By David Korhonen

Gold record

When we first receive the music video brief, I felt like it was going to be the kind of project where I can’t help at any point but montage. I never played an instrument besides guitar, but I’m awful. And I don’t often sing when I’m sober, so I thought it would be difficult. Plus lyrics in English is still hard for me because I miss the vocabulary and the cultural references that add so much in it. 

But fortunately, we decided to go for a rap which doesn’t require a good voice but only tempo. And I could write it in French! No need to struggle with English(which is improving by the way), I could fully focus on the beat. Also, nobody understands, so it looks cool even if the lyrics are crap.

Thus it becomes an enjoyable exercise. I love working on the sound of sentences. It reminded me of french poetry but with the bad boy vibe and less sophisticated sentences which allow you to be completely free.

So I went for a “rap god” part with a lot of repetitions to compensate that I will probably sing the rest of the song slowly. This was the funniest part to write because it was all about having as many rhymes as possible with less than three syllables between each. And with if possible a rich rhyme. All that for having, in the end, a verse that means something.

Anyway, we had to record it, and I didn’t know at the time how it will sound and what the others wrote. Everyone part was different in the flow and the lyrics. But everything fits so well together. The record didn’t take too long, but it was then the time for the most prominent part: the video.

Video is always time-consuming, from the storyboard to the montage it takes so much time for only some seconds of video. I started with props to look like both Illustrator and a rapper(which is not something I’m used to wearing). Then for the record, I mainly did the assistant (lighting and keeping the iPad with the lyrics in a range of sight). I’m not comfortable enough with the camera’s angle and scene for now.

The record takes ages, but we got a lot of fresh shots.

However, after having all those elements, the music was a bit too long. We had to get rid of some lyrics and clips (RIP my verse on the AI extension). But it was for the best.

The montage then took some time, and it is always tricky to separate the job on this part. So I went for the animation, I had some cool effects in mind. The scribble was something you can’t figure out how it looks before you actually make it. Thus I went for the 180 frames of scribble, and the end result worked so well. I was happy about being able to add these speed effect on the fast rapping part. I didn’t sleep much that night, but it was worth it.

Finally comes the moment where we looked at everyone’s video. I was so impressed by the work and the personality of every video. And also so glad people liked ours. Because when you have seen your baby a thousand times, it becomes harder to tell if it’s good.

And I now have a new career waiting for me. Why win pencils when you can have gold records?