Fly, my pretty, fly!

Ok so the bird’s been released. The video for my song ‘I’m A Bird’ that is. Finally! 

I woke up one fine April morning with the idea of visually combining lyrics, content and instrumentation for that song. We’re seven months later now. What took so long? I remember sitting in my living room together with my songwriting pal Jo on a mid-Spring Friday and Saturday eve taking pictures of shiny colorful letters meticulously placed on the back of a black t-shirt to the tones of some Spanish guy and his favorite eighties tunes and drinks. 

The next day my bass player friend Stoffel patiently shot one hot day’s worth of footage in that same living room of me playing all sorts of orthodox and less orthodox instruments featured in the song, while also being careful not to include my weary eyes. 

As a rookie, I took a moderately successful stab at quickly editing all of this. I edited at my desk, in bed, on trains, at a friend's place, in a crowded Barcelona flat during Primavera, kinda anywhere really. 

After that, it was time to get reacquainted with a childhood buddy Julian, who can do some of the meanest Robert Crumbesque animations I know of. He firmly refused all possible sort of compensation. Except for having his drawing sessions accompanied by a nice bottle of white wine. Or two! Three? I don’t remember.. Anyway, all of this was very promising until some very tragic personal stuff got in the way. Everything got postponed until suddenly I realized Summer had passed me by again and I was still at square one. 

I got in touch with some cartoonists to fill my friend’s huge shoes and ended up getting recommended to Evelien, someone I knew very well and whose work I’ve always loved but whom initially honestly didn't even come to mind. Funny how these things go, especially considering the way it turned out. She walked into that same hot living room, end of September now. Along with my pal Cedric we taped my uncle's tripod carrying my friend David's camera on top of my desk, aimed some powerful lights at the white ceiling and pushed record so Evelien, sitting at the desk, could do her thang. While lying down in my lazy couch, giving scarce instructions, I could monitor Evelien’s progressions on my flat screen tv and got really enthusiastic about what I saw. After some trials and errors on Saturday we wrapped everything up by 5pm on Sunday. 

I got in touch with the nicest folks at Villabasta who agreed to help out editing. Tom, this dude that edited, was very skilled and amazingly quick at executing whatever I was hinting at. After a couple of days of editing we came to the best possible compromise and here it is. All ready, for your viewing pleasure. So fly, my pretty, fly!