We were thrilled when Amanda Palmer’s management approached us about doing a shoot. We’ve been fans of hers for years – we love her enormous skill as a musician, her punk attitude, her sense of humour and her great dedication to her fans.

But things didn’t go smoothly. Days before the shoot, it turned out there had been a miscommunication and Amanda was looking for somebody to film her whole gig. Unfortunately, filming on-stage gigs hadn’t really been our thing, and our equipment definitely isn’t right for it. We were disappointed, but we didn’t want to leave Amanda in the lurch so we made arrangements for a different camera and decided shooting the concert could be new and fun.

Once again things didn’t go quite to plan. The night of the shoot we couldn’t get in to the Opera House Studio until very late and we were all rushing to set up when we realised Amanda was going to do a take of Exit Music for a possible future record. She said we could film it if we could do it immediately – the audience was gathering in the foyer and they couldn’t wait any longer. We tried to get the camera ready in time, but we just didn’t make it. Another disappointment!

Then things took a surprisingly good turn. The take wasn’t as good as Amanda wanted – and we got ballsy. We ran downstairs and said if she tried it again we could get a Shoot the Player video at the same time. Amanda asked if the Opera House could hold the audience outside for an extra ten minutes, and agreed to have a go. Excited and nervous as hell, we clambered up on stage and filmed her amazing performance of one of Radiohead’s best songs.

Special thanks to Amanda, Emily, Jeff, the Opera House Staff, and to Jaron for letting us use his beautiful live sound.

(We also stuck around for Amanda’s gig, and filmed her encore performance of Radiohead’s Creep from the balcony – check out our YouTube for that terrific Not-A-Shoot-The-Player clip.)