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Behind the Music Video:  Making “Dance With Me”

By Gary Deverman

With hundreds of original songs under his belt as a singer and songwriter, and with his life-long experience as a video producer, John Nicole walked into the Regan Dance Center in Alexandria, VA, last year to pose a simple question to Maestro-Choreographer Frank Regan:  “Would you be interested in doing a music video?”

Almost instantly, Nicole and Regan became connected creatively and began to brainstorm ideas for a song Nicole had recently produced called “Dance With Me.”

“During the Thirties and Forties, there was a social fascination with Egyptian culture,” Nicole explained.   “I tried to capture the feeling of being in a night club during that era.”

While most public reviews of the song have been positive, one reviewer criticized the song because he thought Nicole was being too experimental with his music.  Another reviewer said just the opposite.  “The song makes me feel like I’m traveling through time,” said Allen Sale of AstralAudio.net.  “More artists should try this form of experimentation in some fashion.”

After a series of meetings, Nicole decided to hire Regan to create the kind of high-level kaleidoscopic choreography which  he (Regan) is known for.

Nicole, who is an astute director with an impressive acting background, decided that Regan should come out of retirement in his former capacity not only as a dancer but also as an actor. 

“Frank was somewhat reluctant to begin performing again after 30 years of being behind the camera,” Nicole remembers, “but I convinced him that the lead role needed someone of his experience and training as a character actor.”

Nicole, not a dancer by his own admission, says he remembers learning more about dance and movement from his regular meetings with Regan than he could have learned in a lifetime.

After several months of planning, the two men decided on a theme and created a story line which would drive the choreography and the overall production of the video.

“We wanted to show how dancing wakes the passion inside everyone’s soul,” Regan said.  “We decided to portray dance as a tool for the revolution of the human spirit.”

As the set was being built and lights were being hung in the Regan Dance Center, Nicole began to find his production crew.  Ultimately, more than a dozen people provided technical support – from videographers to lighting specialists to make-up artists.  In all more than ten video cameras were used to shoot the production.

Meanwhile, Regan was recruiting dancers to be in the video.  In all, more than 25 performers showed up on the day of the shoot.

This was far from being Regan’s first music video and it certainly wasn’t Nicole’s first music video, but there was something about this particular project that challenged them both.

Even on the day of the production, ideas and brainstorming were still taking place.  Both men knew that the continual evolution of a concept for a music video would challenge their patience and abilities, but they decided to stay open to spontaneity even at the risk of veering off course.  Ultimately, they began to play in each others' “sand box” during the production.

“I relied on Frank’s ability as a director to share his views on camera angles and staging for almost every shot,” Nicole recalls.  “It put an additional burden on both of us, but we came through the production with flying colors.”

On the day of the production, some 40 people were gathered in the Regan Dance Center to eat pizza, drink coffee, get into make-up and wait to be called for their performance on camera. 

“The crew and the dancers were incredibly patient as we put them through their paces for most of the day and well into the evening,” Nicole remembers.

By the end of the night, more than ten hours of video footage had been recorded.  Regan and Nicole were exhausted and so was everyone else.

The next day, Regan and Nicole met to shoot the final scene.  After packing and loading cameras, lighting and sound equipment, the two said goodbye and went their separate ways.

“I remember waking up later in the day and wondering what all the video footage looked like,” Nicole explains, “but I was simply too tired to even lift a finger.”

More than a month went by before Nicole reviewed the footage for the first time.

“Quite frankly, I was frightened by the prospect of reviewing so much footage and then putting it all together in an entertaining way,” Nicole admits.  “I quickly found out how difficult it can be to edit people dancing and get their timing with the music to be just right.”

For the next couple of months, Nicole wrestled with how to approach the music video.  Finally, he called Regan once again and asked for help.

“For someone who is not familiar with the rhythm and timing of dance,” Regan explained, “it can be challenging to edit different shots together in just the right way.”

Regan and Nicole both agree that they had to merge their thinking about how the choreography, the music and the editing would blend together cohesively.  But they did it.

“The so-called completed music video never seemed to get done,” Nicole said.  “We would review what we thought was the final version and then one of us would come up with yet another idea for improving it.”

For both Regan and Nicole, it now seems difficult to find a way of stopping the creative process that evolved from their collaboration on the music video.