WORLD PREMIERE!! Without further adieu, we present the music video for Western Sky, filmed on location in Joshua Tree, Calif.; Hollywood; Austin, Texas; and Yellow Springs, Ohio. Directed by Shawn Charles Baker. https://youtube/watch?v=GemjoU-QDoo An interview with the director: Q: How did you first meet Dorsie Fyffe? A: Dorsie is a longtime friend of my wife’s. He visited her back in September, and when she picked him up at the airport and brought him to our house, I had been meditating, of all things. I just remember that he said, “Good to finally meet you” when he walked in, and we just started talking about music right away. It was clear within about five minutes that I liked him, and we had a lot in common – the way we feel about music is an important thing in our lives, but also a bridge between our lives and other things. It’s like we’re both musical archaeologists, but he has a different area of study than was my expertise. Q: How did the video for “Western Sky” come about? A: We went to the desert to do a photo shoot with Michael Keller and I brought my camera along to try and get footage to shoot a video. I had no preconceived ideas; I never really do. I think I had mentioned it, but I didn’t really talk too much about it because I didn’t know how exactly it would go down. I didn’t want to interfere with the photo shoot, but Dorsie was encouraging about the video. It wasn’t until I was shooting that I started to see definite potential. Q: What sort of vibe were you going for with the video? A: Something that fit with the song. The song has a rambling quality – not that Dorsie is rambling in his lyrics or delivery, but rather that 70s “Ramblin’ Man” kind of vibe, the open road, the wind, travel, moving, not slowing down – which is a metaphor for living in my mind. So I wanted to create those snapshots of living. The first image I filmed is the one at the beginning of the video, where the Hollywood sign dissolves into the lights outside the room we stayed at during his photo shoot at the Joshua Tree Inn. That initial dissolve is the most important shot in the whole video because it lays out the two main locations perfectly. To me, that shot is the song. Q: Why did you decide to take a collage approach rather than a linear narrative? A: I think there *is* a linear narrative, but out of the three videos I’ve shot, it’s obscured by a collage approach – because I feel like if you try to impose strict linear continuity in a video, you really should be making a film. It’s not the nature of a music video to be that linear. I’m sure such a thing COULD work, but at this point, I like to mix the linear with a cloudy, dream-like obscurity. Even “Thriller,” to some degree, starts out as a movie. They’re on the date. There’s no music – it’s a film. And then when he turns, he’s dancing, she’s afraid … even that, it’s a mixture as well. If it was truly linear, and he turned into a zombie, he would just kill her. There would be no dancing. So even that has an obscure quality to it. Q: What does the song mean to you? A: The idea that “keep moving” is a metaphor for life. There’s a fun, playful quality to it. I ended up showing that with the parts in the video where he’s mouthing the lyrics, or the Mick Jagger moment where he shimmies by the pool -- which is my favorite moment in the entire video. The song is like the video – a snapshot of life. There’s transitional periods in the video – walking, driving – and that’s what the song is to me – just movement. Q: Can we expect further collaborations between you and Dorsie? Is there a song in particular that you would like to do another video for? A: I have vague images in my head for “Down On You,” but I’m still working on the concept. I would welcome the chance to work on anything. We’re all going to be together again in December, and I’m sure I’ll film something, but I won’t know until I see it.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 16:10:30 +0000
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