NOTE: To make it easier to browse, all of the still images are displayed in thumbnails along the right side. You can click any thumbnail to pop open a window with the full-size image. The same images are linked to italic text within the paragraphs so that you can follow the story in context. Also, if you leave the popped window open, each image will replace the previous one.

Planning the video

The first step was to figure out how people make videos. Dan convinced me that we should do something more than just throw together random footage. So I started putting together a script, and we spent many long IM sessions at 3am talking about all the ideas. You can click the first image on the right to see a screenshot of the first script written, or just click here. Most of the script was inspired by the lyrics and the theme behind the song, which is about freedom and escape from the everyday boredom of life. Pop open the lyrics windows to see more!

The fun part

Finally, it was time to shoot some raw footage. Dan got some shots on his own before we met up. The opening scene of the video is an overhead shot of cars on the highway. The idea was to represent the morning commute to work.

Day 1. The first location we went to was McCollum Park in Downers Grove, Illinois. I used to live near 83rd and Lemont so it was a familiar area. Just for fun, I'm gonna include some still images of random outtakes and shots that ended up on the cutting room floor. The third image on the right is the water tower near the entrance to McCollum Park. We started with some general panning shots of the scenery. Here's another outtake where we panned a bit too far and caught our shadows in the picture.

The next three shots are from the music video itself, the first image is the playground at McCollum with our lead actress, Kirsten Chan, walking along a path. The next shot is a closeup of Kirsten, and the third shot was taken during one of the transitions where the scene is changing from Kirsten on one of the swings to a panning shot of me. The script here described a change from the office job, as Kirsten searches for "freedom through nature".

The next shot is an outtake where I'm running to get to my mark for a disappearing scene we had in mind. It's hard to figure out the plot from a couple seconds of video, but the idea here was that Kirsten is standing at a fork in the road, and my fading image would catch Kirsten's eye and lead her to the left which takes her to the playground. The last shot on the right is another outtake of me fiddling with my laptop. Since we needed to sync the audio track to the recorded video later during editing, I had to hear the song while we were taping. Dan had a portable CD player but I think there was some problem or something so we ended up playing the mp3 off my laptop through some small speakers.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2...