Tag: Walk around the Lake

First, let’s just get to it. Here’s the new video for Lost in the Trees, the single “Walk Around the Lake”:

Second, some background. This is the latest from our music-video production team, aka Creato-Destructo Imagery.

It’s directed by Jerry Stifelman, and AD’ed by yours truly. Edited by Jerry and Shay Stifelman, with help from Trace Oliveto and myself, and a lot of support and encouragement from Lost in the Trees creative force Ari Picker and his fellow bandmates.

But the REAL story is we shot this in North Carolina, late one January evening, hoping we’d get some great nighttime footage, illuminated by just hand-held lights, lanterns, candles, etc.

Our first set-up was around 6pm. It started snowing about 6:30. And not just “North Carolina snowing” — these were real, fat, heavy flakes coming down in a hurry.

So we thought about that, and discussed it for a while. Our options were to either stop, because there’d be NO WAY to match any snow scene on any other day or night in North Carolina; or keep going that night until we had everything in the can. Yes, continue shooting in a snowstorm.

…So we went for it, with the full support of the band. I believe we wrapped up about 11pm that night; wet, shivering and frozen. But heck, Ari did most of the shoot without a jacket (he wasn’t wearing one during the first scene, so…) , a lot of the band members had to keep holding their instruments (including a very large, cold, snow-covered tuba), and people had to keep running up and down a very dark trail just to keep up with the set-ups. In the snow. Did I mention that?

And personally, I think it looks great. The snowfall looks fantastic and has production values we couldn’t have bought with Jay-Z’s platinum card.

Hats off to Jerry and Ari for making that call and sticking with it, and for the creative vision we now have with this music video.

For even more background, here’s Jerry’s description:

“The concept of is simple — Ari leaves his cabin in the night, walking through the forest, picking up members of the band along the way. Unlike many music videos, this one was as much about mood as concept. We wanted to convey a vibe that was appropriate to the song and the band. There is a feeling of timelessness to Lost In The Trees’ music. We wanted to be true to this by shooting under the light of the full moon supplemented only with candles — and by keeping the band dressed in simple vintage clothing. The idea was to make the “walk” to feel like it could have taken place 100 years ago. This made things hard for band members, many of who had to carry both their instruments and a candles while walking in the freezing snowfall. (This was especially hard for Mark, since he had a tuba to carry around). Another aspect of Lost In The Trees that makes them special is the genuine sense of family. Filming the whole group singing the song was an important part of this, and it turned out so special that we added the live audio of the band singing to backing track of the final video. If you listen, you can hear Ari laughing as he sings. The extreme cold and snowfall made even the most simplest things, like turning cameras on and off, became a challenge, but everyone hung together. Originally, we were going to film Ari actually walking into the lake, but it was so cold, we were afraid he might not come out alive. But ultimately we think the video’s open-ended finish is better leaving it up to the imagination of the viewer.”