Behind The Scenes: Frozen Sand - Midnight (Official Video)

Since the beginning, we wanted to make a great videoclip for this second release taken from our new upcoming album, “Fractals: a Light among Shadows”. We thought that MIDNIGHT was a song which deserved that.

The first music idea of MIDNIGHT was drafted by our bassist Tiziano, back in 2019. Then, it took almost 2 years to write and arrange both music and lyrics, 6 months to record and 3 months to mix the overall thing. Nevertheless, the trickiest and most challenging part was definitely the video, being the first time so far that we aimed to make something so ambitious!

Having a SAGA as a background for the albums and all the songs that we write is certainly of great help for us when it is time to sketch a storyboard for a videoclip. And this is where we started: we decided, indeed, to represent the incipit of the second part of our saga, “Fractals”, through a video, hence letting both images and music convey the concepts and meaning behind MIDNIGHT (like all good videoclips should actually do!).

Since 2020, for all our clips and videos, we started working with Carlo Borionetti from BorioLab, certainly a great VIDEO-MAKER, but also a friend, who never lets us down and always assists us very professionally. Therefore, from the beginning, we had no doubt he could make an amazing job out of MIDNIGHT. Nevertheless, before starting, we needed someone acting as ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, because of the complexity of the storyboard itself: here is where our mate, Lucia Elisabetta Cerutti, came to help us.

It took 4 or 5 videocalls and meetings run by our singer Luke, together with Lucia and Carlo (BorioLab), to arrange everything for the pre-production and the overall preparation of the video. This small “task-force” made of 3 people only, was flexible enough in order to have everything under control, of course with the help and feedback by the rest of the band, as well as from the actors involved and the MAKE-UP ARTIST, The Invisible MUA, who assisted both musicians and actors in front of the camera.

The entire shooting session was split in 2 full days:

On DAY 1 we filmed THE BAND. With the help of our ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, Lucia, we managed to rent (at a very convenient price) an old door handle’s factory from the early 30s (now, of course, not active anymore), located about 20 miles away from where we live, at the foothills of the Alps. The rough and ancient parquet at the second floor of the factory was just perfect, as well as those large glass windows through which the typical end-of-January winter light penetrated low from the horizon, allowing us to get some crazy shots of the band-members, resulting as backlit silhouettes. The extra touch was then given by the smoke machines which permeated the room, thus allowing BorioLab to complete the masterpiece!

On DAY 2 we filmed THE STORY. And that was by far the most challenging part… let’s say “the big bet!! We had one day only to film all the needed scenes (being mid-winter, we just had 6 or 7 hours with pale sunlight)!, and our VIDEO-MAKER, Carlo from BorioLab, alone made true miracles, helped only by his girlfriend Viola, who acted as his STAGE ASSISTANT. Everything was filmed in a XVIII century villa, which was just purchased by a friend, Luca Nobili, who was so kind and helpful to leave it to us for a whole day. The different rooms in the house, its mix of victorian-style-old and abandoned and the fact that it was surrounded by woods made it the perfect location to shoot! Of course, the detailed storyboard, as well as clothing and stage costume, the scene objects and also an ancient grand-piano (purchased the week before 60 miles away and personally transported by van to the video location) were all already in place. Anyway, a certain level of improvisation while shooting is always needed; let’s say, it is part of the game! What also helped to make the difference was definitely the interpretation of the two main actors, combined with their professionalism, but also with their patience to hold on wearing light clothes for several hours during one of the coldest days of the year!! Daniele Brandoni interpreted Peter Light, the protagonist of the saga [fun curiosity: our MAKE-UP ARTIST, “The Invisible MUA” had to age him about 10 years, with some great success!]. Clarissa Giordani played the ghost of Diana Okunarashi, Peter Light's fiancé who died following an accident, thus causing continuous guilt, depression and hallucinations in the protagonist's mind [fun curiosity: she was supposed to wear scary total-white contact lenses that day, but she did not succeed to put them on, and we finally had to post-produce her eyes!!]. Last but not least, our singer Luke, together with the singers Lorenzo D'Agnano and Astrid Kropp (who actually performed the choral parts of MIDNIGHT) also participated in the video as bards, sort of cryptic hooded monks, interpreting the dream entity of the character The Oak of Wisdom. No doubt, everybody did his/her very best that day and we finally made it by twilight, going back home in the dark, exhausted but definitely very happy!!

MIDNIGHT plays an important part of our music career. And this video meant work… a lot of work!! But there is no doubt: it has been such a wonderful experience for everybody involved, allowing Frozen Sand to grow personally and professionally, but above all to really show the world what is our idea of MUSIC.