Shala The Unicorn Explains Elaine's "You're The One"
South Africa's current golden girl had the country, and a few other parts of the world, waiting patiently for her first music video. Elaine's star power has been felt far and wide, with people from all over rooting for her success.
The release of any artist's first music video is daunting, even more so when the world seems to be excited for it. This didn't stop Elaine from teasing at the visual release of "You're The One," however. In a short snippet video, Elaine announced that she would be working with Shala The Unicorn as the director of the music video.
Within the first 24 hours, the music video clocked 100,000 views. There have been reaction videos shared ever since, including one from yours truly. However, I did preface the release by saying:
Imagine that, my first reaction/review of a music video is the one that everyone is the most excited about in South Africa. Daunting stuff, if you ask me. This didn't deter me from publishing the review, neither did getting a response from the director, Shala The Unicorn saying she was keen to hear my thoughts. Albeit, I was a bit nervous.
In my review, I shared that there we some things I believed went over my head. This is particular to some of the shots they used and whether or not I was actually following a "storyline." The real nervousness set in when Shala The Unicorn sent me the promo video I had posted to Twitter to open up a conversation via DM.
I've always appreciated Shala's work, I hope those who are only now getting to know her style are pleasantly engaged. For this reason, with her permission, I've shared Shala's take on the video below to help those who might have missed some things, myself included!
"I loved it. You noticed a lot that everyone else didn’t when it came to production. I always want my work to be open to interpretation, but something really did go over your head and it’s colour. When I was watching you, I really wanted you to watch it [in full] first. Because the progression/ state of mind of each character and the development of their relationship is told through colour.
It’s not a narrative or literally cohesive story and we were really deliberate in doing that because we want to challenge viewers to be able to receive visuals that [don't] give them everything and forces them to look for more...ask questions. Which is what happened. We were trying to show people that there [is] more than one way to tell a story.
When I pitched this, I was warned that people wouldn’t get it, and I had to take that risk because We need to get used to consuming art and not just another music video.
The red is about passion, reluctance, hesitance, romance, her love interest And the green is about Elaine, her readiness, purity, ethereal beauty much like nature over the course of the video they go back and forth and are slowly fully saturated in each other and headstrong about where they’re taking their relationship ‘cue car ride.'
And eventually, she sees things from his perspective and he sees things from hers From then they both decide to be together.
Green and Red is also a play on robots, very common imagery. The Ready- Go - Stop Just reflecting the back and forth that comes with a relationship Also the two colours on the colour wheel are 180 degrees opposite one another making them complementary colours. Meaning they’re best suited together but they’re on totally different sides of the wheel. Symbolically depicting how Elaine and her love interest could have not had a mutual understanding until they had a proper line of communication."
On the topic of music industry video productions, this is what Shala had to say:
"What was funny about this video, to me, is that I have never seen such an uproar about a music video. When someone puts something out no one says "Ahhh man I wish this house party had a storyline." I actually don’t remember people trying to open a dialogue about any music video in SA. The reactions to this video really said that we’re doing something right. And it’s only the beginning. There will most definitely be more art put out."