We are a visually exciting act, a stunning extravaganza! That goes without
saying. Hence, we always wanted to make a video which is out now. "B Baby" is the track that made our debut on the screen. We are proud of the result and grateful to all the people that contributed to its making. So, here's the story how it happened.
The original plan was to visualise "I Really Want To" from our eponymous first EP in 2017. We
considered working with a couple of friends to direct and film. For some reason however it never happened. Since we wanted to shoot a clip that's using sunny
outside locations we had to wait another year but by then our next EP
“Emergency” would be out.
So, in 2018 we put an ad up on “London Film Crew
Network”, looking for a director and a cinematographer. So, we got a reply from a cinematographer
called Martine Wolff, confirming that she'd be happy to do it with her
friend and director Lefteris Parasyris.
We
met at Wapping Station in East London and went for a site visit on
Thames Beach and in an old, abandoned, undisclosed, yes top-secret factory somewhere in
the Docklands. Over coffee we finally decided on the track we would
use. I remember “B Baby” got two votes out of the four.
Democracy had spoken, so that's what we went for.
 |
| Original unedited cover photo by Mar Álvarez Revillo |
We thought of using the “Emergency” cover photo (in fact shot on the same Thames Beach in Wapping) by Mar Álvarez Revillo as an inspiration for much of the video, while there would be two characters in white masks as our alter egos following us through the whole of the story, something resembling the glory days of MTV when music videos had plots.
We also had plans to include a couple of
dodgy cops to watch the whole story on CCTV from an office in Canary
Wharf but yet another pair of old friends we tried to get as actors turned out to be
rather unreliable, so the cops were scrapped!
With a slightly revised storyboard, shooting
commenced on what must have been the hottest day of the year.
Now, wearing the same white and gold outfits as on the EPs cover would
have been an obvious choice but Nadège could not get hold of her
friend who made the trousers so we decided for a sort of "negative image"
in black.
What seemed like a great idea actually meant Nadège was sweating in 35C in the shade wearing a corset, while I was melting away in my black vinyl jeans that turned into something resembling hot tar on my skin, well... whatever you do to look fabulous!
Once the beach was wrapped up we moved on to the factory. Lefteris had the idea that we drink red wine in one of the scenes, brilliant – we got pretty pissed on the set after all.
A week after we shot another few scenes in the
office building where the missing in action cops would have been,
had things gone according to plan. We ended up using an empty space
in the building which acted as a pretty good sound-stage where we
could experiment with projections from the beach scenes and lighting
effects. In fact all of the effects in the resulting video were
actual projections and various torches and lights moved about in a randomly controlled
fashion by Lefteris.
It took a while to get the post production done. Soon Lefteris got Natalie Green to edit. The colour
grading however took a bit longer. Nadège worked in a bistro in
Shepherds Market where she met Lionel Kopp, a legend of a colourist.
He worked on the French Cinema classics Amélie
and La Haine and is now a big name in Hollywood. Needless to
say that having a big name like that on board would take a little
longer but in the end he did it!
We finally
premiered the video on Youtube on the 21st of May 2019, over three quarters of a year
after shooting it but the result was amazing! On the day of the premiere it was
introduced by Chi Ming Lai on “The Electricity Club” and has so far performed
rather well for an unsigned act without a publicist.
Thanks to Lefteris and Martine for filming, Natalie and
Lionel for post production, Mar for taking part in developing the early concept, Chi for the feature, and, last but not least my dear friend Nadège for being my partner in crime through this from the start. We could not have had a
better start into the world of moving pictures. Rest assured there's a lot more to come in the future.
- Martin Kinz 12
June 2019
Photos © Lefteris Parasyris, Mar Álvarez Revilllo (as credited in caption)
Photos © Lefteris Parasyris, Mar Álvarez Revilllo (as credited in caption)
Contact us via e-mail: replica.hq@gmail.com
or visit us online:
No comments:
Post a Comment