“The Swans” by Arthur Pereira
Let's get married before dying.
The Swans is a song about love that can’t be born because you’re afraid of it. The music video stages a wedding that ignites before the engagement of the couple.
FROM THE DIRECTOR
“When Jean made me listen to "The Swans" for the first time, I immediately heard a masterpiece. Jean's very singular universe has always demanded an equally singular visual universe. His music is full of different inspirations; from US rap / hip-hop to the Beatles' rock to jazz or Ravel's classicism. It is this cocktail of genres that I have always appreciated in his music, and which makes it a demanding music to illustrate.
In "The Swans", the challenge was to put in image its explosive dimension. It is a piece that juggles between softness and strength, silence and power. So we had to illustrate this energy that is as contradictory as it is complementary. Jean already had his vision for this clip: two married couples under the fire of a confessional in a green plain.
The song is about relationships that don't flourish because of too much fear and doubt. In the lyrics, John talks to a girl who is bankrupting her love relationship because she is too afraid to commit to it.
From the story of the song itself and Jean's initial vision, we went with the idea of a marriage catching fire. We keep the sacred and religious aspect of the confessional, but that would be out of budget to realize, and we focus only on these two future brides and grooms abandoned to themselves facing the fire of their relationship.
As in the song, it is the girl who puts the relationship in jeopardy, we made the bride the ambiguous character of the film. She seems unsurprised by the fire and at the same time satisfied, as her smile at the very end suggests.
I had a clear vision of the visual universe I was looking for, inspired by Tim Burton and David Lynch. Sleepy Hollow (1994) was our main inspiration, as much for its photography, its atmosphere as for its costumes. The baroque and rock tone of the film fitted perfectly with Jean's musical universe, especially for The Swans, and this motivated us to start with period costumes. We found authentic 19th century outfits, which gave the baroque tone, which we completed with some jewelry and chain to bring its rock side.
For the sets, it was the same approach. It was necessary to carry out an abandoned outdoor wedding ceremony. So the arch was littered with dead branches and wilted leaves, and the chairs already burned and broken... The idea was to have a ghostly, almost gothic decor, in your morbid and autumnal tones. From this desolate decor, the contrast would be made with the two grooms who would do their ceremony as if nothing had happened.
For the direction, I was convinced that the strength of the mise en scène would be in its contemplative slowness. This is a contrast very often used in thrillers. We let the action unfold and its too calm strangeness ends up distressing. Jordan Peele's Get Out and Ari Aster's Midsommar were my inspirations for this clip. I knew that I had to use the sequence shot as much as possible. The clip therefore contains only 6 shots, including a real sequence shot at the end.
For the photography, I started with an FX6 mounted on a simple Ronin RS2 in order to realize my sequence shots. I used only old film lenses, the Asahi Pentax Takumar SMC range, notably the 35mm f2 which allowed me to shoot more than half of the shots, and the 50mm f4 as well as the 85mm f1.8. These are lenses of an incredible quality, at the time competing with the Contax Zeiss. They are however more affordable than the latter and have a more contrasted and warm look than the Zeiss. This was the tone I was looking for and pushed for in grading later. At full aperture, the sharpness softens and an optical distortion occurs on the sides, like a radial blur. I found these flaws to be charming, and they allowed me to reinforce the ghostly narrative of the clip.
Finally, the real challenge of the clip was to stage the fire of the ceremony. As soon as we started writing, we contacted a friend of ours, Olivier Bink, VFX director, to see if we could rely on special effects alone. Olivier advised us to start with a real fire, even a small one, and then to intensify it in post-production. So that's what we did, and once the fire was filmed, Olivier bombarded the images with special effects based on the real flames from the shoot. From a small garden fire, we reached the real fire, and the magic worked without too much risk!
At this point, The Swans is one of the projects I'm most proud of having directed. It was a completely independent project, done for less than $1500, but it was made possible by the creativity, energy and passion of the entire team that participated! I am so grateful to have been able to count on this team, without whom nothing would have been possible!”
- Arthur Pereira
CREDITS
music written and produced by Jean Castel & Dean Woodson
mixed and mastered by Michael Freeman
music video produced by Burdigala Records
written by Jean Castel and Arthur Pereira
directed by Arthur Pereira
starring
Jean Castel & Maeva Krim
d.o.p // Arthur Pereira
assistant director // Luna Tréhin
camera operator // Arthur Pereira
assistant camera // Alexandre Garçon
set designer // Jean Castel & Arthur Pereira
makeup fx master // Julia Boisselier
assistant makeup // Mathilde Offer
costume // Steack Fripes
logistics // Virgile Richer
set photographer // Alexandre Garçon & Seppshot
editing and colorgrading // Arthur Pereira
visual effects // Olivier Bink
designer graphist // Aimée Sammarcelli
story-border // Angèle Lamenca
artistic advisor // Eva Quarto
special thanks to
Arthur Chassagne
Lydie and Bernard Castells
Algayon familly
La Prade Castle
Steak Fripes
ZEDOUEURS
Triple Double
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