The Making Of: i.V KiNG's "City Girl" Music Video

A few weeks ago, I spent an entire day at Blend Studio withi.V KiNG, her wife Shelby, Emily Edgar (makeup), and Brandon Goodwin (Blend Studio), plus a few awesome grips and PA's who donated their time to help us create a music video fori.V KiNG's new single, "City Girl."

I had the privilege of acting as Creative Director on this video, as well as taking behind the scenes photos.

Shot in one day, this music video had another challenge: we shot most of it backwards! To do this, i.V KiNG had to learn how to sing (or at least mouth) her song in reverse. We had to track everything in the song forwards and backwards to figure out how to execute it. 

The one section that wasn't in reverse, where i.V KiNG is playing the drums, is what we shot first. The glitter on the drums was an idea I had that I was super excited about and it didn't disappoint! When I saw the glitter explode off the drums as she hit them, I got goosebumps. It was magical moment. But just watching i.V play drums live is a pretty magical experience--she's a magnetic, energetic, and just plain fun performer to watch. 

I love this shot I captured of i.V's wife, Shelby (who plays a toxic badboi in the video), looking on at i.V playing the drums with such pride and joy.

We had to manually spin the disco balls!

Below are two of my most favorite candid shots I've ever taken... The glitter! The disco! Whatta vibe!

Once we finished that, it was time to switch it up and get ready to start working in reverse. 

Below you can see some of the set up--on the computer screen we have a video of i.V singing played backwards so she can see what her lips look like and what it sounds like to try to mimic it. To add even more of a challenge--because obviously this wasn't hard enough already--we had to shoot each shot in one take because we were throwing paint and confetti on i.V while she sang backwards. It was a beautiful kind of torture for us all, but totally worth it in the end.

We used black-light body paint for the black-light bridge portion of the music video. Fun fact: we went through ALL the glitter we brought and used every tube of black-light paint. 

i.V used the drop cloth to tuck into her newly thrifted pants to keep them from getting paint on them...this hilariously ended up creating the appearance of a wedding dress which Shelby and i.V had fun with between takes (see below). By the end of it, i.V was covered in paint and freezing cold. It was a long day, but we did it! We made something pretty cool. 

Without further ado... please enjoy the City Girl music video!