Stormy

Chapter 38

About a week later, it is time for the showcase results. Emma and I know our results already, having spoken to Martijn and Julian already, but still we're curious to see who else got picked besides Emma, so we walk up to the board with all the other vocalists. When we finally get up front, not too many surprises are waiting for us. Martijn had obviously chosen to bring in Kris as an external vocalist and there was only one more producer who also didn't pick anybody from the showcase. Most of them picked singers from the third year and only two of them actually chose a vocalist in their first year at the academy. I didn't get picked, but to my satisfaction, Maud also wasn't selected by anyone. Maybe she would finally stop bugging me now. I look over to Emma and see her smiling proudly as she skips through the list. She really deserves the chance to work with Julian again. Sometimes I feel like as if her beautiful voice easily gets overlooked by the teachers, so another chance for her to shine is great. "I'm so proud of you.", I smile and give her a hug as we have found our way out of the crowd. "Thanks, Julie. I'm so excited to work with Julian again.", she answers. "Oh I believe that! I can't wait to hear the song you guys are about to make.", I say, "Do you know if he has any ideas yet?" "Yes, I think he's got plan.", Emma explains, "Actually, I believe he's gonna pick the second idea we developed during the early phase of the project this year. It's called "Love you better."" Then she starts humming a short melody line that concludes into a catchy chorus... "Lalalala lalalala love you better...." "That's basically what we have so far.", she explains to me. "Hey, that's sick!", I say, "Can't wait to hear the progress when you start working on the song." "You'll be sick of me singing it in our room all day by the end of it- I promise.", Emma jokes and we make our way out of the building. "Hey, but what about you, Julie? Are you still going to meet Martijn later today for to talk about the music video?", she wants to know. I nod my head: "Yes I am. We're gonna meet his videographer, Damian is his name I think, in a café at four thirty. I think the two of them have concept ready that they want to present to me... So yeah, we'll see how that goes." "I'm sure it's going to be great. Just go and see how you feel about it, I'm sure you'll enjoy yourself anyways.", she encourages me. "Absolutely. I'm honestly so glad that I got to talk to Martijn about what was bothering me. I feel so much better now.", I answer. "Totally! You're gonna rock this, I promise.", Emma smiles. "Thanks, Emma. You're the best friend in the world, honestly!", I add and absolutely mean it that way.

Later that day, I meet Martijn at the address in the city center of Utrecht that he had texted me earlier. It's a cute little café and I see many people in it working on laptops or writing into notebooks. One of these places for creatives, it seems. What a great fit. About ten minutes later, a black car pulls up to the side of the road and Martijn, as well as another man a bit older than him, hop out the car. Martijn notices me waiting for them and directs the other guy over to me. "Julie... hey, how was your day?", Martijn greets me and gives me a big hug. "Hey, good to see you.", I smile and return the hug. Then Martijn turns over to the other guy and introduces us: "Julie, this is Damian, my videographer. Damian, this is Julie." Damian offers me his hand and says: "Hey, Julie, it's so nice to meet you." "Hey Damian, it's great to meet you too!", I answer and shake his hand. We then head inside and order our coffees, then we sit down in a booth in a corner in the back of the café. Damian and Martijn both get out their laptops while I take a first sip of my coffee. After a bit of small-talk, we get into the concept that the both of them have already prepared. "Okay, Damian, maybe you just wanna get right into what you imagined for the video?", Martijn offers. "Absolutely.", Damian agrees, "So Julie, what I love about your lyrics is that they give me such vivid images to work with. That image of the one shot you fire at the sky alone first, trying to unite with that other person and then later fire the second shot together, that's super strong in my opinion. I also love the thunderstorm you mentioned. Look, imagine this: We have some kind of rugged cliffs as our set, preferably in an overcast weather situation, sometime in the evening. I kind of imagine it too be dark, just matches the content of the lyrics better. We then have our female actor strolling around the beach underneath the cliffs, all in the darkness. The wind plays with her hair. At some point she picks up one of these colorful smoke torches and lights that up. If you guys want to, you can choose the color. Later, we'll have a second actor, probably male, join her. He sees her colorful smoke in the distance, then lights up a torch of his own. He's the one she's looking for." "That sounds nice. Fits the lyrics.", I answer. "And we'll continue that theme of colorful smoke for the "one shot that you fire at the sky" when we shoot the performance sequences.", Martijn adds. "Performance sequences?", I ask. "Of course, silly, you and I gotta be in the video too of course!", he chuckles. "Sounds super interesting to me.", I smile, "What were you just saying about the colorful smoke?" "Well... I was thinking we could set up a little performance set on the edge of the cliff with different smoke torches in the background. I'd bring a guitar, we'd get you a mic to play with. What do you think? Are you down? Any ideas to add?", he asks. His idea really does sound great. "I love how you're interpreting the one shot theme through the colorful smoke in the darkness.", I compliment Damian's vision for the video. "Thank you.", Damian smiles, "I'm so glad you like the idea. Martijn told me that it wasn't actually meant as a love song, but both of us liked the idea of the couple finding each other through the smoke torches, so we decided to present it to you." "Absolutely. I love the idea as well!", I emphasize again, "And the lyrics basically just tell a story about togetherness. It's not particularly just about love or just about friendship. I wanted to leave that open for the listeners to interpret on their own. I wrote the lyrics about how you can feel so lost and lonely out there and sometimes it feels like every cry for help is senseless, but there might be someone out there seeing the shot you fire. You know?" Damian nods and makes some notes on the concept document, adding my explanation of the lyrics to the background info for the video brief. Martijn sips on his coffee and then asks: "So Julie, are you in?" "Definitely!", I smile, "Do you guys have an actual location in mind for the shoot already? And when are you planning to shoot the video? ADE is coming up so soon already." Damian laughs: "Oh Julie, believe me, I'm used to Martijn's impossible deadlines." "And he makes them every time.", Martijn says and gives him a playful punch, "Remember that one time we ambushed your office with the whole crew to remind you of your deadline?" "Oh I definitely do!", Damian laughs and then turns to me, "Last ADE, we did seven releases in a week. A music video a day. And we were stuck on something and Martijn thought we'd miss the deadline. Then he sent his whole crew, literally three cars full of people, over to the office to remind us we'd have to deliver on time." "Oh wow...", I exclaim, "That sounds exactly like something you'd do, Martijn." "I have my means...", Martijn chuckles. "You definitely do...", Damian agrees, "But anyways, back to your question, Julie. We do have a cliff in mind and my team is currently working on getting the permission to shoot there. It's in France actually, close to the border of Belgium. As soon as we get the permission, we're ready to go. When we're done here, I'll give the team the go to look for the two actors and..." "The date... Damian. The date.", Martijn reminds him jokingly. "Okay so if everything works out, then we'd like to go there until Wednesday before ADE at latest.", Damian explains. "Wednesday? Isn't that a little... late?", I remark, "I mean all the editing, post-production, all that stuff?" "Damian is a magician. And he knows that there's no time to sleep during ADE anyways. So we're all good.", Martijn smirks. "Alright, if you guys say so... I'm in.", I say and give the both of them a smile. "Wonderful. I knew it all along.", Martijn says and gives me a hug. Damian offers me a high-five and says: "I'm looking forward to working with you, Julie. I'll be in touch about all the details as soon as we have them." "You do know it's my first time ever in a music video, right Damian?", I answer. "I do know. But you'll do great!", he smiles. "I'm just joking. I am really excited to be a part of this project too!", I answer. Then Damian quickly empties his coffee, packs all his things together and excuses himself to start working. Martijn and I decide to stay a little longer and spend some more time in the café. And as always, our conversations revolve all around music. Because I mean, what else would we ever talk about?