GETTING CLOSER TO MACCA, 1979
Coinciding with their final album, Back To The Egg, Paul McCartney’s Wings began shooting clips for most of its tracks with director Keith ‘Keef’ McMillan’s company Keefco at the end of May 1979. The project reunited McCartney with lighting provider Entec for the first time in six years, and saw producers Phil Davey and Hugh Scott-Symonds work with an Entec crew that included Derrick Unwin, Jane Spiers, Paul Burns and Colin Carol.
Filming began at Kent’s historic Lympne Castle, where Wings had recorded much of the album. “On any film shoot, you’re always waiting for things to happen,” remembers Jane Spiers (pictured above, bottom centre), “and this wasn’t any different because after we set up some gear in the castle, we weren’t really needed for a while. It was a few days later when we relocated to the aircraft hangar that things became more interesting.”
The hangar in question was situated at a private airfield close to Lympne. It was here that Wings filmed clips for ‘Getting Closer’ and the punky ‘Spin It On’. Entec’s lighting department manager at the time, but also previously a member of Showco’s crew on Wings’ 1976 European tour, Derrick Unwin ran the lights from Entec’s newly-purchased 64-channel Alderham console.
Jane says: “Without any of the pressures of a regular gig, it was very relaxed, even though the stage was decked out for a full-on performance. The lighting rig was pretty massive and it took hours upon hours to prepare. We put up a truss and hung PAR cans over the front, then take it up and repeat the process several times to create multiple layers of PARs upstage as well as some side lighting.”
While ‘Getting Closer’ was filmed with Wings in casual dress, ‘Spin It On’ saw them in vintage flying jackets, with the aviation theme further reinforced by white parachutes laboriously draped over the stage by the crew. “We put in a lot of intensive work,” comments Jane. “After filming the band under a big light show, we did a shoot with all red lighting and then took out all the gels for a white light shoot the following day.
“When Wings mimed to playback for the cameras, an audience of family, friends and crew gathered at the front of the stage, and in between takes the band did some fun, impromptu jamming. It was like the ultimate private concert.”
Originally broadcast in America, by the time the half-hour Back To The Egg TV special reached UK screens in June 1981, Wings had folded. A year earlier, however, Entec was proud to contribute to the promo video for McCartney’s solo single ‘Waterfalls’, filmed by Keefco on a specially designed set on Wandsworth Common in south-west London.
