Somewhere Always

Music video for "Somewhere Always" by Disconnectica. Music, video and effects by Robert Webb. I wrote software to create "slit-scan" effects, also known as time displacement. Every pixel remains where it was in the original footage, but is offset in time in various ways. It's a little-known effect, and I think I found some novel uses for it. Thematically, the effect supports the main line from the song "You are somewhere that you've always been", by showing people stuck in place while still moving.

  • Robert Charles Webb
    Director
  • Robert Charles Webb
    Writer
  • Robert Charles Webb
    Producer
  • Robert Charles Webb
    Key Cast
  • Robert Charles Webb
    Visual Effects
  • Project Type:
    Experimental, Music Video
  • Genres:
    Experimental, Music video, SFX, Effects, Alternative, VFX
  • Runtime:
    4 minutes 6 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    March 24, 2023
  • Production Budget:
    0 AUD
  • Country of Origin:
    Australia
  • Country of Filming:
    Australia
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Robert Charles Webb

Robert Webb has been creating music and music videos in recent years. A programmer by trade, he also writes software to create trippy effects for use in his videos, thus bringing together several big interests: music, film and software.

Robert previously made short Super 8 films. He entered the White Gloves Film Festival six times between 1996 and 2000, where film-makers had 48 hours to shoot their film, shot in sequence, and unseen even by the film-maker until the festival. All six made it into their best-of screenings. He was also accepted into the Metro Super 8 Film Festival in 1997.

Rob moved onto other projects, but returned to another interest, making music, around 2018, which led him back to film-making in the form of music videos soon after.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

I became interested in an effect known as slit-scan, or time displacement. This allows different pixels in a frame of video to come from different times in the source video. I wrote software to experiment with this, and decided it would be perfect in the video for my song Somewhere Always. The main lyric is "You are somewhere that you've always been", and this effect allowed me to give vision to this idea.

I wanted to show people stuck in some way, and the slit-scan effect provided a novel way to do this. I came up with a way to "spin" the effect that I hadn't seen done before, making it possible to show people stuck on the spot while still moving, in an endless loop. Not like a boomerang video where it's the same forwards or backwards, but spinning in an endless forward cycle.

The effect also allows for very trippy and fluid visuals to perfectly complement the psychedelic nature of the song.