Tomorrow, Collective Soul will ‘Officially’ release their video for Welcome All Again-their second single from their new Self Titled album (also known as ‘Rabbit’). Currently, it’s been ‘leaked’ in low resolution on MSN for USA viewing only. You can find it HERE Come back tomorrow for a world wide link to the ‘official’ release in Hi Rez.
If you’ve read my review you know I’m not a huge fan of this song; preferring instead their first single, Staring Down. However, the video for Welcome All Again interests me enough to write about it.
The video starts out the same way the song does-high energy, intense, capturing your attention. The lights on the high rises and office towers are synced perfectly to the beat of the music-and the information junkie in me wants to know how they did it-easy enough to do when the lights are horizontal or vertical and you only see the lights-but the diamond pattern on the residential tower where you can actually see into the apartment window-thats just downright intiguing!
I love that the band is in this video as well – at the very beginning of the video, one isn’t sure if they’ll make an appearance but then suddenly there they are; not overpoweringly featured, just enough. I really like that each band member has his own color spotlight in those shots and that Ed’s color is white (he frequently wears a crisp white shirt in live concerts) Also… Dean fans will get a treat – he has a microphone in front of him for the first time since…. well, since ever? The magic of video is such that he may or may not actually be singing 
The shots chosen for the bridge of the song are perfect; night melding into day with stars, satellites, and celestial bodies moving in slow mo – then it breaks into full tempo again with full action. There is also a great close up of Joel playing guitar – all you see is his hand and the guitar neck but the wedding ring is the dead giveaway as to who’s hand it is.
Other bits that stand out for me include:
-Will doing some head bopping throughout the song – love it. Also quite like how Will looks directly into the camera in most shots – basically looking right at you; the audience
-stacking and un-stacking of empty shot glasses – symbolic? What’s different about the shot glasses is that you can see daylight turn into dusk through the window behind the action
-rain drops bouncing on a flat surface-they’re filmed in such an amazing close-up that they look like they have tails of light
-one shot of the band has circles of white light cascading over them-not high tech by any means but it gave an ambiance to the shot which I really liked – as opposed to just showing the band standing there. I also appreciated the look and feel of the shots of the band from side view – again the lighting and the symmetry caught my eye as much as the band did
-panorama of the top of a mountain range – stunning
-airplanes – the filming was done on the flight path of small commercial planes – it’s amazing to me how many flights there are in a short time span
-the ending – spotlight on Ed as he sang the last line: Welcome All Again. Isolated him and the words -the song’s title actually – quite effective.
All in all I found this video to be a smorgasbord of visuals. I had to watch it a few times to catch everything as they zip past so quickly!
The video itself is shot in time lapse photography, from a single camera (except for the live shots of the band) and although the images don’t relate directly to the song (I half expected to see shots of the band skinny dipping and jumping off tire swings into the lake ) I personally think it’s a much more interesting video simply because it doesn’t predictably follow the song lyrics.
Welcome All Again video was produced by Ross Ching, an up and coming producer and cinematographer based out of San Diego. You can find his website HERE and follow him on Twitter @rossching You can find the finished video HERE along with some really cool info on the overall making of the video – INCLUDING how Ross did the diamond shape in the High Rise
All screencaps in this review were used without permission (but with good intent) and are property of Collective Soul and Ross Ching ©2009
Copyright © 2009 All Rights Reserved
