Drugstore - Isabel Monteiro blog

Kent video shoot and the madness of the music industry .

A few weeks ago we shot a super lo-fi vid, as a preview for our upcoming single 'Standing Still', for the NME online.

We did it in a hurry, as a fun little thing, shot it on my tiny 3mgpix camera, and I confess, was pretty darn pleased w/ the result.

But, as it was shot in small rez, by the time it got uploaded, and published twice as large, it did look a little too low-rez and fuzzy for viewing consumption.

Long story short: a fan decided to donate some cash towards a better video - craze, isn't it? to think that someone out there cares as much as we do, still rattles my heart.

So, last 2/3 weeks we hooked up w/ a few would-be video makers, met production companies - but things started to turn ridiculous pretty fast, in a way that they can in the musicbiz - like: they wanted an 'americana feel', ok, we like the sound of that - but then they mentioned 'old Chevy's' 'neon lights' and the dreaded 'american diner' - hold your horses right there - that doesn't sound good at all - our 'americana' is slightly more subtle than a bloody pair of cowboys boots (hate'em, by the way).

When I heard them discussing what I was gonna wear, probably something long and floaty, that was it - I had one of those 'inner voice' moments, when a big bunch of people around you are telling ya: 'yeah, its gonna be great', but little voice inside shouts: 'no, no, it's not gonna be bloody great. get out, isabel, get outta of here and take your beloved little band away from all this silliness'. and so we did.

I'm keen on collaborations, really am, but you gotta hit me with a great idea - doesn't have to be big or expensive, indeed, some of the best/coolest and most engaging videos have very little to do with size of production, it's all about a strong 'idea'.

Nothing worse, in my book, then to spend the graciously donated cash and end up with yet another run-of-the-mill, generic, meaningless video.

So, we've decided instead to just go to the seaside and do some shooting ourselves. No mega ambition here, just wanna end up with some nice footage, a record of this Anatomy moment, and do something simpler, but meaningful to us.

At this stage of our mini-mouse-career, we're really not trying to achieve anything, hit the bright lights, nothing like that; in fact, that the record is out there at all is the achievement - all I hope is that we stick to our small guns and just keep doing music we wanna listen to, and film stuff we don't mind looking at ourselves.

that's all, really.

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Found pretty cool'n'cheap beach-pod on the Kent coast, and we're gonna be close-hauled up there for a few days - taking a decent HD camera along, a bottle of Tequila and a variety of ponchos.

we got our video masterplan.

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ps1 - that miss m is taking sunglasses to grey Kent coast, is proof of enduring optmism:

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. ps2 - this is where we're heading: . ps3 - le beach-pod: . ps4 - and here's the lo-fi homemade preview we did for Standing Still:

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