THE MAKING OF "I Could Be The One" Music Video
Behind the scenes of the Avicii vs. Nicky Romero music video for "I Could Be The One." Director of photography Pasha and the crew flip gender roles by making a female office worker the object of desire, plan a dummy-hit-by-truck stunt, and run out of money mid-shoot.
Chapters
Yo, what's up? Welcome to this video. You're about to watch the behind the scenes of Avicii vs. Nicki. Hey, how's it—
how's it—
Yo, what's up? My name is Pasha. I'm the director of photography for a brand new video for Avicii vs. Nicki Romero. You're about to witness behind the scenes of how we made this happen. It's gonna be wild, it's gonna be sick. Stay tuned.
So, we're essentially reversing everything. And flipping it on its head. But I think, you know, that's actually gonna push buttons a little bit. I think that's actually gonna get a bit of a reaction because I think everything's still kind of like a little misogynistic in music videos, especially house videos. So it's nice to, you know, not use a lead that's a supermodel and to actually give her a bit of a role and give her a character and let her sleep around and use guys as objects this time. And so what's gonna happen is she's gonna be running in the shot, and then we're gonna roto the truck in, and then when the truck makes impact with the dolly, the next frame is gonna be the dummy in for her. So it'll look like it's the actual person getting hit. We'll do it. Let's do it.
Clear?
But yeah, hopefully it's shocking. Hopefully it's really shocking. 3, 2, 1, action!
This project has come about after a relationship with At Night Management that's been blossoming over the past year and a bit. They trusted us with a music video for Kazet, a new artist on At Night Management, and that music video was "Beat Me Up." Then we followed that up with "Weapon," and it just seemed to be a progression of things that were happening in the right direction because it was, you know, great product that was being created, and by director Peter Huang and the whole team at Mad Rock Entertainment.
Aren't I minty fresh?
We're hoping that this could be extremely cheesy.
People aren't used to seeing that at all, so I hope it's something new, and I hope it has a bit of like a social edge to it that, you know, people will react to.
Let me get you some more pills.
In this scene, I have a meltdown and I tell everyone in the office to fuck off. I smash a printer and then I run out screaming.
Ahh!
Ahh!
Ahh!
Alright, Trico.
Oh, I think I just slightly peed myself.
The whole idea of the music video is we start with this woman who is in North America and she's got a 9-to-5 job and she's not enjoying her life. And there are all these standards of what women should be doing, or just people in general, but specifically catered towards women in terms of how they should look, what they should eat, how they should act.
And she eventually eventually just says, "Fuck it." The right challenge always makes people step up to the plate, and that's what happened. And fortunately, we've been able to pre-produce, produce, execute, and wrap all of these music videos, and including "I Could Be the One." Today is December 15th, and we're about to go home. So we wrapped yesterday, and yeah, it was beautiful. We're done. Now it's the edit.
And so what I—
what we Hey, you want some conflict for the behind the scenes? Okay guys, we have a serious problem. This dummy trick has to work. If it doesn't work, it's gonna kill us. We're gonna fall behind. We're gonna have to cut some stuff off.
You know what? What do you have to say about that? This is just gonna happen. I don't care. We need as many takes as possible. And I think you're full of shit. I think you're full of shit. And you guys need to get off my fucking set right now.
You know what?
You know what? Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you, camera. You ain't getting shit. I'm directing.
What is this song called again?
Fuck you.
Are you even sitting in the car?
This is a person getting hit.
Um, what is going on there?
Hi. Hi.
Hell no place to go. Hell no place to go, darling.
Hell no place to go.
Damn, I'm on camera.
You know, why are we in a parking lot doing this? Like, I feel like this is underselling the location of Barbados.
We have 20 Bajan.
Do you have 20 Bajan? Al needs 20 Bajan. I think we're out of money.
We are now officially out of money.
We've overspent our budget.
Overspent our budget and have no money.
And we can't pay for our lunch that we just had. Film him trying to buy the money. I don't even think that's funny.
A little bit of feel good goes a long way. I need your touch to get me through my day. Watching you sleep, I pray. Oh, please don't make my feel good go away.
