So, this one came about in maybe January or February of this year.

Adée was gearing up to release her new EP “Home/Down”, and we decided to make a second video together after last year’s “Hold It Against You”.

Ta-da!

The initial idea came from a self-made video I saw by Francis and the Lights, where Francis had just self-made his video by throwing on the flashlight on his phone and recording his silhouette as he sang the song.

I showed that little thing to Adée, she dug it and we started trying to add to it on her final night in Cardiff before having to leave to head back to Sweden the following morning.

We blocked out the idea, Adée could focus on the performance of the song, sitting on the bed, singing - whilst I made the tricky moves in the dark of manually operating two lights, and panning the camera when needed.

Not for nothing, but the video is a single shot, it’s nothing major, we’d given ourselves two sections where we could splice in different takes if needs be, but it didn’t feel like it was needed.

It’s, admittedly, a pretty simple idea, Adée had talked about possibly adding in another element in post-production to build on what we’d shot - it was leaning toward typographical lyrics, but she’s committed to sticking the landing and I personally feel like it works!

I know, she had some conflicting thoughts about her performance/appearance in the video, but I’ve always respected that she doesn’t leave anything off the table when it comes to her lyrical content or even her performances - like for real if you ever get to see her perform, do it. I’ve sat at the back of acoustic gigs and been in the crowds of her electric gigs (is that the right term for non-acoustic, regular gigs?), and she puts it all out there. She performs every song like it’s the first and last time. It’s her superpower.

I think every artist is brave for opening up and putting something out there that’s personal, whether it’s blatant or layered in metaphors and similes, it doesn’t matter. The fear is still there that someone will figure it out because you’ve had it all pent up in your head, and now it’s out there, and it’s how you feel about a thing or a person or a time.

Just take a page out of Adée’s book, and put it out there.

Also, I tried to find the FATL video that was the inspiration for this whole thing, but in typical Francis fashion he’s removed it and it’s nowhere online that’s not the original link!

“That’s just life…”