Toy Better Know: mini Jme performs in model train village for brilliant TMNT video

What do you think of when you think of model train villages? Men of a certain age, drinking lots of cups of tea while pensively whiling away, cutting, glueing and sticking? Funnily enough, in Will Norman’s new video for Jme and 8syn’s track TMNT, all of these things are very present – they just happen to have collided head on with the musical and visual world of grime. The London-based director has teamed up with the MCs to show a new side to the capital many know and love – a much smaller side. The ingenious short sees the pair take over a miniature model village of London, complete with working small-scale tubes, a minuscule Morleys, tiny recreations of famous moments in grime’s history, as well an iconic cameo from a trio of lip-sync-rapping model train enthusiasts.

The idea of utilising a model miniature of London as a stage was one that Will had actually had knocking around for a while. “I loved the idea of juxtaposing a quaint model village with a grittier city,” he tells us, “so when Jme played me TMNT – a ridiculously fun and bouncy tune – I knew we had the right track for the train treatment.” This is the second of Jme’s videos that Will has worked on, after the pair first met while Will was directing a Manga Saint Hilaire music video that Jme was featured on. “Our first collaboration was another black-and-white beauty for On Top, and now TMNT shakes things up with a very vibrant visual,” says Will.

While the model village idea came easily, executing it wasn’t so simple. When initially researching, Will discovered John Polley’s miniature Abbey Park layout and “it was perfect”, recalls Will – but fate wasn’t working in his favour. “My hopes were crushed after reading a forum post from 2011, announcing that the model railway boys had had creative differences, and were going their separate ways.” Deciding to try his luck anyway, and perhaps get some tips for an alternative, Will gave John a call. As it turned out, John said his team were launching a new London layout called Carlton Vale – “what’s more, his team loved our video idea and wanted to make it happen!” says Will.

But, lo and behold, another obstacle fell on the tracks. John and his team were only available to shoot on one day, which also happened to be the day Will was meant to be at his best friend’s stag do in Lisbon. But, having got this far, Will and his “absolute genius” of a DP, Cassuis Kane, made it work, with Cassius hiring a Starlink satellite antennae that allowed Will to visually join the shoot and direct from sunny Portugal. “So whilst my mates were necking Super Bocks, I was back at the hotel on a six-hour zoom call, directing Cass, gaffer Adam and the model railway boys,” says Will.

Upon Will’s return to London, things started to get very technical, with many hands getting involved. Firstly, Will filmed Jme and 8Syn in front of a green screen to get the pair into the scenes, on platforms, atop trains, and dancing with death on the train tracks, using open broadcast software to achieve a live chroma-key so they could all “witness the iconic link up between Howard and Jme”. One thing Will was keen to include was references to iconic moments in grime history within, and so he sourced miniatures online and used MidJourney to create modern scenes of London, like the high-street essential Morleys, and Skepta in his all-white Shutdown look, Stormzy in his red Adidas tracksuit in Shut Up, and Unknown T riding a G-Wagon in Homerton B. When it came to making the personalised miniatures, Jme and 8Syn even got involved in the process, with Jme making 3D scans of himself while 8syn used Luma AI. Cassius then 3D printed them before Will painted them. Finally, once Will was happy with the 2D shots, he applied parallax movement with Immersity AI and comped in some moving trains to tie everything together.

The model train enthusiasts’ involvement didn’t end at simply providing the stage, however. Roger, Robert and Howard are featured in the video, the giants overseeing the miniature London. “We used a probe lens to capture extremely close shots of the miniatures, which worked wonderfully to emphasise the contrast between miniatures and massive model enthusiasts, such as the shot of Howard’s eye peering through a carriage,” says Will. His favourite shot came from such experiments, the one of 8Syn riding on top of a train, and turning round to look back at Roger and Robert. Here, Cassius put a 360 camera within one of the carriages while pushing it along the track.

This unlikely collaboration between grime MCs and train enthusiasts actually ended up being one of the most enjoyable parts for Will to direct. “Howard’s joyous presence really brought the concept to life, and in my opinion he stole the show when he rapped along to the line ‘Oh my days, I got bars’,” ends Will. “Howard actually asked if he could get a signed copy of the track, but Jme did one better, and sent him a signed train instead.”