Reprising the fruitful collaborative partnership they established on audiovisual album String Figures, Director Alessandra Leone takes the fluidity of the melodic and lyrical content of Zoe Mc Pherson’s Lamella and channels it into the form and theme of her experimental new music video. Leone’s film channels the entrancing, meditative feel of the song and brings it to life in a way that doesn’t distract from the music but, rather, immerses you further into it. This is done through the utilisation of a variety of visual formats and forms of expression; GoPro footage, 3D renderings of digital sculptures, and statuesque choreography featuring a slimy, oozy substance. Each of which symbolise a type of fluidity and highlight specific lyrical threads featured in the song. DN was delighted to catch up with Leone again to talk over the inspiration for this symbolic approach, the challenge of melding different techniques together and her wider work as a multi-media artist.
Lamella is a music video which blends forms yet remains consistent in its presentation of fluidity. How would you define it?
Drawing from our initial brainstorming sessions focused on the lyrics, the concept for this video is rooted in the idea of presenting a flowing continuous narrative through various video formats, capturing scenes from unexpected angles.
The concept for this video is rooted in the idea of presenting a flowing continuous narrative.
How did you look to extrapolate the lyrics and music of the song into a visual narrative?
Throughout the track, the first-person character remains elusive and difficult to pin down. This ambiguity is reflected in the cinematography, which oscillates between wide-angle outdoor POV shots from a GoPro camera, 3D renderings of digital sculptures and characters, and theatrical studio images of bodies. The video also features 3D scans of multibody organisms that can disperse and break up into particles before transitioning back to real bodies coexisting in an underwater environment, echoing the digitized ones we had just seen.
Could you break down each stylistic segment of the video and your intentions behind it?
The camera moves fluidly through the surroundings, floating on the surface of water, occasionally dipping in and out in a continuous movement that mirrors the melody of the track. Somehow standing along the threshold water line already echoes the concept of lamella/layer/strata of the music. This flow embraces the low-fi visual distortion created by the fish-eye lens and liquid drops on the camera. As the rhythm and beats of the music pick up, the camera movement gains momentum, and 360° video conversion effects are employed to transition from the fish-eye lens to an entirely different environment and cinematography style.
This new space feels like the opposite or negative of the outdoor shots we previously witnessed, which were captured in full daylight, with nature at the frontline in saturated hues of green and blue. It’s a darker stage and a central knot of bodies that start off still and then gradually begin to breathe, drawing the viewer further into the video. Here we swap aesthetic/style again, while keeping framing and content consistent, and cut to the 3D scan of the bodies shot in the studio. In this way, the digitized version of the human sculpture is able to reveal its layered nature and break apart into particles, dust, and membranes.
Lamella feels intimate and tactile with how close the camera is to the water, the people, and the fluidity. Is that what attracted you to use a 360° video aesthetic for one of the segments?
The 360° video aesthetic, once again, adds to the immersive feel of the experience, almost as if the viewer is being sucked into a wormhole or experiencing an augmented vision of reality. However, this use of the 360° visual look is meant simply as a distortion, a glitch, or, a bit ironically, a nod to the hype for immersive augmented perception.
Near the end of the video you have those shots of the bodies enveloping each other, covered in that sticky, slime substance. How did you construct that sequence? And what does that final part of the video symbolise for you?
Towards the end of the video, the bodies become covered in a clear slime, visually representing the “membranes vibrating together” mentioned in the lyrics, conveying entanglement, sync, and unity. The clear material is molded to be thick and dense in some parts, and thin and clear-skin-like in others, which serves as a starting point for some intercut 3D animation bits. We eventually bring the sculpture of bodies back to the natural environment from the beginning, transitioning back to the POV view underwater, where the camera flows alongside Zoë’s body. The camera moves continuously with the music, without any pauses until the end of the video.
The camera moves fluidly through the surroundings, floating on the surface of water, occasionally dipping in and out in a continuous movement that mirrors the melody of the track.
I read that Zoë captured some of the outdoor shots, did you direct her at all with those or did you give her the freedom to shoot whatever inspired her?
We spoke in detail ahead of time about the type of shots we wanted and I generated with Midjourney a lot of visual references. They shared material after a day of filming, I sent over some notes, for instance, I loved the distortion created by water drops on the lens, and that helped in capturing more shots in a direction we were happy with. One of the great things about collaborating for a long time is indeed that our outcomes are also the result of an ongoing conversation, so we stay on the same page basically.
How do you think your work as a multi-media artist influences your approach to directing?
Short answer, my approach to directing music videos is motivated, influenced and inspired by my artistic practice which is live A/V and interdisciplinary dance-based performance. It basically merges that attitude which fuels artistic research, questioning and feeling at ease with uncertainty, with the desire to assemble a certain type of cinematic moment/universe. I’m no classic storyteller. Even though I see stories unfolding within my abstract narratives, these remain loose and open and their interpretation could potentially never stop evolving. These bits are all intersecting and entangled together, they are in-depth journeys through the multiple layers of present time(s). Very much like quantum theory somehow! It’s more like stepping right into the middle of a universe and experiencing its fluidity. The viewer is welcome to draw their own conclusions and relate to each work in a unique way. My artistic research keeps seeping into my approach to directing.
Even though I see stories unfolding within my abstract narratives, these remain loose and open and their interpretation could potentially never stop evolving.
The long answer, I got to directing music videos as a sort of consequence of the work I had been doing in the fields of interdisciplinary stage performance and live visuals for music. After having done live visuals for a few years, I was craving an even tighter connection between music and video, both in terms of concept and sync. I started directing music videos because some music tracks demanded a very specific vision and I wanted to achieve a certain level of image quality for these. I work in parallel in post-production and advertising, so figuring out how to technically achieve a certain type of image I wanted was never much of an issue.
You seem to have many projects and creative outlets on the go and I love how they all work in tandem. Are you working on anything at present that you’re finding inspiration from?
The work I’ve done with StratoFyzika, which is a performance group I’m part of, creating “immersive, mind-altering performance experiences through a hybrid of new media, dance, and spatial soundscapes” has also strongly influenced my approach to directing. Almost all the videos I’ve directed feature performers/dancers. It’s improvised dance, no choreography whatsoever. Raw and emotional. Unique to the performer’s interpretation of my vision.
Somehow me and the performer get entangled, and brainstorm on the concept; I explain my vision and from there we feed each other back and forth. Film is a very collaborative medium and that’s why I love it. Directing to me is a fluid role. It is very much about collaboration, first of all with the musician, but also with the whole crew. It may sound a bit naive if one has in mind the image of the despotic director shouting from their chair. But to me it isn’t ego-ruled. It’s a cooperative, symbiotic venture.
