My visions for our music video

As director for the music video, the brunt of the creative force must come from me. That alone is quite daunting. I must take a song and, seemingly out of nowhere, create a concept.

With Can you Feel, I first latched onto the word "fire," which arises throughout the song. But of course, where I found real creative inspiration was in the brainstorming--in working out vague concepts into slightly less vague concepts.

I started with fire because 1) I like fire and 2) the song mentioned it and 3) Fire is an interesting visual element. Then I went to graveyards because 1) I like graveyards and 2) Death seemed to be a nice, cool counterpoint to the heat/passion of the fire.

While listening to the song second by second I hit my first stumbling-block 20 seconds in when the guitar really kicks in. How do I represent that powerful musical element? The obvious answer would be to show the guitar itself -- to show the strings which are making the sound. But of course I like the answers that are not obvious the most and so I thought, "How can I represent sound without showing sound in a literal sense?" and then I came upon the idea of using the disturbed surface of water.

I like the improvisational tones of my idea. I like that the fire and the water -- two things that we as filmmakers may influence but cannot control -- get to be a part of the film in the moment as much as we are. I like that I am leaving room for ingenuity, spontaneity and flexibility to thrive within my vision. My only fear is that the loose skeletal structure of my plans will collapse when put under pressure.

As director I've found that there is always that fear. That fear that your project will collapse and it will be your fault. You will be a creative failure. You will let down your group and yourself. You will let down every filmmaker who has successfully created a work of art (or shart). But it all comes with the trade, I suppose. I'm cool with crippling existential fears at this point. Me and them are real good buddies.