A ‘Dream Come True’ As Told By Joel Davies
This week we were lucky enough to have Musicadium artist Joel Davies speak to us about his experience with making his first film clip. As we mentioned in the last newsletter, Joel was awarded a $15,000 film clip by a prestigious Sydney film school after they heard his music on iTunes.
Day 1 was one of the best days of my life. The night before, Sunday, I made sure I went to bed early at 10pm. Little did I know that I was going to be wide awake for the most part of the night from excitement. I couldn’t sleep no matter how much I tried. I woke up at 6am, half awake but with adrenalin rushing. I took a half-day off from work which was not so hard to get because my boss is so supportive. He signed my leave off with a blessing.
I got to the film studio on time by 9am with my props, including my guitar. I did not know half of the guys there but they were all nice to me. There were two film crews, the first one had about 8 - these guys were doing my film. The other team, of about 8 as well, were doing a documentary, kind of like a behind-the-scenes footage. It took only about an hour for them to setup the stage. We then took 9 takes, which meant I had to sing the song 9 times over and over again, not because I was making mistakes, but each take had to be shot as per the storyboard. I was shy on the first take. It was quiet on the set and all eyes were upon me. I wasn’t sure whether I enjoyed the attention or not. I didn’t want to make any errors. There was a TV that counted down from 5 to 1, the song begins and my queue began to start playing the guitar and lip syncing into the music. I got better as I did each take. I became less nervous and tense and after the fourth take, I began enjoying myself and eased into it. In my mind the people weren’t there anymore and it was just me and the camera.
We finished before 1pm and I think I must have gone to the toilet three times just to relieve myself. I haven’t even had drunk that much that morning. I drank my Chocolate Up’n'Go and that was it. Where all that water came from is beyond me. All I remember was that I was hungry and was ready to eat some lunch. Before we wrapped things up, I had to sign some document terms and agreement which I have read, understood and agreed upon. I was also interviewed by film crew no.2 for their documentary. I was back to work by 2:30pm.
A few weeks prior to Day 1, I got to meet my team and I had to introduce myself so they can understand who I am, my music and what I wanted to achieve out of doing this music video, which helped them generate ideas for the film. The whole thing was done so professionally right up to the very last detail as was drawn in the storyboard. This has been a dream come true!
jOel Davies 
Check out Joel’s music at the itunes store.
