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Assalamu 'Alaikum everyone! This is your brother Maher Zain
We just finished the shooting of my new music video from the second album
I hope you like it insha Allah
It's fantastic to work with Maher again
And it was great. We've actually shot a few videos over the past few days
We worked on the video yesterday as well
It's great working with Maher on the shoot, in the house and he's really easy to work with
We're very much aligned with the concept
that we developed together and wanted to put across
and delivered fantastic performances,
and I think we've developed some ways of working together on the previous videos as well
So that history has worked well together
For me, the video is just going to describe how patient a mother is,
how much we really make her crazy when we're young:
we go destroy everything in the house,
literally make her crazy, and you can see in this video that
it reflects how a mother is really patient and she really looks and sees over everything
just keeps loving the child - you know - even though he's messing the whole house up
We work with two fantastic boys as well,
both of them are 6 years old,
and to find some young actors who are so attentive,
and who can improvise so well,
who can maintain their interest for a whole day's filming - is very magical
We saw, I think, approximately 30 children as part of the process to find our main actors
And we've spent time in doing rehearsals, and we went through improvisation tests with them
to find the the right ones. And also very importantly,
I think one of the most important things is the chemistry between
the children and the parents within the video -
is very much strong as well. So, there's a lot of natural things happening there
that we're very lucky to be able to put into place in the video
Make a face, Massimo!
Mike Harris, the director of the music video came up with a concept,
and we absolutely loved it !
We've worked with Mike before on "Insha Allah" music video,
which has been phenomenally successful,
and we thought it would be great to work with him again
Generally, we approach a director or several;
they listen to the track and come up with a concept,
and we sort of develop it or maybe several concepts; we choose one
and develop it, work on it, and shoot it
Very quick ... pretty fast
Tell me a little bit about the actual realities and the sort of typical day making a music video,
making an album, what's it really like?
It's fun. But it's a lot of hard work
And I usually give the credit to the crew who actually make the video
You know I only drop in couple of minutes in the shoot
And then that's it, and they do the rest
It's a very tiring process
Yeah, absolutely! A lot of setting up, they do a lot of set up before the actual shot
Getting the camera, getting the lighting, getting the props
You know, the art direction, everything, getting that right, and then the artist comes and does his thing
So, for the artist, there's a lot of waiting between shots till they set it up and get it just right and then it's his part to perform,
or to do his part, and sometimes he has to do it over and over again
until the director is satisfied
She was very smart, my mother, that she would -
she knows that we like to mess around,
so, she would throw a lot of water on the floor and then clean it
and what we did is that, we put some shorts on
and go sliding around.. Yeah, we used to do that too
This used to calm us down, then we slept very well after that
That’s the most artistic hand ever
Naughty! Spread it over there...
Can I do it over there?
Over here!
Are you going home now?
Yeah
Have you had fun?
Yeah. What was your favorite bit?
Ummm, being a cowboy..
Being a cowboy!
No, not a cowboy… An Indian
An Indian or a cowboy?! I'm confused
Are you a ninja?
No, I'm an army man
An army man? Oh!
Which one is which? Grown up Maher, which one are you?
This is Maher when he was young. He looks much better than me
Yeah, you could be out of a job
We have to shake hands on one thing: “Don’t try this at home!”
OK? This is just for the video. Don’t mess up your mother’s house!
You too!
Hello
So now which one is which, which one of you is Maher? You're Maher and Massimo, yes?
Yeah
You’re Maher?
No, Massimo
You’re Massimo, and you're...? So which is which? You look so alike, I just can’t tell !
How are you doing?
Good
You like the video?
Yeah
Are you happy to see yourself on TV? Yeah..
The thing about Maher’s music, is that it's great music but it has strong messages,
and I think there is a lot lacking in some music,
whereas Maher’s has three dimensions in that way: it has a great sound,
and also has an important message
Which is brilliant, and when you've got youngsters like little Daniel and Massimo...
Never work with kids! But these kids are great
The little Mahers are a joy to work with
These are the kind of things I like
But you know with the… There is one with like a bullet, its not a bullet
But a thing with a sticker, I don’t know what it's called
A spud gun, little cork thing
Yeah it has a red thing, when you shoot its just like… It sticks on the glass
Oh.. Not a nerve gun?
I've forgotten
Anyway I think… I don’t know, the one that has a red thing,
And when you shoot it on glass, it's like…
This is definitely not mine
Mike, the director, will do a first cut and he will send it over for us for our comments,
and then he’ll take those comments on board,
and maybe we’ll have a conference call or something about it,
and then he’ll do a second cut,
until we are satisfied that the video is there
Then there will be colour-correction and grading, and then launch the video worldwide
In here we have a couple of different looks:
We have the period look, late 70's early 80's look, which is more flexible in terms of the lighting
The final grade, and in contrast to that we have Maher’s performance
Which is more of a modern day grade. So, we have the contrast of the two to look on film
So the late 70's early 80's look is more flexible and faster to work with in terms of lighting
So that helps us quite a bit. And the style of filming for the late 70's early 80's material
is very much capturing moments in time and that leans towards more handheld camera work
Which makes it a lot faster to work with as well
So the shots of the performance work that we’ve done with Maher, we've kept the camera much more smooth
Again so from a camera movement style we have another contrast to give us those clues for the difference in time
It’s a really sweet song, the concept is really sweet
I really would love for my little boy to grow up
to sing to me something like that... It's just gorgeous
What’s really clever is that the woman playing me as a younger woman
we’ve looked at ourselves and we quiet see why we’re cast because
She and I do have the same shape face
And so as we looked at the mirror
I said look out darling this is how you are going to look in another 40 years
Everyday.. Be nice to your mother everyday! Everyday!
She’s the number one for you!