Earlier this week we published an article about the sensitively written single ‘ This Time (Save The World?): A New Song by Kathie Touin

The new video that accompanies the lockdown inspired single was filmed at the former naval airbase HMS Tern in Twatt, in the West Mainland of Orkney. The site is cared for and maintained by Birsay Heritage Trust and through tour guide Andrew Hollinrake, Kathy was granted permission to film there.

Kathie explains her choice of location and how the rest of the video was shot:

“It’s a fairly dark lyric so I wanted to film somewhere that looked a bit post-industrial, I suppose, a place with some wear-and-tear. I remembered being taken around the former naval airbase HMS Tern in Twatt, West Mainland, on one of Andrew Hollinrake’s excellent tours, and decided it was the perfect location.

“Through Andy I was given permission by the Birsay Heritage Trust to film there. With my husband on camera duty we spent a glorious Autumn afternoon shooting out the back of the cinema, and in amongst the atmospheric corridors outside the control tower.

“The indoor shots were all done in our garage! I played with focus and effects to (mostly) disguise this, though our boiler and a push-broom are clearly in shot at times. But with the concrete wall behind, and the interesting lighting coming through the window, I thought it worked well with the stark look from the airfield.

“I wanted the final video to work with the strong rhythmic elements of the song so the editing took quite a long time. Some clips which at first I intended to edit out – such as a jumpy shot or another coming slowly into focus – actually turned out to give the perfect effect for some scenes.

“In the past I’ve created some fairly simple videos for my songs but for This Time (Save The World?) I wanted to create something more sophisticated in terms of filming, editing and effects.

“This meant making greater use of the possibilities of the video software and at first the editing and production process was a steep learning curve. But once I realised there are many similarities between music and video production it went more smoothly.

“In music production I’m working with sound waveforms, timbre, the atmosphere of different spaces, real and artificial sound sources – with video it was light, motion and colour. So not that different, really.

“It was great fun to make though I admit I did feel rather silly standing on the tarmac at HMS Tern pretending to be a rock star! I’m a bit nervous about putting this out there but I hope folk will enjoy seeing the visuals to go with the song.”

If you would like to know more about Kathie’s music and to download her songs, purchase her CD’s etc you can click on this link to visit her website: Kathie Touin

And here’s that video if you missed it first time round:

Want to know more about HMS Tern? Check this out and our other stories about the site.

HMS Tern