Atmospheric, beautiful, and evocative.

         

dir. is W.I.Z. actually.

         

Truly odd,

A lot of resources (incl. videoville, Wikipedia, Rottentomatoes) quote Sophie Muller as the director. Plus, the style - use of a zoom lens, quick cuts to the characters looking at one another, etc seem overtly Muller-ish.

However, Oil Factory has this video as a W.I.Z. helmed effort and I'm gonna have to go with them on this one. ;)

I'll change the post title.

K

         

www.factoryfilms.net

with alt intro

         

First thanks for the link. I like it better with the intro. Second, You cut the vid? Fantastic work. I've been watching it over and over again. It's aces on all 3 primary fronts - direction, cinematography, and editing.

Can you give us a bit more info on your thought process while editing? I.e., was the initial plan always to go with the long take during the first verse (great way to bring us into the world W.I.Z. has created for Jamelia)? Also, the video features far less performance than is typical (which works marvelously here) but I'm curious about the decision making process that led to leaving so little in.

Finally, the ending (final shot) didn't quite work for me and seems a departure from what preceded it. What led to the decision to close out the video by simply freeze-framing on the guy?

With all that said, I think this is a ridiculously smooth, clean, and strong edit. It's a true pleasure to watch.

K

         

Kalstark i'm with you on this one. Nothing else would have worked for a song like this.

         

thanks for the compliments kalstark,

i don't think it was the plan to have a long take like that, it came around whilst we were cutting - or maybe it wasn't supposed to be quite as long. there's a big telecine zoom at the beginning of that shot so that you're closer to her, which makes it feel a bit more complete when it reveals the rest of the troops.

it was shot by this guy called brendan galvin, who does mainly features, we cut with one lit rushes and it was amazing how well balanced they were, esp as the weather was intermittently very diffuse and cloudy. he's pretty clever that guy. so that tracking move was definitely intended, but we didn't see it as being the way to go initially. there were lots of other bits and bobs we could have used but nothing worked as well as that.

in terms of thought processes - it was a tricky edit because there wasn't a huge amount of footage. we restructured it a little and then found new ideas through doing that. a lot of the motifs came from a shortage of material. like the recurrent shot of the boot stamping to imply the illicit nature of their romance in that environment. or the fan to show how hot they are for each other. and the shower tracking shot that's used a few times to pre-empt when they finally get to meet without others around. we kept all the big parade stuff until the end, after the shower, as a kind of ironic bombastic military celebration of their (possible) consummation.

ultimately the lack of material was a blessing because it made us focus more on their chemistry, through those looks etc, rather than concentrating on the geography of the scenes.

there wasn't an awful amount of lipsync shot and i think it was always felt that it would be more emotive and internalised if you didn't see her singing all the time. there's a point where she sings the first line in the shower and then skips the next which was trying to play with that idea. i guess it's relatively bold to do that with a pop singer. but then the video was bold for her comparative to previous vids.

i can't be sure but i seem to remember us at one point having her put her glasses on fully right at the end. it was to be another motif throughout. so it would have been her putting the glasses on fully and then that freeze of him, or maybe it was the other way round. but there was supposed to be a parallel between them and the glasses and the lyric.

         

I'm going to sound like a total kiss-ass but I don't care! ;)

ChoppedToms, thanks for your answering post and all the insight. It's amazing to read about how potential limitations are turned into definitive strengths. The video is easily one of my favorites and after quickly scanning the work on your site it's clear you're immensely talented (The Kasabian 'Empire' video is a gem!).

It's also just good ol' fashioned fun to hear about the thought processes that bring a piece of art into existence.

Thanks again!

K

         

never seen this - total class (and absolut w.i.z, revisiting plenty of his tropes).