I remember the days before I started doing music professionally
Sunday, 12 April 2011, 9:15:21 AM | betsielarkin

I remember the days before I started doing music professionally - hearing songs on the radio, watching music videos, and never understanding or thinking about what went on behind the scenes to bring that sound to my ears and those visuals to my eyes. It all seemed very glamorous and fun. It is, but… There's a world of work, planning, and disaster avoidance that goes on behind the scenes. I guess that's where the phrase blood, sweat, and tears came from. For myself, I'm grateful for every moment and imagine that most jobs have their share of work, planning, and disaster avoidance - Most probably just aren't perceived as all glitz and glamour. Beyond that, I think there's a certain magic that comes into play. When things work out against the odds.

Exhibit 1 – The Odds.
Bobina's production team wanted to fly me to Moscow to shoot the performance footage with their famous director, Pavel Hoodyakov. I was very excited, but concerned because I was already scheduled to be out of town right up until the day before the flight. Arrangements were made so that I could pick up the visa at the last minute, but when I arrived at the consulate, I was told that they would need a minimum of three days to process my application and give me a stamp, despite my having an invitation from the Russian Ministry of Culture and a Telex number filed in their system. Government offices are hot-beds for Murphy's Law (Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong) – You're more likely to be made an example of that given an exception. I wasn't able to fly to Moscow, and the shoot had to go on without me. I gave up on being in our video and was just hoping that they wouldn't get someone else to lip-sync my parts – haha (This does happen occasionally!).

About a week after the shoot, Bobina's producers started to reach out to me about planning a shoot in NYC. This was amazing news, and I set to work on finding a good studio and film crew in NY. I was lucky to discover the Factory studio in Brooklyn with in-house production team, Gravity Sleeps.

When I arrived at the Factory last Saturday, I was welcomed by a crew of indie-rocker looking Brooklyn guys and trance music blaring through the space. Strange dichotomy, but it worked for me. Make-up artist, Rebecca Hickey, did a wonderful job and extinguished my fears of being made to look like Elvira. You'd be shocked at how terribly wrong make-up can go!

So, I'm lucky that Bobina and his amazing team are skilled in disaster avoidance. I've had some training in this also :) The “You Belong To Me” video is in final production, and we look forward to sharing it with you!