It’s a struggle to restrain my joy.
I readily confess to this because the video idea I had, for what will be the first Chance song to be released in almost two years, was nothing short of a monumental challenge. Undaunted—and perhaps a little naively—I pushed forward with my vision with the knowledge that, at any moment during the journey, the whole thing could fail. Miserably.
Somehow, that gave me just the freedom I needed.
I also confess to this:
I can’t tell you anything about the video, not because I’m being deliberately coy (maybe just accidentally) but because I want the experience to be a nice, refreshing surprise. Don’t worry, I didn’t re-invent the wheel or anything, but it’s definitely the coolest video I’ve ever shot. Hopefully, upon its release, you’ll share in my sentiment.
I can say it was a lot of hard work. I can say that there were challenges that arose where I thought none would, and easy street happened where I thought there would be challenges. Go figure.
Then, when I was literally 99 percent of the way toward completion, something occurred that I thought I had no way of solving. Blasted computers! They can be so fricking annoying! I literally thought I was going to have to go to a plan B (which I had all along…just in case, but didn’t want to do.) And then, an amazing thing happened.
You may have seen some of the screen shots. It’s just a glimpse, but trust me: that was the easy part. I can tell you the final video required a single take. And the final day of shooting (also known as the day i tried to get my one single take) took all day to set up, prepare for, and 4 and a half hours of attempts before I got what I wanted: the right one.
Yup. you read that right: the shot which will be the final video was accomplished at 1:15 in the morning after countless… I mean COUNTLESS takes. And it was then when I found my glitch, my “uh oh, what am I going to do now?” moment. It was a syncing issue.
I go to sleep, as I had to be at work, a mere 5 hours later. I sent e-mails to friends I knew in the film industry. One mentioned something about a refresh rate. I got home, exhausted, but in not as bad of a mood as I should have been. I ingested the file, and for the hell of it, tried a little cheat using basic math and…. holy moly, it worked!
Here I was, having already mapped out a plan on how to correct it by completely re-shooting, and I didn’t have to do that at all. I was done?? I was DONE!!
I’ll keep the rest of it close to the vest for now. But it’s coming soon, don’t you worry.
Hope I make ya proud.
