We've just released another Rowan Stuart & Carryn Clicks collab: the brand new music video for Rowan's song 'Sleepwalking', filmed by yours truly!
This was one of the first videos we worked on for Rowan's latest album 'A Map Of Forever' - we started filming it in December last year (before lockdown was even a thing!).
Rowan told me his concept, which had come to him really quickly for this particular song. It involved a sleepwalking journey with lots of different activities and mini-scenes along the way. It sounded great to me, so we started thinking about locations and people to feature in the video.
Luckily I have a big family, and my twin sister Tarryn and my niece Kirsty were available and keen. Even better: they live in my old hometown of Camperdown, which was my first suggestion for the location - we needed somewhere quiet and safe where we could film through the night (not easy in Durbs!).
Tarryn would be our sleep-cyclist. She rides her bicycle every day, so this should be easy for her, right? Except for this video she would have to ride with her eyes closed, while wearing pyjamas.
She did really well though! We just had to stop filming so many times to get out of the way of cars - I swear we chose Camperdown's busiest night of the year to film this scene. So much for the sleepy little town!
Next was a scene involving an unconscious dance routine between Rowan and my niece Kirsty. I had fun rehearsing the steps with Rowan at home to prepare him for the shoot, even though I have no rhythm!
This scene took a long time and lots of takes because Kirsty and Rowan couldn't see each other or find their positions while their eyes were closed. We eventually got it though - thanks to my little niece Ruth for being our late-night DJ.
Rowan enlisted his friend Andy Turrell, who played drums on the new album, to appear in the video as a sleepwalking guy gathering random objects in a scrapyard to build a makeshift drum kit. We filmed these scenes on the farm where I grew up. I think Andy was hilarious in this role, and he's always super-chilled to work with.
When Rowan's character meets up with Andy to perform the last chorus together, I get such a feel-good vibe, and I found these scenes had such a great energy to them, on-screen and off.
The opening and closing bedroom scenes were originally filmed in my old bedroom in Camperdown, but Rowan and I felt that our knowledge of lighting had progressed since December, since we've done a few more videos in that time. So we decided to re-film some scenes a few weeks ago in Durban. It's great feeling like we're getting better with each video.
I have such good memories of this video shoot - walking the quiet, misty streets of Camperdown at 2 am (we worked into the early hours for 3 nights in a row, arriving back home when the sun was rising!), or filming in an empty park in darkness. It was probably the most fun and memorable music video experience I've had so far, and I'm really happy with how the end product turned out.
Go give it a watch on Facebook or YouTube, and leave us a comment if you like it. Better yet, subscribe to Rowan's channel or even join his Patreon page for more videos coming your way.
