What was your vision for the “Like an Angel” music video.
My vision for the video was to honour and memorialise someone I admired and loved deeply. Ultimately, my intent was to shine a light on how those who have passed can continue to influence and guide, living on in the people they touched. I liked the aesthetic, style and charcoal technique of a video Sam had previously made for English musician Jakko M Jakszyk (best known as lead singer from King Crimson) called “The Trouble with Angels” and thought this would work really well for “Like an Angel”. I discussed the meaning of the song with Sam and he could see the connection. The next stage was to play him the track to see what he visualised when hearing it. At this point I only had the previous incarnation of the song to play to him. This was a stripped-down version with minimal instrumentation which appeared as a ghost track at the end of “Near Life Experience”. At this point he was thinking about a drawing style, however, upon hearing the new recording with the added musical layers and new atmosphere, we both agreed that the charcoal technique could convey the concepts better. I had my costumes already envisioned from the outset. One was a white ethereal floaty dress and the other was a contrasting black dress to reflect the song’s theme of the intertwined nature of the darkness of grief and the light that continues to emanate from love.
How did working with Sam Chegini influence the final look and feel of the video?
Sam wrote a completely new script upon hearing the new recording. He decided to create a space, an environment which he later referred to as the “meeting place” that exists somewhere between the sky and earth. He wanted there to be a path for me to follow that would take me there. The light was what he visualised as being that guide that I follow and the hallway with the angels were his imagined path. Sam visualised the angels showing me pictures from my life, all of them knowing exactly why I am there and helping me on my journey to see and follow the light which would ultimately guide me to this meeting place. The charcoal technique was really well suited to this later aspect of the script because the high contrast between the black and white fit the new concept of this meeting place which exists somewhere between the dark and the light. Sam said, “There is this unique texture with the charcoal. It is so messy yet also so beautiful and it best visualises this atmosphere of the meeting place”. Although we filmed myself in the black dress too, intended to be the observer me watching the me in the white dress on my journey, in the end Sam felt it was distracting and that the viewer would be more immersed just by following one me on my journey without the extra level of narration. I think this was a great call as some of the film’s power lies in the simple intimacy of being with me from the inside as I navigate this journey.
The animation is full of symbolism-can you highlight one visual that means a lot to you?
It is so hard to pick one, but I suppose it’s the meeting place where the contact happens either side of the glass-like partition, where the space between the two worlds is revealed to be so thin. It is so evocative of the feeling that happens in a dream when you reunite with a loved one. It can feel so real and tangible on the one hand, where the person is exactly as you remember them and yet somewhere in the dream there is also an awareness that you are on borrowed time. The act of bringing someone to life either by thinking about them, or via the wish fulfilment mechanisms of dreams are both forms of transcendence which the sky symbolises. The clouds also symbolise the transient nature of life, whilst the thin boundary separating us is transparent symbolising the ability to see through or beyond a boundary. It evokes the message that love beyond death exists in its own vacuum which is untouchable. The idea that the loved person can continue to guide is beautifully visualised by the personification of the light itself.
How did you want the visuals to enhance the emotion of the song?
I wanted the visuals to mirror the emotional journey in the song, placing the viewer in that suspended reality where there is a feeling of slight trepidation or uncertainty about what is ahead as well as a sense that it will be o.k. I had no idea how Sam would achieve this, but his script portrayed all of this and more. The kindness of the angels and the omnipresent light, always guiding, reflected the warmth necessary for the kind of emotional bravery implied that only love can afford. I wanted the visuals to portray the feeling of something impossibly hard but also necessary. There is an art to this process emotionally, so it was fitting that Sam created a personal art gallery with pictures from different stages of life that were held up and reflected back one by one to aid the consolidation process and journey to acceptance.
This is your fifth project with Sam-what makes your creative partnership work so well?
Sam has extraordinary intellectual power manifested creatively and visually. All he really needs to service a song well is to like the song in the first instance and then to be given complete freedom, time and space to envisage it first and then to execute it to the point of his own satisfaction. Once he is on board emotionally, he is away and will return with something more spectacular than you could ever have imagined yourself.
Our partnership began before we had even met! He made three music videos for the Great British Keyboardist and Composer Benjamin Croft that I had written the lyrics for. This meant there was already a history of familiarity of working with my lyrics before we had ever spoken personally! When I contacted him to tell him how amazed I was at his attention to the lyrical detail, we had a lovely run of exchanges exploring this fully. By the time Sam started working on the first video of mine, we had therefore already established a significant rapport.
For me, the process of trusting a musician, producer, or film maker is very connected to how well differences are communicated and resolved. When Sam showed me the first treatment, for “No Mystery”, my song inspired by the non-fiction book “The Game” written by Neil Strauss about his encounters in a Secret Society of Pick-up Artists, it was marvellous but included one scene where Mystery traps the women victims. I could see how Sam had picked up the predatory aspect hinted at in the musical undertones, however, after discussion with Henry, we felt that it was important for the audience to feel more empathy for Mystery. I was nervous to mention this to Sam as I did not know him well enough at this stage to know his sensibilities. I needn’t have worried. He understood straight away what was required and instantly revised the script. The new version portrayed both the pick-up artists and the woman as mutually vulnerable and fallible humans each missing important aspects of self, and feeding off each other’s insecurities in a vicious cycle that was destructive and self-perpetuating but slightly less sinister. I knew from this point on that there would be no limitations to what we could do together!
I also noticed over time that the more we talked in-between projects, the less talking was needed about the actual videos. Through knowing me over time, Sam understands and recognizes my feelings and thoughts and that plays a big part in the ease of our working relationship. Henry Thomas also observed recently that the three of us all have an overlap in our artistic approach and commitment to truth telling, each in our own different ways. This makes for a successful creative partnership.