The competition

Every year we give away one fully produced music video. Putting a music video together can easily run into 5 figures before you've blinked so this is no small prize.

Why do we do it?

The music industry has dramatically changed in recent years and many emerging artists are finding they have to operate much like a small business in order to grow. At Monoki we're passionate about supporting new talent. Even though we do this kind of thing for money we try to support new musical talent as much as we can with low cost options or opportunities like this.

The winner

We had a large selection of songs and artists to choose from but one song stood out, EM Kane's Wasted Time. It's a powerful ballad with a real bluesy feel and a strong message. It's also beautifully produced by Ali Robertson but there's something else that compelled us to work on this song. This is the artist's debut release. When you hear it you can see why we were blown away.

Eleanor approached us with an idea for the video but we felt it needed something a little more while still keeping it simple.

The planning

Here's Eleanor's description of the song.

"Wasted Time’ is all about showing your ultimate vulnerability with someone intimately but then still not being able to love them emotionally, wishing you could love that person as much as you want them and all the weird feelings that come about as a result. The song says 'woman' a lot, and in the time since I wrote it I’ve gone through some gender identity stuff, so I want to explore that side visually."

Eleanor's original concept was very simple with one constant shot revolving around her. During the middle eight where the music breaks down the video would reveal her real self with little make up wearing nude shorts and crop top.

I felt the song deserved some more though and loved the highly visual lines in the song about watching someone get up to leave and not being able to tear your eyes away from someone.

So, sticking with Eleanor's original idea as a starting point I came up with the idea to shoot the film in three scenes. Scene one with a man in bed, scene two in a kitchen the morning after the night before with a woman and the final scene would reveal Eleanor as the woman she is rather than the other characters she was trying to be.

We met in a small cafe near Waterloo Station and discussed the idea over coffee. She loved it. With a few tweaks we were ready to start looking for locations.

The filming

To shoot the three scenes we needed three locations. We chose Eleanor's South London bedroom for the first scene and her friend's posh kitchen nearby for the second one.

For the third scene we needed a large, empty and dark space. Normally, with a budget this would just be a simple case of hiring a studio but not in this case. Luckily I live on a farm that is blessed with several large and largely empty barns. The farmer, Daniel was more than happy for us to use one.

We shot the barn scene first on a cold December day. It took us a few takes to get it right and we needed to plug any holes in the barn where any light was escaping in. The whole shot was filmed with our lighting director Kyra using one small light following me as I shot the scene with a gimbal. In post production I was able to reduce any further background light to make the whole scene look even more dramatic.

The other two scenes were pretty easy to shoot with Jake and Dima playing the parts of our two love interests. The whole video was completed with just three shots in two days but the really trickly bit was yet to come.

Matching heads

I wanted to use Eleanor's face as the transition point between scenes. So as one scene ended close on Eleanor's face, the next scene would begin with her face in exactly the same position. Easy on paper but harder in reality.

To do this we had to think about exactly where Eleanor was going to be at all times so each scene started and finished with that close up. With Eleanor's head in exactly the same position and the lighting set to compliment the next scene. With an idea in my head of how I wanted to frame that last shot it was then just a case of trial and error until we got the take we needed.

The result

With this video  wanted to prove that you don't need to throw the kitchen sink in with loads of special effects to make a powerful video that supports and sells the song. In fact the only challenge was that transition shot, everything else was pretty easy to produce.

But it was all in the planning. By knowing exactly in my head how each scene was going to look we successfully shot the whole thing in two days and the edit was complete within the same week.

Every music video comes with it's own set backs and complications but what makes it a great experience for us is being able to think outside the box and come up with a result better than it could have been in the first place.

Want us to bring your music alive?

As well as producing music videos we love to film artists live too. If you'd like to discuss bringing your music alive with a great video - click on the button below and let's talk.