The video, to accompany Queenstown chanteuse Gina Malcolm’s first single, Don’t Expect the World, with Arrowtown group Killergrams — brothers Tom and Sam Maxwell, Nick Lynch and Reuben Pearce — just won the NZ Web Fest award for best New Zealand music video.
The awards, now in their ninth year, celebrate web series and online video content — this year, a total of 142 titles received a combined 352 award nominations for 53 juried awards.
Malcolm says she’s "really proud" her music video — starring local Lauren Prebble and shot by Wānaka cinematographer Joe Murdie — came up trumps.
"And it’s so cool that a creative Central Otago collective has won a national award."
She first worked with Murdie on a series called The Developers and knew he was the "right man for the job".
"He’s a music man himself and has a fantastic eye, and I was chuffed he liked the song and wanted to help create something powerful, visually."
Murdie wanted to complement the "powerful, yet spacious" song and follow suit with the music video, so selected some private land near the Poolburn Reservoir, in Maniototo, for the one-day shoot.
"We decided to go with a fairly simple storyline where our key talent [Prebble] heads off on a journey of self-discovery in a vast open landscape, leaving behind all the woes of modern life.
"She becomes free and finds a sense of complete happiness with herself and the world around her."
Malcolm says she’s still indebted to Prebble.
"I’m so lucky she said yes — my god, she was the best and clicked right into the vibe once the cameras started recording.
"I guess she was playing a younger me, and I’m telling her, ‘don’t expect the world’."
Meantime, Malcolm’s just released her second, darker, single, Crushing — another collab with Killergrams — for which Murdie’s again stepped behind the lens.
It’s already garnered more than 5600 views on YouTube’s Retro Rock site.
