Date: 08-17-13
Shot by: Rex Arrow
Editing & Creative Direction by: Luis Valdizon
Produced by: Matt Morris, David Morris & Orestes Navarro
Female Lead: Maria Papathanasiou
In 2011, I had an ambitious idea to take the guerilla-style music video to new territories. Shooting videos on no budget is obviously limiting, so variation in landscape is key to making enticing, unique visuals. Upon brainstorming upcoming songs and potential videos, we decided that knocking out four in one week would be ideal. We joked about making a trip overseas to shoot them, a move that we hadn't seen done yet by independent music artist at the time. But the joke turned to reality, and we soon had booked a nine-day trip to England, France and Italy. We intended to shoot the video for "Macchiato Music," as well as a mini-movie that would be comprised of three separate music videos for my songs "Crave You", "Limitless" and an unreleased track, "The Night is Young."
Just a few weeks after coming up with the idea, my brother Matt, my friend Maria (my co-star in the above video), OJ (my friend and collaborator who played a big role in making the trip happen), and Ian (a.k.a. Rex Arrow), were off to Europe, a continent that only OJ had visited prior. We shot an enormous amount of footage. Savings accounts were emptied, frequent flier miles were used up and nine days were spent adventuring throughout four countries. We slept on floors, got cursed at in foreign languages by hotel maids, spent the night in airports, dealt with border security and of course, got crazy looks while shooting all of the videos with no permits or licenses.
Upon returning to the states, Ian encountered some hard drive malfunctions. It took us nearly six months to recover, edit and release the video for "Macchiato Music." When the time came to start piecing together the other videos, the status of the tracks had changed and the hard drives were misplaced.
Nearly two years later, after moving on from the original concept and accepting that the Europe footage would probably never be released, the hard drive was found. Ian sent it to me. At first, I was discouraged due to the amount of time that had passed. But after watching it all with fresh eyes, and in the company of Luis (the mastermind behind The Cleanest Corner who edited what you see here today), we realized there was something special in the footage. We had captured a beautiful story of a time when we were genuinely mystified by the new places and experiences that were in front of us. Young people falling in love, exploring, being caught in the moment and enjoying life--this is a big part of what the 'Young, Loved, Hated & Broke' theme is about.
Around the time we received the footage, we had just finished mixing "Young Madonna" and it all kind of clicked. The song is dreamy, yet reminiscent. It's about desire, what could be and what could have been. We found these same themes in the footage and decided it would be cool to match the two up. Now that I watch this, it's almost as if I subconsciously wrote "Young Madonna" with our trip to Europe in mind. I hope you enjoy taking a look back at this special time just as much as I had living it. And I hope you enjoy the song, too. It was produced by Dave Cappa, who also produced "One Day," and it will be included on the 'Young, Loved, Hated & Broke' EP, out November 19!
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