Ocean Jet: Creating a Dreamlike World for the Entwined music video with SwitchX

When musician and filmmaker Max Scotch set out to create the music video for Ocean Jet's latest single Entwined, he envisioned an otherworldly journey through a dreamlike landscape suspended between heaven and hell.

Originally planned as a traditional green-screen production with environments built in Unreal Engine, the project quickly grew beyond what was practical for an independent creator. Discovering Beeble's SwitchX transformed the production, allowing Max to complete nearly the entire visual world himself.

We spoke with Max about the creative vision behind Entwined, his experience using SwitchX, and how AI-powered filmmaking is opening new possibilities for independent artists.

Can you introduce yourself and Ocean Jet, and tell us a little about the song behind this music video?

Hi, I'm Max Scotch. I'm 39 years old, and I've been passionate about music and visual arts since I was a kid.

In 2013, my friend Jon Myred and I formed the band Ocean Jet. We write and perform music in English, blending Synth Pop and Alternative Rock. Our song Entwined was co-written with my wife, Lesia Scotch, in 2022, the same year she joined the band.

The song is about two people who love each other and choose to stay together, no matter what happens.

What kind of visual world were you hoping to create?

I wanted to create an unreal, dreamlike world where the audience feels that everything is happening somewhere beyond our reality.

Only at the end of the video do we discover that this place is a kind of limbo, a space between heaven and hell, where the two main characters are searching for each other so they can be reborn and meet again in their next life.

I also wanted to pay tribute to one of my favorite films, What Dreams May Come by Vincent Ward.

You took on almost every creative role yourself. What was the biggest challenge in bringing that vision to life?

I wrote the script, directed the video, edited it, created the visual effects, and handled the color grading.

This was my first experience working on a project with visual effects at this scale. Before tools like SwitchX, creating something like this would have required far more time, resources, and technical experience. It completely changed what was possible for an independent creator working alone.

The project originally started with plans to build the environments in Unreal Engine. What changed, and how did SwitchX become part of your workflow?

I first discovered SwitchX through an Instagram Reel introducing the technology. My immediate thought was that it could be a game-changer and finally allow me to complete this music video by myself.

We originally shot the footage on a green screen in May 2025, intending to build the entire world in Unreal Engine. Unfortunately, I couldn't make that approach work, even with help from 3D artists.

That's when I decided to rebuild everything using SwitchX, and the final result exceeded my expectations.

How much of the finished video relied on SwitchX, and what did it make possible that would otherwise have been difficult or out of reach?

Around 95% of the finished music video was created using SwitchX. The remaining 5% consists of shots that weren't filmed during production, so I created those separately using other tools.

SwitchX was exactly what I needed because it could replace backgrounds while preserving the performers naturally. No other solution offered that combination at the time.

Building the environments in Unreal Engine would have taken significantly longer, required much more work, and been far more expensive. Some of the visual ideas simply wouldn't have been practical to achieve with the same level of realism.

As someone creating large-scale visual effects for the first time, what surprised you most about working with SwitchX?

This was my first serious visual effects project, so I had to learn everything from scratch.

SwitchX made that process surprisingly approachable. Instead of spending months learning complex VFX pipelines, I could focus on the creative side of building the world I imagined.

I was especially impressed by how naturally the characters blended into each environment. Details like reflections on wet surfaces, water interacting with the actors, and the automatic adaptation of lighting and color made everything feel incredibly realistic.

Those kinds of effects would normally require a huge amount of manual work, so having them happen automatically made the entire workflow much faster.

Is there one moment in Entwined that best represents what you were able to achieve with SwitchX?

One of my favorite moments is actually quite a simple composition, the sequence where the girl walks across the water.

Because I had originally planned to create the entire environment in 3D, that scene felt like the biggest technical challenge. With SwitchX, however, everything came together exactly as I had imagined.

What do tools like SwitchX mean for independent musicians and filmmakers?

It opens the door to ideas that would previously have been impossible because of budget or technical limitations.

Now I can film almost anywhere and build an entirely new world around the footage from my laptop at home, without needing a large team, huge amounts of time, or an expensive production.

What's next for Ocean Jet, and how do you see AI fitting into your future projects?

The members of Ocean Jet all live in different cities (although my wife and I live together), and today's music industry demands a constant stream of video content.

Using AI tools like SwitchX makes that much easier. We can each film our parts at home, and I can bring everyone together in the same environment as though we were all on set.

I'm already working on another short music video. Including Entwined, I've now completed three projects using SwitchX, and I expect many more to come.

Credits
Director, Screenwriter, Editor, VFX & Colorist: Max Scotch
Assistant Director: Anna Ozhigova
Director of Photography: Pavel Matveev
Gaffer: David Tarasov