An ex-Paraparaumu College student has taken the first big step towards her music dream, after spending three years working towards it.
Abigail Pretorius, 20, has officially released her first single, titled Low, and couldn’t be happier with how it turned out.
“I’m honestly so happy, it’s been received so well, and it feels relieving to have it out there finally for people to see.
“It feels like such an accomplishment.”
It’s something she has wanted to do for a long time, and after spending two years recording the song, and another year producing the music video, it has finally happened.
Originally, Pretorius only spent about half an hour writing the song, but she knew she had something great and wanted to be able to share it with others.
So, after a recommendation from a friend, she teamed up with musician Sam Minot, who has experience in music production, and they started recording the song in 2020, and that didn’t wrap up until the following year.
Then, she got one of her college friends, Adienna Sloman, to organise the choreography. Slomantogether a team of dancers, all of whom came from Kāpiti and studied dance alongside Pretorius.
“I contacted her straight away because I just knew she would do something really good with the music video.”
Abigail Pretorius has released her first single.
Filming for the music video started in last September in several places between Foxton Beach and Wellington, and all the pre-shoots were done in Kāpiti on Peka Peka and Paraparaumu beaches.
The filming was mainly done in one long day, and Pretorius said it took about 18 hours to get all the shots they wanted.
It wasn’t easy though, and she had to take a two-year gap year to save up the money so she could “put all my energy into my dream”.
Looking back on the three years of production, Pretorius said she had wanted to take her time to make the final product perfect, and she said you could see that in the quality.
“It was worth the wait.”
Pretorius wants to take her music career even further and is working on her second single and a podcast she will create with a friend. She’s also studying commercial music, with a planning major, at Massey University.
“I would like to make it as big as I can – it’s been my dream and my passion ever since I really can remember, so I’m just following along that dream and trying to make it a reality.”
