An innocent encounter.
I was giving a script-writing workshop at ECU, the European Indie Film festival, and Ellis was there, with a number of other musicians, showcasing her music. She had something special, charisma, presence, and poetry that reminded me of Rickie Lee Jones.
“Are you doing anything tomorrow?” I asked her. “You want to shoot a clip? See what we can come up?”
Without hesitation, she said yes.
I tried to borrow a camera, with no luck, so ended up dusting off my trusty old Mini-DV. What I wanted was to try and capture her presence, her personality.
In a way, the old camera and format made sense, seemed even better for our purposes than a more modern rig. To get the moments of magic that sometimes come when you shoot this way.
The plan was to cruise around Paris to the backdrops I had in mind. Unfortunately, the Sunday of the shoot was grey and drizzly.
We had no choice: she was leaving the following day. We would have to slip between the raindrops, film in covered places, figure it out somehow — trust our luck.
“The worst that can happen is that we’ll just spend a nice afternoon in Paris,” she said.
The result? Respectable numbers after four days, but absolutely AMAZING responses: People watching it over and over, 10 times in a row. Comments on Facebook and YouTube, like, “Beautiful… this is the antidote to misery.” “This video IS happiness.” “Love. Love. LOVE this video.” “Brought happy tears when I watched this…” etc…
To me, the surprising intensity of the reaction suggests, in these apocalyptic times, that a change is happening. The simplicity of the clip, the modesty, the mood, the MAGIC are touching a chord, I sense, because people are saturated with products, vanity, artifice, booties, dancing hippos, empty choreography, posing. Because people still know beauty and poetry when they see it, and they are hungry for that. Starving. Totally grateful. Inspired.
See for yourself.