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2015-01-10 Not Complaining: Bright Waters

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Lyrics

I thought I'd say a little about the Not Complaining video. Because there have been questions and queries. Here are some quick bits:

Where the Bruise Me video was black and vivid colours, messy, and concrete, the Not Complaining video needed to be white and quieter colours, bright, and abstract.

Where Bruise Me was meant to add to the discomfort of the song, meant to be a call to action, Not Complaining was an invitation to swim in the promise of something better.

(Whilst the lyrics/songs weren't written in contrast, it's hard not to work from a point of contrast when one has only one video so far and it's for a very different song.)

This was my Mum's favourite Varnish song, so it seemed right that one of the shoots for this video took place on her birthday.

This video took three shoots, water, glitter, stars, and a ridiculous amount of soap.

It was intended to be a very simple lyric video, because we didn't post or include the bridge lyrics anywhere and people had wondered about them. Because I love lyrics and find lyric videos a potential treasure. Because we hoped, given it would be worked on around the winter holidays, that it would be really simple and nobody would have to take time from holiday celebrations to make it happen.

(I'm going to pause a moment to howl with laughter at how that last reason didn't pan out.)

But we quickly went from my ideas for things to film and then play back in slow motion as the back drop for the lyrics to a multi-layered video requiring three shoots and, against the plan, me. We went from that one layer under the text to four video layers and loads of effects.

One of the layer ideas came from talking with Guido Ronger, the cinematographer on the Bruise Me video.

The stars you see dropping in the background are the same stars used in the Bruise Me video. (I liked that little bit of connection, especially given what the stars symbolised in the Bruise Me video.)

For a while, once we realised the video wasn't going to be simple, we considered dropping the lyrics. But one of the people who saw it (who likes the music but isn't in the band) talked some sense into us. I think she was just pleased to finally know what I was saying during the bridge...heh!

And, now, it's time to sort out the Believe It video...

xxx
Amber

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