Thursday 1st January 2009

Yes, it's about that time again to start getting hair & makeup, jumping in and out of crazy costumes, and having incredible amounts of fun making a NEW VIDEO!

It's been a while since my last Hawaiian-esk escapade where I was swishing my hula skirt and 'wishing I' could go along with my beloved on his trip! This video for the song 'It's Amazing' has been a very long time coming indeed, ironically when it actually happened it was the fastest one I've ever done!

Back in the summer we were discussing lots of different options, one of which was even potentially having the cast of Sex and the City in the video! My manager joked we should have 'Big' at my place cooking me eggs in the morning, I told him that would be sacrilegious! Anyway, the shoot was AMAZING as per the song title, and I couldn't be happier with the video. It's extremely special and very close to my heart as it not only accompanies the song exactly as I had hoped and imagined, but it actually embodies me doing exactly what I'm singing about in the song, "going for it", by co-directing it too which was a fabulous first!

The story goes:

Back in July I met Jesse Dylan at a friends soiree and started having a lovely chat.
(As a quick aside, it was quite funny as I had no idea who his Dad was at the time. He found out I was a singer and so touring came up, he said he'd toured a lot when he was younger so I just presumed he was a musician. He then told me he wasn't but his Dad was and I thought nothing of it other than wondering if I might know of his Dad. I found out later his touring Dad was none other than BOB..! Hmmm, I think I've heard of him before! While I'm on the topic his brother Jakob has a wicked new album out called 'Seeing Things' that I've been listening to a lot recently). Anyway, that is all utterly irrelevant, on with the story!

We continued our conversation and I found out Jesse was a director. I told him of my secret ambitions of getting behind the camera and how I'd been reading a lot of books on the subject and about cinematography etc, and he said, "Why don't you direct your next music video?" I explained it wasn't really something I felt an urge to do, that I'm interested in features, and didn't really fancy my first attempt being to direct myself. Regardless, he looked at me and said, "You should do it".

Later that week I went for a walk and meditated on what Jesse had said and my intense and growing passion for film. (Over the last few years while waiting for Down To Earth to be released, I've realized my inquisitiveness and love of this storytelling medium has been there all along, since I was a young'un, and it's now rocketing to the surface!) I listened to 'It's Amazing' imagining what I would do if I were to direct it, and I suddenly realized Jesse was right, I had to do it! I also reflected on how interesting it was that when I wrote the song I conjured up past events and emotions of when I had been trying to get a break, which I thought and hoped would speak to others who might be at similar junctures in their lives, and perhaps be a comfort and motivator. As I overlooked the ocean that day, I realized that the song was speaking to me also! How curious! My songs have often done this over the years (sometimes in a sweet way - Finally Woken, sometimes annoyingly so – Just a Ride..!) but this was really unexpected. I decided then and there I was going to do it, and in that way, the song and video would be rolled into one as an interesting testament to the song's message.

Fast forward a few months - the endeavor floated for a while, release dates were finalized, and I happened to get an email one day from a person I met a year ago, on Halloween, at the Murakami MOCA party in LA…

My sister and I, and my friend over from the UK, were catching up by an outside bar when we spotted two men in suits with bald heads and big mustaches! They looked very funny. I think my sister told them they had the best costumes and they came over. We all got conversing, emails were exchanged and that was that. The email I received a year later (there had been a few in between) was a group email from Saam Gabbay, aka one of the 'Mustache Men'! Letting everyone know his new website was up. I knew he was a creative fellow as he'd been running around taking photos the night we met, and although I was right in the middle of something, I had a strong urge to check out his new site. I knew I was supposed to look at it (I have fairly poor time management skills which is why I don't blog as much as I'd like to, so doing something like this in the middle of work is a tad dangerous!) Anyway, I had a look, saw Saam's film called "a very sad day" (http://www.saamgabbay.com/special-projects/podcasts/) and fell in love with it. The minute I saw it I knew that's what I wanted to do for my video.

I contacted Saam and we met to discuss co-directing and a plan. He was enthused especially as he's a music-lover (he confided that he sometimes feels the need to wind up his window when blasting long 80's jazz solos in his car! I told him I didn't think that was bad at all, and that I like all those cheesy love songs that stay in the charts for 13 weeks like old Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey ballads, I think he thought that was worse..!) and also a very talented closet musician himself. It turns out he made loads of dance tracks for himself back in the day which we listened to in the edit, 'experimental' drum 'n' bass a la LTJ Bukem, as it was known then. I used to run 'Jungle' nights in Brighton so this was a very interesting discovery! His music skills also came in handy on the set when he thankfully worked out my own song notes for me to play on the piano. (Lester (Mendez) originally played the intro on the track, the whole thing in one take no less, straight off the bat with no practicing, I was very impressed!) I write and play things by ear and the organ unfortunately wasn't omitting a sound so I had no chance.

We worked at a CRAZY pace just before the holidays: completely changed the treatment four days before the shoot to the idea I'd first had when I initially wrote the song, hired Jennifer the amazing stylist on the wed night (giving her just 24hrs to find all the outfits), and didn't lock down the location until the thurs when we were shooting the next day, completely nuts! Anyway, the day went amazing and there are lots of great outtakes that I'll post here (on my site www.jem-music.com for those of you reading this elsewhere), as soon as I can get them up. I learnt so much it was fantastic. One of my favorite experiences was actually in the edit, where Saam and I sat and went through all the photo-films (the whole video is made of still photo's strung together incase you hadn't noticed!) to put together the video. I've always enjoyed engineering my vocals and demos (in Logic) in my studio, and it was great to get a taste of Final Cut too.

I'm so excited to get it out there. I hope you like the end result and will send me all your comments on youtube!
Here's the link – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XDxhDbtDak
Spreading the word in any way about the video would be MUCH MUCH MUCH APPRECIATED! :) Thank you kindly in advance!
Obviously you can watch it here also but I want to see those comments!
Remember to click on 'watch in high quality' at the bottom right of the screen.

Other than that I hope you are all having a WONDERFUL holiday experience and are looking forward to a SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS 2009!!!
I certainly am!
Bye for now and HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Jem x