After what feels like an eternity in the bowels of building 9, we finished the constantly evolving project. The song I don’t think I could handle listening to ever again, as great as it is.
Originally what was going to be a minimalistic video for a low-key electronic song by Leisure Suite turned out to be a colourful chaotic party for the upbeat tune Justin Beiber by duo Fortunes. In some ways the two projects do have similarities, they both involve a body of water and that’s about it. Similarity.
The concept for the song stemmed partly from our original idea for the first band, our own interpretation of the song and a consultation with front-man Conor. Obviously this upbeat track required and upbeat video and I think that’s exactly what we delivered. Our colourful 90’s mess was a result of both intentional planning/construction and also mistakes/accidental discoveries along the way, as any fun project is.
The concept for the video definitely developed as it went along. Compared to our originally pitched idea our final product was quite different. We emphasised the party sequence a lot more. Originally this was only going to feature as a short intro at the start of the video without explicitly showing anything. However Conor wanted to include it more in the main part of the video and once we’d filmed it we felt it certainly had a place in the video. Including it more was definitely a good idea looking at the final product. The video provides a build to this moment and without it I feel it would have fallen flat. The sequence manages to capture a sense of hectic party environment but also isolation and melancholy. By cutting between quick shots of all the guests having a good time and extended shots of Conor alone singing on the inflatable pool mattress we successfully established this dual feeling. The sequence was very fun to shoot. We invited a group of friends, many of which didn’t know each other, used cheap champagne to get everyone comfortable, blasted trashy music and filmed what resulted. Of course at some points it required direction, giving people activities or interactions to act out but as the night progressed this was required less. The excess of pool props also helped, adding to the colour and overall party atmosphere.
Judging from feedback we’ve received from various people the pool sequence is the strongest point of video, however personally I’d say it’s actually the start. Maybe it’s not the strongest part, maybe it’s just my favourite, I’m not sure. After the introductory flashing shots and the titles (which I’m also a big fan of) when we first see Conor singing in the street, the way we edited it to weave between the large screen and the small screen worked particularly well at this point, better than it worked at other points during the video.
Overall it was a great experience, the whole course was. To be able to come to the end an have a final product like this is great. It differs a lot from the kind of video work I (and Elle) usually tend to produce but I can say that I’m happy with it and will look into developing my music video skills further and taking on more projects. I’m pleased that we produced something relatively unique and that hopefully others will enjoy.
