Just before Pink was due to perform at the 2019 Brit Awards after winning the Outstanding Contribution To Music Award, she turned to the camera and said “One of the reasons why I am successful is because I surround myself with people that are better than me.”
Given the depth of her own talent it at first struck me as slightly disingenuous, but nonetheless a nice stroke of modesty and recognition from someone with her level of success that she didn’t need to make. You couldn’t for example, imagine Madonna making such a statement.
But in my own case, as I tiptoe along as a songwriter, surrounding myself with talented people who can do things I simply can’t do is a source of great delight.
For example, I work with a seasoned producer and musician called John Kettle of folk-rock band Merry Hell. Looking more like a middle-manager than a rock guru, John has worked with countless artists and bands over the last thirty years, coaxing them into musically getting the best out of themselves. He has recently co-produced and co-written two UK number one albums with a local band called The Lathums who are indebted to his invaluable contributions to their still fledgling careers.
But in the last couple of months I’ve been working with someone completely out of the direct musical field, to bring something new to a lyric video I was looking to do for my new track ‘How Can Anybody Take The Place of You?’
Emily Fairchild is someone’s who’s abilities I’d become aware of as she worked with the exquisitely talented singer-songwriter Jenny Colquitt on Jenny’s last few videos and the artwork for her new album ‘Staring At The Moon’. Emily creates a lyric video utilising the imagery created in a songs lyric, whilst bringing her own take on the narrative.
Emily graduated from Liverpool Hope University in 2021 with a BA Hons in Graphic Design, and since has been self-employed, working under the name Aether Illustrations. “The start of the process involves taking any ideas the client has, listening to the song multiples times”, explained Emily, “and considering any ideas I may come up with during this. I then come up with a series of rough sketches to the music to visually get the narrative of the video across.”
Here below are the rough sketches of the two main protagonists of the song, and below the final images.
Emily the starts to lay out each background, figure and object against the song track, using her initial animatic as a reference.
“Once I have a scene laid out, I can go in and start to animate the moving pieces and add movement to the scene. I usually do this by animating the position, zoom and rotation of the artwork with keyframes of frame by frame animation if this better suits the scene.”
In one scene, the couple, being increasingly estranged, are shown spinning slowly on a record, something entirely envisaged by Emily. “In Paul’s lyric video I ‘ve used simple block colours in combination with the artwork to add some interest as the record spins.”
Over a period of a few weeks a world that I had put together in song, was now becoming an illustrative reality. City landscapes, oceanic views, characters insecurities, frustrations and jealousies, mixed together with an artists additional imageries and scenarios.
It was a wonderful and for me completely new experience, one I’m already planning to repeat. Different art forms and creative skills can complement one another and it’s such a thrill to collaborate with someone else talents to enhance your own creative instincts – just ask Pink!
If you wish to see the completed video, its on the link below.
SONGS AND SCRIPTS AND DUNKING BISCUITS 
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