Have spent today working on a video for Refuge, one of the tracks from the new Synaesthesia release. I've long wanted to make a few videos for this album, and Refuge is one of the strongest and most dramatic tracks on the album, so I decided to put together a video. The imagery of a wooden shed or shack, perhaps a warm fire-lit party, some time in the 1930s, in a swamp, with a sunglasses wearing, bowler-hatted, black man playing the piano... these were some of the images I've always had with this music. And yes, I've had to cast aside most of it, but stuck to some of what I could.
I began with the idea of a contrast of in and out, the dramatic finalé making use of the amazing clouds from a few weeks ago (April 30th) when I recorded a time-lapse video of the skyscape, a dark storm rolling in. For the bulk of the song I took thirty small clips of the interior of our wooden shed, and edited these together into 80-frame segments, timed with the music. There needed to be more so I added a few clips of a window, as though looking out, and then some grasping hands, piano playing hands, and myself as if trapped in the screen. The balance is always between the digital and clean, and the rough and organic; always the crucial balance. I've added lots of flicker, scribbles, shudders and other elements to add roughness to the video, while retaining quality in other areas. Perhaps there could be something more enigmatic here, more intellectual content. I always seem to begin with a simple and large-scale edit then add lots of layering and tiny changes, almost like sculpting. The grasping hands were a good addition. I kept feeling the urge to add words.
I'll pause now, and look at the video again tomorrow and over the coming days. This is not a complex work. I've sometimes spent weeks on one music video, but, of course, I want it to be the best it can in itself, and have a unity that matches the music to some extent.
