20 December 2013
I have decided to nominate “Blind to the Beautiful” as first single / radio track from the “Feast of Consequences” album with a release date in the early Spring.
To coincide with it’s release I want to put together a video clip for You Tube and beyond and have chosen my old friend and director of “Electric Man” David Barras to bring it all together.
We have an idea which we would like to get fans all over the world to get involved with and contribute their own footage to the project.
OK! What we are looking for is pretty literal regarding the lyric.
There is some quite well known footage from WW1 of soldiers who have been gassed, heading back to the aid stations and away from the front lines, walking with blindfolds on to bandage their eyes with their hands on the shoulders of the person in front of them.The blind leading the blind.
What I would like to do is duplicate this kind of footage with groups of whatever number ( 3? 10? 50?), wearing blindfolds, walking in line through beautiful backdrops.
It could be a redwood forest, a snowscape, in the Australian outback, in the desert, in fact anywhere you consider naturally beautiful that fits with the content of the song.
Dress should be everyday/ casual or whatever you consider appropriate but no logos or obvious designs/ messages. Blindfolds should also be one colour/simple.
The main shot we are looking for is that of the line of people moving through the landscape/ scene of beauty. If you feel arty then throw in some angled shots and a few close ups with movement but the aim is to catch people in a landscape.
Shots of static blindfolded people will also work.
Film will have to preferably be of digital HD standard or as high as you can provide so it can be manipulated and sit together within the clip which has a series of other elements to be added. It only requires a few minutes of footage so framing, exposure, movement and impact is fundamental
David Barras will be the coordinator of the footage and you will be able to send him your clips via WeTransfer.com using the e mail all@strangeboat.com
The deadline date we have for footage is January 18th so we can get the video in place mid February.
I am sure there are a few of you heading for holidays in exotic places on the coming weeks and i know there are many of you who live in places already blessed with areas of great natural beauty.
I’d like to put together something that brings us all together in a small way and that illustrates the beautiful planet we live on and how we pretty much take it for granted.
If you send something to us we can’t promise it will be used and anyone who does send footage has to sign off on their contribution/ copyright on a form David and I will put together in the coming days as this idea has just been fired up.
We’d like your feedback on this idea and if you have any questions then please let us know here. I think this could be quite an exciting project.
I’ll provide more information in the next days but you can see from the attached painting “Gassed” by John Singer Sargent the kind of formations we are looking for!