[Music]Photocalypse

Behind The Scenes -
Video shooting for Ensiferum’s “Twilight Tavern” with Denis Goria

Gallery link: Ensiferum "Twilight Tavern" Video Shoot

Denis Goria is not just an outstanding and rather popular French photographer, but also our good friend. His latest works include Pain’s “Monkey Business” video, full artwork of Hypocrisy’s latest album, Nightwish "Made in Hong Kong" booklet, promo shoots and video trailers for Amorphis and the list goes on and on.

Music Photocalypse crew got a chance to attend the video shooting for Ensiferum’s “Twilight Tavern” made by Denis and observe the work through the lens of our own camera. Now we are going to raise the curtain and let you take a peek on the pictures from behind-the-scenes.

Denis kindly agreed to tell us more about the video.

“First of all, it's important to mention that I’m not a movie/video director. I'm a photographer. I've met Ensiferum earlier this summer at Jurassic Rock Festival in Finland. The manager of the band asked me to join them, as we already had different collaborations earlier. After a few beers and sauna, the band and I established a friendly relation, which is always good for a possible common work in the future.

I was about to return to Finland to work with another band, when the manager and I decided to make a new video for Ensiferum. The opportunity to use the first gig of the European tour seemed for us the best, fastest and cheapest way to produce it.

Few days prior to the show I was working on the song to decrypt different parts of it, to see what kind of footages I could make to « fit » in the video. I had in my mind an old video by Dire Straits, I don't remember the name of it, but it shows the band and the roadies setting up the stage. Then I got the main theme of the video. First part - setting the stage; second part – the band’s rehearsal; third part - Ensiferum hanging out backstage; and the last part of the video - last minutes of the same song from the live performance!

Early in the afternoon I came to Nosturi (the venue where the band was playing the show) and started filming all the settings, sometimes following the band members with a small steadycam, like a dog running after the paperboy! Later on the guys told me they didn't understand what my idea actually was. I wanted to show the « human » side of the band, how funny and great they are. I don't like videos full of all kinds of computer effects and green wall in the background. I think it doesn't show the band as it should be. It also eliminates the art of filming. Everyone focus too much on special effects to add on the green wall and forget about the band. Usually the CGI effects are very crappy, depending on the video budget, of course!! As a photographer, everything on the screen is really important to me: the emotions you can see on band's faces, also the light, the dynamics, the editing... That's why I prefer to focus on all of these aspects and not just the effects.

It's always difficult to work in such conditions, because everybody is very busy, and there's not so much place to move around, especially with a camera. But it's a part of the job!

I couldn't be everywhere during the show to shoot from the different angles. In this case using different footages from the settings and backstage for the first part of the video helps to keep people from getting bored. Only two cameras were used for the last part of the video: me with the steadycam and my assistant with a cam on tripod. So it gave us only two angles. To make it more dynamic I used a few extra sequences from other songs which have the same BPM to make the third angle. During the editing process the illusion turned out to be perfect. Later Sami (Sami Hinkka – bass) asked if I have footage of the beginning o f the show with the fireworks. As the cam on tripod was used to record almost the entire gig, it was easy to add those parts in the video as well.

I had little time for the editing process, as the management wanted the video to appear online 5 days later. It might’ve turned out even better if I could have had more time.

With the conditions and budget provided I think the video gives a vivid picture of the personality and talent of the band.”
© Denis Goria

Check out Ensiferum’s “Twilight Tavern” here:

Denis Goria @ Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/denisgoria

Text: Tanja C. | Photos: Jana Blomqvist