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  • The opening shot is a little confusing and a little unreal.

  • That sense of unreality is because nearly every shot in this video

  • is being played back at the wrong speed.

  • We filmed this section at 30 frames a second,

  • but it's being played back at 24,

  • 80% of normal speed,

  • so it just seems a little bit off.

  • Plus, we're using rapid cuts with no continuity between them.

  • Different clothes, different locations,

  • different everything.

  • We've also got some cutaways in extreme slow motion,

  • because it looks spectacular,

  • and it lets me do a moody stare into the distance

  • without having to hold it for so long that it becomes awkward.

  • It also lets us fit in some product placement.

  • Some of the shots aren't slow motion, though.

  • This is being played back faster than real time,

  • so that the dancers seem more synchronised and precise than they really are.

  • I mean, don't get me wrong, they're good,

  • but with the speed change, their movements look superhuman.

  • Also, there are dancers,

  • because having attractive people move in attractive ways

  • makes the video more appealing.

  • We couldn't afford a wind machine for this shot,

  • so we bought a leaf blower from a hardware store.

  • We kept the receipt, so we can return it after we're done.

  • The trouble with filming everything in the wrong frame rate

  • is that my voice won't sound right.

  • So the vocal track for this was pre-recorded in a studio,

  • and I'm lipsyncing it at the wrong speed.

  • If my lips don't quite match up at some point,

  • we'll just cut to another take,

  • or to a completely random slow-mo shot of an object being destroyed,

  • and no-one'll care.

  • Actually, this isn't the studio where we recorded the vocal track.

  • I recorded this weeks ago so we could plan everything,

  • but we didn't film that session,

  • so we had to go to this separate recording studio to fake that footage.

  • This microphone isn't even plugged in.

  • We're now about two thirds of the way through

  • so here's a middle eight from me, the featured artist,

  • in an attempt to cross-promote us.

  • Our schedules didn't match up, so this was all filmed separately.

  • Despite that, we're still trying to convince everyone

  • that Tom and I met up and are great friends

  • and are definitely in the same room.

  • This is the bit where we break up the video with a bit of diegetic audio,

  • so people can't just rip the whole thing off YouTube.

  • This isn't actually a party.

  • It may look like we're having a spectacular time,

  • as that's the image we want to project,

  • but in reality we are on our fifteenth take.

  • Everyone would quite like to go home.

  • This final section is important, though,

  • because it resolves the question at the start:

  • why am I falling into a swimming pool?

  • Because ending the same way we started makes the audience think that

  • there's a sensible, circular narrative that ties everything together.

  • Even if there isn't.

  • You can't buy this on iTunes or stream it on Spotify.

  • It's... it's not a song.

The opening shot is a little confusing and a little unreal.

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