Dec 14, 2022
The Year of Rock and Metal at Vita Pictura
From rock and metal music videos to metal festivals, this year brought us lots of fun
Year of 2022 has seen a resurgence in the entertainment industry, as would be expected in the post-covid times. This happened with the rock and heavier music industries alike — our team at Vita Pictura produced numerous music videos for rock, metal, and punk-pop bands this year, such as Alien Weaponry (Napalm Records), The Bedwetters, Blind Channel (Century Media Records), Lost Society (Nuclear Blast Records), and The Rasmus (Playground Music Scandinavia).
Tuska Festival 2022
The music festival industry started expanding once again as well, and we were happy to be back filming music festivals during this summer season, one of which was the metal music festival Tuska 2022.
This year was big on music video productions as well. Most of the music video ideas came from the band members’ personal life experiences, and the artists were usually directly involved in creating the atmosphere of music videos.
Blind Channel
Currently Finland’s best-known rock band Blind Channel returned to Vita Pictura to continue our long-lasting collaboration for the help in producing the music videos for “Bad Idea” and “Don’t Fix Me” as part of the group’s new album “Lifestyles of the Sick & Dangerous.” Previously, our team produced the Rocky-movie inspired music video for the track “Balboa” from the same album.
In fact, our production team filmed two alternative music videos for the track as a special treat for the fans. The band was always involved in the process of the shoot. It took two days to shoot each of the music videos for Blind Channel. Tallinn offers a relative small size of the city with its rich variety of location options.
In addition, another track from the album “Lifestyles of the Sick & Dangerous” required our team’s post-production services. The music video for “Don’t Fix Me” combines the band’s tour and concert footage shot within the last year. Cinematography and photography for the music video were done by Joona Mäki at Huuru Media.
The Rasmus
Finnish legends The Rasmus, after a three-year break, released their tenth album RISE this year, and we’ve produced a music video for the track “Live and Never Die.” The RISE is their tenth album and the it starts with this song. The shooting took place in Tallinn, Estonia, just like with the case of Blind Channel. The idea of the music video was to create a warm, travel-style nostalgic music video marking the band’s return.
After a couple of calls between the band and our production team, we decided to go with two locations: the band’s concert in the former monastery of the Pirita Convent Ruins and in a garage. The idea was to shoot the band’s sound check and the concert at the first location. On another day, at the second location, we shot the band performing the track in front of a garage, which the family of our post-production specialist Karl Jakob kindly provided.
In addition, the band supplied our team with the archival footage from previous tours, which was mixed with the concert and the garage shots. The end result was a lighthearted music video.
Lost Society
Lost Society is yet another band from Finland, for whom we produced music videos for the tracks “Stitches” and “112” this year. The metal band required the two music videos as part of their new album release, “If the Sky Came Down.”
The location for the music video “The Stitches” was inspired by a mental institution and the lyrics of the track were intense, which had to be reflected in the music video.
Like in other cases, the bands usually provide you with an idea of the music video and the job of the production team is then to clear all the details, such as the final shooting script, location confirmations, extras, equipment, and all of the rest, including separate social media cuts in the post-production stage.
Both Lost Society’s music videos portray a sense of dark dread, reflecting on human’s so-called “dark side.” The music video for the track “112” features a clock showing the same time inspired by the movie “Groundhog Day.”
“During the recording of the album, I had compiled a few different music video ideas that I really wanted to do for the album — and the synopsis that I had for 112 was just something we knew we had to do.
The amazing Vita Pictura team immediately grabbed the idea and supercharged it, and I think together we made something absolutely magical. The music video depicts the whole theme of the album, and in particular the feeling talked about on the track itself.
Going through a period in time where you feel as though you keep waking up in the exact same time, same place and same emotion without any help. You try to mess with your own “hell loop” but you just keep falling down and finding yourself back where you started.” — Samy Elbanna
Alien Weaponry
Alien Weaponry is not another Finnish band as you might expect. The thrash metal band originates in Oakland, New Zealand, and has a powerful sound which had to be reflected in the new music video “Down The Rabbit Hole.” The song was released as part of the band’s album “Tangaroa.” Here our team combined the concert footage, mixed with shots of random items, such as a TV or a notebook, destroyed by heavy objects like a hammer or a golf club.
An Estonian pop-punk band, The Bedwetters, got back together after a nine-year break, and we shot the music video “Miss Hurricane,” featuring the Estonian performer and singer YASMYN. The band is currently fighting for the opportunity to perform in the Eurovision 2023 contest.
The Rasmus and Blind Channel already represented Finland at the Eurovision contest, so we wish The Bedwetters good luck with their endeavors!
This year brought us a wide variety of video productions — we had an opportunity to film music videos, feature documentaries, episodes, festival aftermovies, brand videos, commercials, and corporate events. In a global view, the entertainment industry seems to be returning to its previous state in the year 2019 and our production team is looking forward to new creative outbursts in the upcoming year.
Written by Roman Pototski and published at Vita Pictura publication.
