The Artist Explains: Gitta de Ridder - 'Even If' (Video)
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| Photo credit: Sanel Kadic |
'Even If' is a beautifully heartfelt and fun, conversational folkpop song that features on Gitta's new album 'Feathers'. Recorded mostly in Gitta's London home-studio with one-take vocals and guitar recordings layered with children's toy instruments, cello's and other sounds - 'Feathers' focuses on the words that make stories come to life. It explores relationships, romance, family and cities, and all that makes us human.
Where was the video filmed?
We filmed it in 'Almelo' a town in the East of the Netherlands in a lovely art space, where Randy van Lingen creates his works. The manager I work with over there used to have his offices there too. We had tons of old wood and handy tools laying around to build the set so that was perfect really! We spend two days in the space, one to build the set and a second to get the lighting up and shoot the video.
How does the video compliment the song?
The video is about all the different persona’s we can ‘portray’ as people, the different ‘masks’ we wear and how we present ourselves. And the reality that in the end all we really are is the ‘I’ that experiences it all and is at the core of our being.
It’s about accepting ourselves and others for all we are, and the fun we can have with our own minds and company. About friendship and/or loneliness.
The video and the song very much align in the same ideas even though expressed differently they are the best of friends ;-)
Any behind the scenes stories?
Ah - well, you can kinda see all the silly stuff in the video, it seems the editor picked out all the stuff I laughed so much about and the moments where I was just being silly are the moments that ended up in the video. The whole video is a kind of ‘behind the scenes’ thing… in a way… hehe
Oh yes, and one other thing, as you can see, in some shots there is a mirror I look into, in some shots I’m ‘in’ the mirror (where we took the mirror out the wall and I sit behind it…) we were super careful with handling the mirror and one of the people involved cleaned it super well before we started shooting, then as he placed the mirror back into the frame it cracked! aaaaah! BUT with some amazing editing work you can’t see the crack at all! Impressed with the editor there :-)
We all did a… OH NOOOOOOOOOOO Nooooooo aaaaah NOOOOO because it really limited the camera angles we could use. But it all worked out well!
Tell us about the ideas/ themes/ imagery used?
Mmmmmm…. Pirates, princesses, knights……. all them characters were relevant to me in what we love as kids and the people we somehow aspire to be ‘when we grow up’. I wanted there to be playfulness in the video like there is in the song. And frankly I was also just excited to play dress up!
You also see an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ reference on a frame standing on the table which I put in there because of the ‘Through The Looking Glass’ nature of the video where we sort of step into the mirror world of fantasy.
What is the message the video is trying to convey?
That there is no need to feel lonely as we always have our own company, that we can accept all aspect of ourselves and others and that there is always room for fun and play.
Interview feature by Karla Harris
