So, we officially and permanently switch to English. Sorry for that, Polish friends, but we need to make the club more accessible for other people, especially now, that we've got some members from places other than Poland.
This is Nina (Leaf) from Viridian, by the way.
YesterdayI was watching my special edition Hellboy 2 dvd, I got as a birthday gift from Faza. There's tons of material from the set, a huge 'making of' document. And watching it made me feel rather nostalgic.
Making movies is something so fascinating for me. I always wanted to try, although with a very limited budget (comparable to a few packs of cigarettes), no gear and no people I could do as much as nothing. And everybody was rather amused by my will to do it.
Alright, I won't be a movie maker, but at least I lived to try making some videoclips.
Of course, you can't compare them to the huge Hollywood creations, but hell, fun during the shooting sure stays the same!

BEFORE YOU LEAVE, September 2006
The first one we made was this rather cheesy but somehow nice "Before You Leave" video.
You can check it out here:
[link]
It was my initiative, like always, when it comes to making videos with no equipment at all or doing other foolish things. I am a queen of improvisation.
We have this friend, Maro [link] Today he's got his own photographic studio, but back then he was still a rookie.
I knew he was playing with some video programs at that time, editing, making AMVs and stuff like this. His first AMV impressed me enough to ask him to become the hands of this operation. I was supposed to be, of course, the brain.
So he borrowed two VHS cameras, we bought some tapes and the party began.
I had just some hazy ideas in my brain at that point. I knew I wanted a lot of people having fun, and one, half-alienated person (me of course, since I was singing the lyrics), with the group, but somehow withdrawn, talking to the person that is very important to her, but wants to leave. This person was to be represented by whoever would be watching the clip. This was the original idea, but as we started shooting, all went down the hill,and the original idea was almost completely lost in the sweet madness of unstopable creation of the bunch of beginners .

The first day of the filming (yeah, it actually took more than one day, really ) we did the rehearsal room scenes with our friends and the indoor individual takes of the musicians and the club scenes.
For the rehearsal room scenes I invited a few friends, thay came with their friends and we ended up with about as many people as we could fit in our room without suffocating anyone.
Here's the (not quite in focus) photo of the crew:
[link]

The second day we did the car scenes and Faza's solo sequences - all in the industrial aera in Warsaw in Wola district, where, among other things, our rehearsal room is located.
And then the real ballet started. For three days and nights Maro, Faza and I were working on the post production. Maro was the only one who knew how to use the editing program, but Faza and I were constantly behind his back, telling him what to do. We barely slept, drank the sea of coffe and smoked at least a ton of cigarettes.
The video had its public premiere in the same club we were shooting the party sequences.

Trivia and details

The car scenes, with me driving is authentic. Maro was sitting next to me and filming, and I was driving and lip-synching. There wouldn't be anything strange about it, if not for the fact that I can't drive at all. Maro had to tell me what to do even to start the car. I was driving like 5 miles per hour on a short, straight piece of the closed industrial aera. But I did manage to turn the car once only we weren't filming that.
The car belongs to Maro.

The 'industrial monitoring system' sequences like this one:
[link]
came into existence the last night of editing, when everything was ready, and Maro decided to record the moment when the newly born video is played for the very first time. I was sleeping at that moment, but Faza and Maro woke me up so I could see the recording they made. I loved it and said: "Why don't we use it somewhere in the video!". Imagine how hapy Maro was when he found out that he was about to re-edit what he thought he had already finished once and for all

This writing [link] says: "Prosimy o ciszę. Nasz kot ma kaca"("Please, keep quiet. Our cat has a hangover") and it was written near the counter in the Metal Cave club.

The cat that appears in the video belongs to Ann, she was our keyboarder at that time.

This is the guy, who some time later played the lover in "Panna Anna" video. I met him for the first time right there, on the "Before You Leave" set.
[link]

And this is me with Maro.
[link]