Ten girls across Australia who are part of a South Coast band dubbed 'Battlebird', have just launched a new a film clip to coincide with United Nations International Day of the Girl Child.
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Battlebird is a pop-rock youth band based out of Wallaga Lake, near Bermagui, that started out as an unlikely trio featuring a father, son and a little robot dubbed 'Scooter'.
On October 11 for International Day of the Girl, the Battlebird girls met together virtually via a Google video meeting, to launch their new music video.
Joining the call was a UN representative and an ABC music representative, who came to have a chat to the girls and congratulate them on their video.
Battlebird was initially created by Luke Ferguson in 2015, in a bid to help his son Elliot overcome shyness by instead having fun goofing around on instruments and sharing it with others.
Six years later, the band has grown and developed, with songs being created by the kids, reflecting the different themes and topics that have piqued their interest.
Leading up to the International Day of the Girl, Mr Ferguson reached out to all the girls in the band and asked who might want to get involved and come up with some creative ways to sing about it.
"Given lockdowns and all the other kind of heavy things that are going on at the moment, we thought it'd be just be a really nice and fun project for them," Mr Ferguson said.
The music clip for 'Girls Take Flight' features 10 girls ranging from the ages of seven to 14 years old, all of them living in different places on the South Coast and some in Canberra and Sydney.
All the girls involved share ties to the band and each were given free reign to come up with some words to sing and costumes to create their clips in the video.
Ishka and Shreddy share their excitement
Ishka Kelly is nine years old and lives in Bermagui on the Far South Coast, she has grown up being part of the band ever since she was old enough to sing.
Ishka said she had been so excited to be part of the project she changed into several different outfits for it.
"I feel happy doing the video and I feel like girls are powerful and they can do anything and boys can't boss them around," Ishka said.
What stood out to Ishka while making the music video, was the idea that kindness was powerful and she said she was proud to to show this in her opening lines of the video clip.
"I liked how I said, 'Ishka introducing to you, the girls of the Battlebird kindness crew'."
When asked what message she felt strongest about when singing the song, Ishka said "kindness is powerful and kindness is like a superpower to me."
Ishka's mum Jen Redmond said she loved how all the girls involved were connected despite many of them never having met each other in person before.
Ms Redmond's favourite part about the content created in Battlebird was the film clips becoming time capsules, capturing the voices and characters of their children in different stages of their childhood.
"It's like a little time capsule in everyone's lives, where we can look back and go, 'cool that was our kids and they were part of something really special'," she said.
Edwina Whitelaw, known as Shreddy in the band, is 11 years old. She lives in Moruya and used to be known as the band's number one fan before she joined them in 2019.
Shreddy said she had been part of several Battlebird music videos but she was especially excited to take part in one that was all about the girls.
"It was awesome. It's like you just have a bunch of us thinking up these awesome verses and recording them and you get some pretty funny videos, in mine I danced around in a plastic unicorn head that I got from Kmart," Shreddy said.
Shreddy told ACM that the takeaway message about the music video was that "girls are awesome".
"Well it's like boys are awesome and girls can be awesome, too, so there's no difference in how awesome we can be," Shreddy said.
The making of the film clip
All the girls involved separately filmed themselves dancing and singing words they made up for the song from within their homes.
Mr Ferguson had sent out green screens to the girls prior to them filming their parts, and then asked the parents to send the finished products back.
"We didn't know what would get back, we were like 'just do whatever you want to, have fun' and that's the number one rule, is just to have fun," Mr Ferguson said.
The music video was launched online in the morning of October 11 and the video was already gaining lots of support with ABC Kids launching the music video on its social platforms.
"It's been going gangbusters, Emma Wiggle has just liked it with a big yellow heart, which some of the girls have lost their mind over," Mr Ferguson said.