Filmmaker speaks on viral We Were Lovers video

Joshua Baker of Sica Films gives background on viral prairies rock video

When Saskatoon dance duo We Were Lovers launched the video for their single “Islands” from their upcoming album Pyramids, the internet went completely apeshit.

And rightfully so.

The video, filmed, directed and edited by locals Sica Films, is a beautifully shot testament to both the visuals of the prairies and WWL’s songwriting skills.

Ominocity caught up with filmmaker Joshua Baker of Sica Films, who weighed in on why the video blew up in Saskatchewan and beyond.

“I think the reason this video is doing so well is because it is a collaboration,” says Baker. “It wasn’t one person. It was so many creative minds coming together to achieve something.”

Ominocity: The video for “Islands” got over 1,000 hits in 24 hours. Did you anticipate that the video was going to blow up the internet like this?

Josh Baker: It was way, way huger than I thought. It was getting a ton of awesome tweets from random blogs from around North America.

OM: And what really stuck out for me was seeing someone like Tourism Saskatchewan tweet about the video. Was that a conscious thing to appeal to tourism or something like that?

JB: We had a bunch of idea meet-ups on how to turn this video Ash and Elsa had in their minds into a real music video. The song, ‘Islands’, immediately invokes this paradise Caribbean beach feel – but that’s not very Saskatchewan-esque. So it became, ‘How do we make this warm, beautiful video while still clearly being iconic Saskatchewan?’ And it just went from there.

Elsa had some really cool locations already planned that she had seen in her own travels. There was a spot near Blackstrap and some near Saskatoon – just a lot of really random spots in fields just off the highway and the river.

We tried to shoot it in a way where we didn’t give away exactly where it was – it could have been anywhere in the prairies.

OM: I have a favourite scene where the pick-up truck is driving down the gravel road – très prairies. Do you have a scene that really stuck out for you?

JB: My favourite shot in the video is the close-up of Elsa on the beach with the smoke bombs (At 2:00 and 2:40). She’s doing this thing with her hands and she’s looking to the side, looks super amazing. That shot blew my mind when we reviewed the video, because that evening we were losing sunlight so fast, and we were so rushed to get a few other key shots… and then this one appeared, almost by accident. And that happened in a few other scenes. The stuff we planned wasn’t nearly as good as some of the stuff that happened organically, on the spot.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=vy84Y87tRvM&w=600]