Behind The Scenes: TALIA HOIT - Angel (Official Video)

I had the really great opportunity to work with videographer JT Ibanez for the making of my music video for Angel, and to create the visual that so powerfully expresses my song! But before I got connected with him, I actually had a long, difficult journey in trying to make a video to be able to officially release this song!

Angel was the very first song in my solo project that I worked with a professional producer to create, but has not been “officially” released until now. In fact, I had not even decided to launch a solo project at the time we recorded this song. I had worked with the producer Jarek Musil before since he mixed and mastered all 3 releases for my band, Beyond Forgiveness. I really wanted to record this song for personal reasons, so I asked him to produce it for me, outside of the work with my band.

We finished the song production in the first part of 2020 and I planned to make a video for it and release it as a single at that time. I was working with a videographer who had recently made a video for my band. However, Covid shut everything down right at the time we were going to film, and everything was put on hold! We kept our eye on things, hoping the lockdown was short term, but as the months stretched on with everything closed down, my videographer regrettably had to down his business for good. We were unable to film, and I was unable to recover the deposit money, which meant I could not just go find someone else to do the same thing I had been planning!

So after a while, I decided I should try to do a lyric video instead, due to the budget and the fact that everyone was hiding from interactions with other people in the pandemic. I hired a lyric video maker and sent another deposit, and everything seemed on track. Until our deadline passed with not even a first draft of the video. I had been ghosted, it seemed…. However, one day, my deposit money showed back up in my account as a refund, so that was helpful at least, although I never knew the reason he didn’t make the video!

At this point, I had begun to pursue my solo project further since I have many songs I’ve written over the years and never fully produced or released yet. I was making progress on new songs but felt really discouraged and a little hopeless about this particular song after all of the difficulties. But in the meantime, I had signed on with a management company, the Extreme Management Group, and they connected me with JT to make the video for Angel.

I flew out to St Louis to film at his video studio (I live in Colorado, and St Louis was just a little further than I wanted to drive to). I remember I had called an Uber to take me out to the studio from the motel, and the Uber driver was really nervous about dropping me off in this random industrial warehouse area behind one of the buildings when I really didn’t know where I was supposed to be, but it was all good!

We filmed all the different scenes in various sets within JT’s studio. The song is very sad, and the video is sad, but the making of it was actually quite fun. He is super creative and always finds new things to do moment by moment to visually express the song. I had never done much actual acting before, but the process of doing the different scenes was a really great time. It makes me want to find other opportunities to do more acting in videos or movies!

JT had recently gotten a new LED wall for projecting images and light designs, so it was kind of a novelty and a new toy to play with at the time, especially for me who has never seen anything like it. He was able to create the amazing backlight design in the video for the silhouette of the angel, played by Rachael Murphy, who is a model, actress, makeup artist, and spirit medium.

She also created a beautiful makeup look for me for the video. I think it was a super fitting coincidence for her to be the actress for the part of the angel since she’s a medium who connects with the spirits of people’s loved ones who have died, and the song is written about my friend who died some time ago.

We decided I should have a musician in the video with me as well. The one thing I dislike about doing a solo project is being alone in it. I would much rather make music with other people, which is why most of my musical career has been with a band or a large classical ensemble. But as a solo artist, I don’t have a full consistent band. I work with producers to create the arrangement for the recordings. For this video, I really wanted to have a band, or guitars at least, because of the style of music I’m making. Fortunately, Scott Fogelbach, who plays in multiple bands including Bastard and The Lion’s Daughter, got onboard the day before we filmed. He learned my song reasonably close overnight and tore it up for the video the next day, it was quite impressive!

This particular video has been a long time in the making, and I am so happy to finally be able to release it officially. I hope that the song and the video really resonate with everyone who sees and hears it!!