My First Music Video - "Precious Memories"

Shooting the music video for "Precious Memories" was one of the most surreal experiences I've ever had. I've seen so many music videos in my lifetime (at least since the early 80s), and always wondered what it would be like to get to make a video of my own. It's funny, how when something is your creation, it's easy to discount it as not being good enough, or subpar. Some of those thoughts are justified by a lack of budget, of course. But truthfully, when most people make their music videos there's no way of knowing for certain whether anyone will actually see it, much less like it.

The first thing we did after they made me up to look like an actual person who would do a music video, was shoot the clips of me singing while leaning against the big outside wall frame, wearing the black jacket. It was super hot—I was sweating big time. We used a tiny boombox to play my song so I had something to sing-along with. There was a smattering of people standing around watching, probably less then ten people, but more than five. Enough to make me feel nervous. Nervous? Not nervous...more dorky. I felt a bit dorky. No, I was actually afraid of looking dorky. I've never done this before, so I didn't know exactly how to be the cool guy in the video. So I just sang. The best part for me was when I finished singing the first pass, the song ended, and the director yelled "Cut!", and then all the people started cheering! It was just what I needed. To me, their cheers said, "We don't think you're dorky!!" I was probably overly paranoid.

I'm grateful my friend Marc Acton was there to be my objective eyes. He told me not to make the "poopy face" when I was singing. That would definitely be dorky. He also encouraged me, and stood by me when everyone else seemed so busy making their music video. It can feel very strange singing into a camera, trying to express something very personal, while there's so many people standing around working, or others who are just watching you try to do it, wondering if they're supposed to know who you are.

So after all the thousands of music videos that have influenced my life through the years, from artists like Michael Jackson to Ray Boltz...here's mine. My very first music video. I'm so thrilled with how it turned out. I'm grateful to Jefferson (the mean guy at the beginning) who wrote, directed and starred in this movie. He was the guy who liked my song enough to use it in his film. And then for him to invest in (and put up with me through all the edits) doing this video is priceless to me. It was so great to hang out with the rest of the crew and the actors from the cast who came to help out as well, especially the lovely Miss Christina. Thank you to all of them! And to you, please tell all your friends about "Clancy" — Let's make it a huge hit when it is released!

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