Editing a Music video on the other side of the world

Traveling is great and it’s even better when you do it open-minded. You never know what might happen. This is the story of how we got to work on music video in Australia.

Our friend Pete went to Australia in February 2017. After he had crossed the country (of course OFFROAD) and had his share of adrenaline and adventure, he decided to rest for a bit in Byron Bay / Queensland. One night he strolled through the city and ended up in a seemingly random bar. He ordered a drink and noticed Tay Oskee aka Tayo playing the guitar and singing. The music appealed to Pete and he was amused and impressed by Tayo’s custom made flip-flop-snare-construction. So after the the gig, Pete bought Tayo’s  album “That Place” and had a nice chat with the Singer-Songwriter.

Back in Germany, Pete shared Tayo’s uplifting, yet thoughtful music with the others. The CD started to become a favorite pick on TOSHI’s jukebox. Somewhat out of the blue, Alex contacted Tayo and suggested to make an electronic remix of one his tracks (which is still in work). In addition, Ben came up with the idea to contribute a video to the remix. So we sent Tayo some of Ben’s videos. The Australian Singer-Songwriter obviously liked what he saw: After some time, he reached out to MUKTIVAT and asked for a possibility to work together on a video for his upcoming single with the working title: “Like Waves”.

From here, the collaboration started officially and Ben provided Tayo and his team with all the information they needed in order to produce footage that Ben would be happy to work with. They took his advise on which camera to buy and which settings to use. The Aussie guys did a great job in making music, filming and creating the story-line. Ben threw himself at cutting, colour grading and editing all the footage.

And here comes what we could call the “nomadic turn”: The whole music video was done while the MUKTIVAT crew was on the way to and in Portugal – and Tayo and his crew in Australia. Technology is great. However, the project with Tayo let us realise some crucial aspects of remote work and once again we learned how to improve our work flow.

To many people, this kind of lifestyle might look something in between carefree, courageous and crazy, but trust us: When we say that it’s not as easy as it sometimes appears to be.  However, it surely is worth the effort and the whole-hearted spirit we put into it echos in our projects!

Some highlights from this project: editing on the backseat of a camper van // downloading footage in the public WiFi of a Portuguese shopping mall, a surfer cafe on the beach and a waterslide-park // managing regular Skype calls with a huge time difference. Looking back, all that was worth for a “Cheers, mate!” from Tayo, the MUKTIVAT premiere in Portugal and, finally, that moment when the video went online.

By the way: the video was pretty successful on Facebook.
And don’t forget to check out Tayos Website here.