Making The Most Of It (official video) - Major Love

Directed and Edited by Dale Bailey
Set Design by Chantal Fortin
Costumes by Colleen Brown
Retro Furniture supplied by Retro Rentals Yeg
Performed by Colleen Brown and Dale Bailey
Thank you to the Varscona Theatre and Kendra Connor
A heavy debt of inspiration goes to the Lawrence Welk Show
Video link: • Am I making the most o...
Listening multi-link: orcd.co/major-love-mtmoi
Creating the “Making The Most Of It” lyric video was a very meta experience. Lead singer/songwriter Colleen Brown and director Dale Bailey had booked a date at the Varscona Theatre in Edmonton and hired a set designer - Chantal Fortin - to create a Lawrence Welk influenced variety show stage in a dreamy, nostalgic style. Colleen had sewn scarves for herself and the band, and customized her dress to match the set. The band (members of Scenic Route To Alaska Trevor Mann, Shea Connor and Murray Wood) flew to Toronto to play some shows prior to the video shoot and were due back the day before, but a huge storm hit Ontario and they were marooned in Toronto for an extra 48 hours, missing the shoot.
With the stage already booked and decorated, they decided to go ahead with the shoot. That meant Brown was digging around in her closet and thrift stores to dress herself as ‘the band’. Says Brown - ‘It was basically my recurring nightmare come to life - I show up at the venue, I have spent too much time on my costume and makeup and don’t feel prepared. I’m rushed onstage and I don’t know how to play the instruments, but I have to go through with it anyways, haha. But as this was all playing out, we just had to laugh because we were making the most of it, as the song says.’
‘This shoot was intended to just be one scene inside the Official Video for MTMOI, but we loved it so much we had to release a full length version, and it seemed perfect as a lyric video.’
The rest of the video came to be through the careful curation and planning of director Dale Bailey, with the band (and Bailey’s dog) on set in the flesh. The technical aspects of this film were inspired by the 90s film “Indian in the Cupboard” which I’m sure hasnt held up well over time… but the idea of the band looking at little miniature versions of themselves playing their little instruments in front of their confused faces was something to be explored. When you’re stuck inside for too long, maybe the mind starts exploring some weird avenues of retrospection as memories of the other versions of yourself creep in.
To coincide with Colleen’s visual dream of the Lawrence Welk show, we were lucky to discover a new outfit in town renting out really beautiful retro furniture to tie the whole idea together. Big shout out to @retro.rentals.yeg for the beautiful set pieces. Any filmmakers in Edmonton should take note. They have tons of old phones…
The most notable part of the shoot was when we were almost out of time, and needed to film the fake “Trevor” doing his guitar solo. Dale bought some large party poppers from Party City and blasted them at the face of the unexpecting Colleen, trying to hold it all together all by herself. One Woman, classically up against it. Up against all those party poppers. Seriously, those big ones are no joke.