Behind The Scenes: NIGHTWRAITH - Whispers Of Dragonflies (Official Video)

I had just returned from a tour with Abhoria, which is a band that our guitarist Igor and I are also in. A few hours after I got home I received a call from our drummer Spy saying that he had a line on a great venue we could use to film a video. I immediately got excited because the venue was The Newman Center which is a performing arts center located on the DU (Denver University) campus. This is where classical/jazz/folk concerts are held and I doubt a metal band has ever been on that stage, so it sounded like a unique opportunity. Spy was working there part-time doing sound and explained that an event had fallen through and gave them an unexpected dark day - which is rare for April. The main problem was that we only had a few days to coordinate the logistics of a full video production.

Originally, we were considering doing a video for our song Divergence, which is the title track of the new album. But after some consideration, we felt like 'Whispers' was a really good representation of the album and ultimately picked it as a 'single'. Since our friend Kelly (Dreadnought) performed a flute solo on the track, we thought it would be rad to have her in the video as well. The only problem was that we had no idea if she would be available or not, and with only a few days notice it seemed like kind of a tall order. Luckily she confirmed that she would be available, which kind of sealed the deal on deciding to make a video for 'Whispers' instead of 'Divergence'.

The last challenge was that we didn't have a production company lined up to film the shots, so we needed to get creative. We had already been thinking about managing our own video production for this album cycle, so we decided to pull the trigger on buying a camera. We pooled our money together as a band and got a suitable camera with a couple of decent lenses, which was kind of the bare minimum for what we needed. For the crew, we got our buddies Rick and Frank who play in a band with our bassist called 'Ashes for the Mute'. At this point, it kind of seemed like we had all the pieces in place and might actually pull this off!

The day came and we loaded our gear onto the stage, then outlined a workflow for getting certain shots at different angles. A couple of Spy's co-workers at the venue also showed up and set the lights, which was massively helpful! First, we did a bunch of takes as a full band, while the crew got wide shots and closeups. Then we got shots of Kelly making an entrance to the stage and performing the flute solo. And finally, we got lots of individual shots before breaking down and loading out, so it was a pretty long day!

Spy is also pretty handy with video editing software, so he compiled all the shots and edited everything together. The idea was to make the video look totally natural, as if we were just playing the song on a big beautiful stage. I love how this production was 100% DIY, and it was just a really good learning experience in general. I see ourselves getting better at doing this and creating more video content like this in the future. It's nice to have creative control and know exactly which shots to use since we already know the songs inside and out. It's also a money saver which is pretty crucial for us since we are an independent band with lots of other expenses. Anyway, we are stoked with how the video looks and sounds, and we hope that people enjoy it!