This is the Director’s cut of the video, and is my preferred version and original intended vision.
I think the Director’s cut is closer to the original spirit of song, is less literal and more visual, and is more inspirational and powerful, and pacts a stronger emotional punch.
That said, whereas I initially was not too keen on the official version, now I can see the reason why some people might prefer it because it is warmer and more down-to-earth, and more suited as a National Music Video.
At the end of the day, I’m proud of the fact that I managed to do something for my country and countrymen, and yet managed to retain my artistic vision and integrity.
Here are some little known facts about the song and video:
- The initial song was only 2:30 long.
- The concept for the music video was mostly inspired by “Forrest Gump”. Other inspirations include Coldplay, Sigur Ros, and The Watchmen movie.
- Dave went on a crash diet one month before the shoot to
look goodachieve the thoughtful artist look in the night scenes. - This large scale production was filmed over a period of two weeks. More than 2,000 extras were used. The shoots were achieved using two Red one cameras, one Phantom high speed camera, one magnum dolly, one 30 foot camera crane, and one Super Puma helicopter.
- The first half on the song was shot at 50fps. In order to achieve lip synch, Dave had to sing along to the song playback at double speed. Dave took one week of non-stop listening and practising to the speeded up song to get it right.
- All the Marina Barrage scenes were filmed from 6.30am to 8.30am and 5pm to 7pm only to achieve the “breaking light” dawn look of the video.
- Each time lapse sequence took at least 5 hours to time, and was re-shot at least 3 times until the shot was perfect.
- Most of the skies were shot in camera. About 25% of it were created effects.
- The high speed flag shot at 02:50 was filmed at 500fps, and was not included in the proposal or storyboard.
- We brought 6-7 hours of footage into the editing room, and cut and condensed to the 4 minutes that you see on screen.
