THE END OF THE NIGHT MUSIC VIDEO IS OUT!! what a dream. still so thrilled to have it out. i don't know if i've ever made anything i am prouder of. seriously can't believe it got premiered by Billboard -- check out their feature here. this video could not have happened without the incredible team of people that worked together on it. i can't express how grateful i am for every one of them.
while we were shooting the video, we had a little camcorder around the set (thanks mom!) to capture us creating the video. here is a little behind-the-scenes footage i cut together. :)
i thought i would share a little bit about how we actually made the music video. my director Joey Brodnax and i came up with the treatment sitting in his backyard (the backyard you actually see in the video!). we talked through the emotion and motivation of the song and the story it tells. we plotted out literally every shot of the video that day. i cannot overemphasize that Joey is the BEST.
within a few days, Ryan Harrelson came on board as producer and got all the wheels of the machine going. she booked the locations we needed and confirmed all the crew members. she is an organizational badass and a huge sweetheart.
we decided that we wanted choreography in the video. by chance, i had recently been a part of a collaboration between the Bluebird Cafe and the Nashville Ballet for their Emergence series, which matched songwriters with choreographers for a live performance. i had worked with Rebecca Steinberg, a choreographer from Nashville dance collective New Dialect. she choreographed a such a stunning piece for the video, really capturing so much feeling from the song. she also brought along the two dancers you see in the video, Hadassah Perry and Sarah Salim!! they absolutely killed their performance and were so much fun to work with.
i also styled the video myself! i had been imagining styling the video with big blocks of color and Nasty Gal came through with the perfect looks. i love how striking the colors are. if you feel like shopping the looks, you can find my yellow two piece set here, my yellow denim set here, Sarah's red two piece set here, and Hadassah's pink two piece set here (not sponsored or anything, just sincerely so excited about these clothes!).
our first day of shooting was at the Westlight Studios in Franklin, Tennessee. we were up bright and early to get everything set. we had Drew Bauml shooting the video -- and let me tell you, in case it's not clear from the video, that man had a job and a half shooting this. not just operating the camera, but weaving in and out between Hadassah, Sarah, and I. he's definitely a better dancer than i am. we were also lucky enough to have Tyler Squires and Trent Millspaugh helping out on set. Tyler, bless you for holding up that mirror as long as you did.
we essentially had three major setups to shoot: the first time the chorus hits and we cut to the choreography in studio, the second time the chorus hits and we cut to the choreography with new (crazy) lighting, and the bridge section with the love interest. everyone worked together so well and somehow it all went off without any major hitches! i went home that day really, really excited about what we had done.
our second and final day of shooting was the house party. we had a lot to cover and a pretty strict schedule we had to follow dictated by the dancers' schedules, when the sun was setting, and when our fake partygoers were arriving. yes, we threw an actual party and invited all of our friends to be in the background of the video! we got to the house in the early afternoon and decorated for the party, putting up streamers, setting out some beer and snacks, and making the house appropriately aesthetically messy.
then we shot everything we could that didn't need anyone else on camera that we could do in daylight -- the first verse of the song in the room with the mirror, and that one shot of me in the dark that hits in the bridge. the first verse was a little bit tricky to get, as we had to try to match the shot of my leaning into the mirror to what we had already shot at the studio of me falling out away from the camera. after practicing a few times, it ended up working really well.
next, with the first few friends to arrive to the house to be extras, we shot the final chorus in the backyard. it was so strange dancing around outside in the backyard with Joey and Drew and the whole crew inside! but oh man, it turned out so freakin' cool.
after wrapping on that shot, we moved inside to shoot me running through the party and the opening shot of the video. i'm so grateful for all of the friends that came to be extras for the video -- it really looked like a fun shindig!! the crowd mainly consisted of all the people i love to party with anyways, so it was super natural on camera. our partygoers did a great job partying. sorry to all the pals i ran into as i sprinted through the crowd to get outside. (also...............did you spot frank?)
the opening shot of the video let me really whip out my acting chops. thankful for my time as a veteran of Walter Reed Middle School's musical theater program. i loved the drama of it all. wasn't Jeremy White such a great leading man? also if you didn't notice, Jeanette is wearing a Mason Ramsey t-shirt in the opening shot. we stan.
funnily enough, the final shots we got for the whole video are both from kind of random moments in the middle of the video. first was the shot of me slamming the door to the back porch when it cuts to me outside. it was a fun little shot with Drew and i dancing around each other. we also got clever with one moment in this shot. watch for when i magically zoom out the camera! we also again had to make sure that the final shot of me leading up to the mirror matched with what we had shot in the studio already.
the final shot we did in the video was the beginning of the second verse, of me staring out the window and leaning to reveal the mirror outside. it was such a seemingly simple shot, but it took a lot of effort to make sure we matched up with what we had done in the studio. we did about ten takes of this, if i recall correctly. i was so exhausted, but lucky for me, i didn't need to face the camera for this! so the back of my head got to shine. i was acutely aware of the fact that once we got this take, we were finished with the video. it was such an overwhelming feeling, thinking about all the work we had put in and how close we were to wrapping.
i am so thrilled with this video. i am so so SO grateful for the incredible team i had working to make it what it is. every single person that worked on this put their very best foot forward and worked so well with everyone else. i am so overjoyed to have it out!
thank you to everyone who has watched / liked /commented nice things about the video!! it really means the whole world to me!! if you dig the video, send it to a friend that might feel the same. :)
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