You can check out Sam's first guest blog for Female First by clicking here.
Sam Way on his way to NYC
I've made the call, tough as it is, to try to reshoot the entire music video. I know I'm letting the team down in London who worked so hard and largely just to help me out, but I have to stand by this video when it comes out, and for the sake of the song, and its success, we're going back to the drawing board.
Two weeks ago on receiving the final cut of this already old music video - does that make sense? - I was pretty excited about it, and eager I guess to seek some affirmation that we had actually created something decent, so I gathered my temporary roommates - temporary because I am a nomad for the next two months - around my laptop and hit play.
20 minutes later…
I'm in my room, staring at the ceiling, caught between thoughts that move me through despondence to snap-out-of-it-pragmatism in repeating cycles. You know those really honest friends, yeah? Those really annoying ones that you sort of need around you? Looks like I have a few of them and, after watching the music video for the first time - in their uniquely tactile way - they make me realise that I have become too close to the music video, too close to my own work, to see that something essential is missing… And that something… Unfortunately… (I hate that they are right) needs to change.
Since that moment, after my initial but fleeting depression, a lot has happened. The following day, in the afternoon, I packed up my suitcase and headed to Newark Airport to travel back to Europe; first a few days in Germany and then three more in Sardinia where I shoot the campaign for Morris. It's all modelling work I confirmed just a few days ago. Life changes just like that.
It felt like I'd only just touched down in NYC and was already leaving again, caught once more something I know so well, something unsettling yet somehow comforting, exciting and frustrating all at the same time; a life as a leaf in the wind, knowing not from week to week or month to month, where I'll be or what I'll be doing. Amidst all this chaos it's genuinely reassuring that, no matter how volatile my career in the fashion industry, music continues to be the rudder that steers my course; something that builds as it nourishes. I can even hazard a guess that music's sudden importance in my life is a bi-product of living such a scattered existence for 12 years. We all need our anchors, and music is something I carry inside of me wherever I go.
The trip to Germany, eventful as it was in its own right, seems far away now. Sardinia was a different story; I think I'll remember that job for a while. I rented, at my own peril, a scooter - a scooter that I treacherously flew around numerous hairpins in an attempt to find, without GPS, this beach I was told by the hotel staff was the best in the area - and had an entire day to hang out before the crew arrived. I felt some sort of magic in the air there. I dived into the water and tasted the salt in the sea, let it dry and crust in patterns like animal markings on my skin as the afternoon sun bore its heat down. There is one thing I would have changed. I was alone. Sure I'm used to it, this job is sometimes more than lonely, but still…
As the sun faded out behind the crest of a mountain in the distance I wanted nothing more than to look another soul in the eyes and make a toast with an ice cold beer in hand to the beginning of a night on an island that felt far away from everything I knew.
As I write I'm actually on a plane - returning to NYC after a very fleeting visit to LA over the weekend where I had meetings and an invitation I just couldn't turn down: to go and watch Sia perform at the legendary Hollywood Bowl - and there have been a lot of changes. I have a tan for starters - woohoo! - and I've also temporarily moved house, or should I say, bed, as I don't really have a home at the moment, just a group of friends willing and happy enough to have me stay with them.
Over the next few days, we have to prep for the new music video, storyboard, cast, and then over the weekend we'll shoot it. I'm amazed in a way that it's even happening, that I seemed to manifest an entire new production at exactly the right time. I have one person to thank, the director, who has thrown herself so totally into the project that I'm almost am starting to believe it's all meant to be, but really now only time will tell. Until we have the final edit, there is no cause to celebrate.
I can do nothing on this plane apart from overthink things so I need some distraction… I wonder how long if I added it all up, how much time I've spent up in the air. My mum says I should watch that film, the one with George Clooney, she says it would be good for me, whatever that means… Maybe they have it on the in-flight entertainment… No, they don't… I cannot deal with anything heavy right now… So preferably a cartoon… Perfect; Finding Dory. Whuh! Five bucks! I have to pay five bucks and swipe my card at the seat to watch Finding Dory! I won't do it… That is ridiculous… How much longer on this flight? Damn…
I sigh, and with great reluctance, swipe.
Yes Dory! You are so right… Just keep swimming.
And another thing… The NEW single is here - check it out! http://geni.us/Lastpage
Keep up-to-date with Sam at www.samwaymusic.com, on Instagram and Twitter @IAmSamWay and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/IAmSamWay