Music Video
The video for this single was a Tim Pope video for GLO Productions that cost RCA £16,000 to have made. The filming was made entirely at Eastnor Castle at Ledbury. As the song had a ‘Highland Jig’ feel to it, so did the video. The band were featured live in front of an audience dressed in tartan. Sequences were of a marching bagpipe band, an enormous kilted scot grappling with a caber and Hill looking very mysterious on the castle ramparts.
The band was let down by the film crew in so much as Powell was not featured in the video at all - he can only be seen in the background. Lea stated that the only requirement that Slade insist upon when they make a film is that all the band are featured, and this wasn’t the case when they saw the finished version of this video. The film was a great success in the United States, peaking at the top of the playlist charts. It’s constant showing on MTV helped Run Runaway become Slade’s biggest American single, reaching the top twenty. Lea recalled that one video jockey even announced; "…and believe it or not that set in the video was an actual castle, it wasn’t constructed just for the film…"
After filming the music video at Eastnor Castle, the band returned to the place where they'd once played their third ever live gig under Chas Chander's management. The gig was an end of film party for the cast of a film that starred Sammy Davis, Jerry Lewis and Peter Lawson. The band got very drunk during the gig, and Noddy Holder stole a flat cap from the dressing room. On the way home the band were stopped by the police who questioned them about a theft. At first the band thought it was about the cap - but it didn't concern that at all. The police were looking for some antiques stolen from Eastnor Castle.
In the September–December 1986 Slade fan club magazine, the poll results were announced for the 1986 opinion poll based on Slade’s material. For the best promo/video film, Run Runaway placed at No. 1.
In December 2011, the very coat that Hill wore in the Run Runaway video sold on Ebay.co.uk for £295.00. Hill also wore the coat on many European TV shows around the time. The seller had bought the coat many years ago from The Slade Fan Club where Hill auctioned off a few items to raise money to build a recording studio in his loft at home. After winning the auction, a cheque payable to Dave Hill was made.
Read more about this topic: Run Runaway
Famous quotes containing the words music and/or video:
“If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken and so die.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“It is among the ranks of school-age children, those six- to twelve-year-olds who once avidly filled their free moments with childhood play, that the greatest change is evident. In the place of traditional, sometimes ancient childhood games that were still popular a generation ago, in the place of fantasy and make- believe play . . . today’s children have substituted television viewing and, most recently, video games.”
—Marie Winn (20th century)