detail on the guitar.” “Right,” the man said. He paused. “You know the guitar is tuned, ready to play.” Marcus said, “It’s a prop.

” “It’s a 1968 Les Paul Custom,” the man said. He said it the way you say something that is a fact about what a thing is rather than what it is being used for. “In working condition, someone has just spent 20 minutes making sure it plays correctly.” Marcus looked at him. He looked at the guitar in Jason’s hands.

He said, “Are you telling me you want to play it?” “I’m telling you,” the man said, “that there’s a guitarist on your call sheet.” He looked toward Daniel on the lighting case who plays, “and a guitar on your set that’s been tuned and is in better playing condition than it’s been in years.” He paused.

“The visual difference between a person who plays and a person who doesn’t is legible on camera. At wide to medium, you’ll see it.” He said it without urgency, the way you say something that you know to be true and that is available to be acted on or not. Subscribe and turn on notifications. What Marcus does next determines what the shoot becomes.

Marcus looked at Daniel on the lighting case. He looked at Jason with the guitar. He looked at the man in the dark coat. He had been directing commercials for 9 years and had an eye that was specifically trained to see what the camera would see. And he looked at Jason holding the Les Paul and he thought about what the man had said about the difference between a person who plays and a person who doesn’t being legible at wide to medium.

He said, “Daniel, come to position.” Daniel looked up from the lighting case. He looked at Marcus. He looked at Jason. He said, “Sorry.” “Come to position,” Marcus said. “You’re playing.” “Jason, we’re going to use you in the wide establishing shot guitar in hand looking right.

And then Daniel takes it for the medium and close.” Daniel stood up. He walked to the hero position. Jason handed him the guitar. Daniel took it. He took it the way someone who plays takes a guitar, with the left hand already at the neck before the right hand is at the body, the thumb in position, the fingers naturally curved.

He pressed a chord, an E major open, the first chord he always played when he picked up an unfamiliar guitar. The 1968 Les Paul Custom, which had been tuned 20 minutes earlier, rang correctly. The note hung in the arch under the railway with a specific sustain of a vintage guitar that has been properly attended to.

The man at the prop table heard this from the corner. He turned back to the instruments. He picked up the 12-string acoustic and checked the tuning on the sixth string, which had moved slightly. He adjusted it. Marcus said, “Beautiful. Let’s go.” The shoot ran for 4 hours. Daniel played on camera for three of them.

The commercial went to post-production, was cut to 45 seconds, and was broadcast the following February. In the final cut, you can see Daniel’s left hand clearly for approximately 6 seconds. The hand is in the correct position. The guitar is the 1968 Les Paul Custom. The note visible in one shot, the fret position, the specific angle of the fingers, is the chord he played when he first picked it up.

Before leaving the arch, the man had gone to the prop table and found the piece of paper that the prop department used for the higher documentation. He had written something on the back and left it with the lap steel guitar that nobody had touched. He had also left a guitar pick, dark, worn to an asymmetric thinness on one side under the 12-string.

Sophie found the pick when she was packing down the prop table at end of day. She found the writing on the back of the higher document. She read it. She found Daniel before he left the studio and showed him the note. It said, “The guitar you played today has been in six studios since 1968. You play correctly. Keep going.

” Daniel kept the note. He does not have the pick. Sophie had it, and she put it in the production archive with the higher documentation, where it remains. He kept going. He has kept going for 4 years. He is 27 now and plays session guitar and has been on three records and one television soundtrack.

He still plays an E major chord when he picks up an unfamiliar guitar. It’s the first chord he always plays. Subscribe and turn on notifications. This channel exists for the prop table in the corner and for the 20 minutes someone spent tuning instruments that a commercial director was planning to hand to a non-player.

And for the person on the lighting case who was welcome to stay and turned out to be the reason the shoot was better than it would have been. What has been handed to the wrong person in front of you and what happened when that was corrected? Tell me below. I read every single comment. Jimmy Page once said, “I was trying to do something different and that was the whole point.

” In a converted railway arch in Bermondsey on a cold November morning, he tuned six instruments that were going to be used as props, said four sentences to a commercial director who didn’t know who he was, and watched a 23-year-old guitarist pick up a 1968 Les Paul and play an E major chord correctly. The guitar was in tune.

It was always going to be in tune. That was the point of the 20 minutes. See you in the next one.