The making of Totem
I First decided to do a fun and creative video for my website home page, something with motion to it, so i came up with this idea. I collaborated with a John Laham previously who is a fantastic photographer so we decided to do a shoot on location at a beach.... i had visited once on a random whim, thats another story….. anyway one day a friend of mine James Lopes who is a videographer came to visit at the parramatta store, we started talking and ideas started flowing and excitement took over, so i told him that i will be doing a shoot with John "why don’t you come along" and we can do a video clip so we decided to meet at the location to come up with concepts and to plan the shoot together as a team.
The beach is peaceful, its calm and perfect for what we wanted to do. I asked two of my models to join me in the project and we successfully got all the shots we planned, it evolved into a beautiful 3 minute clip for my website, and all i needed now was the right song.
SONG
A good friend of mine Joseph Nevels who is a singer and song writer from USA always sends through his music.... so i can have a listen and give him my thoughts and opinion of his latest recordings and demos. JSPHNVLS really is an up and coming artist, so he sent across one of his latest songs called Breath via soundcloud which i loved, so it basically played on to the next track which was called Shadows and the second i heard the beat i felt connected, the words, the sound were profoundly magnetic , i was drawn in and it synchronised perfectly with my theme and story , i looked at the screen to see who the artist was and when i read his name i realised this was a universal connection.
STORY
The video is about my TOTEM which is the panther ....... my spiritual guardian and the girls posed as my shadows ( stylish guardian angels ) my favourite part of the clip was when i was walking out of the water as it was recorded in reverse, we recorded that part with me walking backwards into the water, till i was head under. The words of the song "my colours cant be washed away by rain", as i come out of the water i am dry so it was a powerful message to all women out there…. no matter what circumstances I’ve experienced it has never changed me, i am who i am regardless of what people think or say! My strength from within can shatter all judgements and criticisms.
Another part of the video that i love is when i lay down near a panther and the song words were, " me , myself and i" meaning i went through my own hell on my own no one felt my pain ..... it was my own but my totem was by my side.