Film making: The Weave, "Mary Waited" Music video

1 hour ago

4 min read

At the tail-end of 2025, I had one of those ideas. The type of idea that starts to peck at your sanity for attention - "Why not make a pigeon puppet and get trumpeter Tony Peers to be in a music video?" I should have just chuckled and moved on. But here we are, many laughs had, three different pairs of underpants bought, a 1,000-piece jigsaw made in nine hours, plenty of moments of thinking it would never get done, and the budget climbing literally by the tens of pounds.

So who is this Tony Peers character? He's a trumpet player of immense soul; he's funny, talented, and kind, and he stars with a puppet pigeon in my short film for Mary Waited. Tony is one of the trumpet players in the very mighty-full band The Weave, which includes: leader Martin Smith and band members Tony, Ismael Aasgaard, Rob Stringer, Vidar Norheim, Hugo Harrison, Anthony Ormesher, and Tilo Pirnbaum. Their album Snishoo is a beautiful thing, and I've already put two videos together for the album. The thing is, I'm learning. I didn't know how to do anything apart from take photos and come up with ideas. Editing was largely new to me and still is. But I've spent my life close to this as an endeavor, with drawing and photography and writing and watching lots of films. And making a puppet, how hard can it be? Turns out... pretty hard but doable if you keep at it and keep your expectations nearer to Pipkins rather than Dark Crystal.

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Watch the music video for "Mary Waited" below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-14HzpLvIE

I knew I had a problem, If I introduce a bird character then it raises the question, why doesn't the bird fly? Fast-forward and my oldest son Jamie is doing his theory test for drone flying. He's a super-creative lad and also has years of playing computer games, perfect for using the DJI joysticks and navigating Valentino's sash window. We decided to turn the footage to mono to simulate seperate the percieved view of an animal like a pigeon. Lots of animals seeing in mon I understand but a pigeon sees in hyper-colour... we cheated and went mono. Don't tell anyone.

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Valentino, of course, has an obsession, Miss Xanadu. Several years back, I met public speaker and thinker Ije McDougall at an event, and we became friends. She's a wonderful person to talk to about life's deep topics. I'd photographed her before, and we decided that she was absolutely perfect as the object of Valentino's affection. All I had to do was make a male version of the puppet, and I decided that he had to look quite Hollywood and keen on himself. And of course, Ije was effortlessly good in the role. I'm particularly happy with how one of the flash guns goes off just before she blows a kiss!

The final scenes involved Martin Smith gathering his people, and this was another hurdle to jump. We were shooting outdoors in the evening in Liverpool city centre. This is just off the beaten track by Duke Street at an exact spot where I once picked up a model for a winter photoshoot. Those arches struck me. We just had to get as many people as we could in a very short space of time to the spot. My wife Katy came along and has starred in several of The Weave videos. Some of the other women (who I've called in my head The Accidental Angels) belong to various jazz groups from the city, including Jubilee Stompers and Bearcat Gumbo. I mean, the talent level in this city of Liverpool is ridiculous. Playing villains were two band members, Martin and Hugo, the song's composer. I don't know how they can look at themselves in the mirror. One day, justice will catch up with them.

This leaves me to talk about the puppet. I'd seen cosplayers make things online, and I also took some advice from my neighbour, who is a pro-puppet maker. I was on the right track with sculpting using EVA foam and sanding a block down. The legs were, of course, tricky, but I made them from wire and air-drying foam clay. Perhaps my favourite part was the little scarf that was made from a thin piece of EVA and a heat gun, and Katy, my wife, helped paint the lovely pattern and eye make-up. It seemed fitting, as when we met at 16, she had painted a bird on an egg that remained one of the most beautifully skilful things I've seen done by a person I know. Martin Smith was on puppetry duties, and of course, he immersed himself in the role. In closing, filmmaking is hard. I drew my storyboards and planned so much, but the camera rolls, and on a no-budget film, you get very little time to work on a thing. There are bits I would drop and replace. BUT I'm stunned this came together, it worked, and people came along and gave performances who were not actors but acted beautifully.