Need your fix of underwater beauty? Here are some oh-so-cool music videos which make you long to be allowed back in the water. Dream on…
Naughty Boy Ft. Beyonce – Runnin’
Watching this video you’d think surely that’s CGI, there’s no way they shot this underwater? But you would be wrong – no CGI was involved? That’s why this video is the top of our list. Directed by London-based director Charlie Robins, it features freedivers Guillaume Néry and Alice Modolo as a couple running towards each other trying to reunite. It was inspired by another of Néry’s films Ocean Gravity. Filmed at Rangiroa, an atoll northeast of Tahiti in French Polynesia, it was shot entirely in a fast-flowing lagoon and over the course of four days. The freedivers didn’t use air tanks so everything was done holding their breath, sometimes up to six minutes at a time.
American Doubles – The Swell
This impressive video by Australian electronic duo American Doubles is set in a bar inside a swimming pool. Featuring a woman seemingly jumping into the ocean only to find herself in the middle of an underwater bar. Definitely not your typical Friday night. Again you would be forgiven if you thought there was some computer trickery going on, but no. It’s real and very surreal. Shot over the course of a few days in a swimming pool in Melbourne, a team of divers constructed the set and freedivers played the parts of the woman and her drinking companions. Below is also a Behind the Scenes video, so you can fully see the magic behind the video.
Flume X Greenpeace
Titled ‘Anthem for the Reef’, Australian producer Flume teams up with Greenpeace on this video, for a Greenpeace campaign to highlight the beauty of the Great Barrier Reef and how climate change is affecting it. Featuring stunning visuals of the reef and previously unreleased music from Flume.
Novo Amor – Birthplace
Another fantastic video that makes you wish you were in the ocean, this time from Welsh instrumentalist Novo Amor. Shot in Komodo and Bali, it features world-renowned freediver Michael Board suspended in the sheer beauty of the living ecosystem and then surrounded by it’s very real and ever-present threat, plastic pollution. Lyrically and visually the video shares a very poignant message. A must watch.
The XX – Chained
From London-based indie band The XX, comes this atmosphere music video full of colour and magic. Filmed at Penzance’s Jubilee Pool, it features each member of the band submerging themselves in the water, taking the viewer with them to an ethereal place with each going on their own journey through the water then slowly rising up at the end. Beautiful cinematography and emotive music.
Jeremy Loops – Waves
Last on our list is this video from South African folk singer Jeremy Loops. Filmed in the jungles and waters of Mozambique, it features Loops performing the song in the jungle and going out surfing, with some fantastic shots of the underwater life and whales. This video really captures the magic of being in the water with the waves flowing over you.
