Winnipeg Lists The Rose Among Best Videos Of 2011

An article was brought to our attention from long-time digital friend Cameron posted on website called Paul's Winnipeg. Paul compiled his list of the best music videos of last year and we made a good impression:

Sarah Slean - The Rose 

I'm going to be honest with you: very few music videos, by any artist and in any genre, have ever moved me as much as "The Rose" did. This is what I was talking about when I mentioned the 'intangible marriage of music and visuals' in my introduction to Part 1. 

Sarah Slean's absolutely gorgeous song and its incredible lyrics meld cohesively with a concept that steadily becomes more brilliant the more you think about it to create something that you can't really describe in words, only in emotions. Emotions that aren't forced or melodramatic, just emotions that exist within us all; our hopes and our fears, our dreams and our desires, and our underlying wonder at the nature of the universe. 

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The Sisters Of Mercy Teaser Poster Released

CLICK HERE FOR HIGHER RESOLUTIONS

"The Animals Are Planning An Intervention is performed to a gorgeous string quartet by composer Sarah Slean. Lucy Rupert uses expressive animal imagery to explore the evolution contained within us. It is a beautifully conceived show, rich in set, lighting and video details. Her theme is loss and recovery, and she actually makes her lyrical body look angled and distorted."

In the film adaptation, written and directed by CJ Wallis, Rupert plays the lead role of a mother named Marie who is unknowingly hand-delivered to a government institution by her three sons after a house-fire, that Marie escaped, claimed the life of her 9 year old daughter. The Sarah Slean arrangements commissioned for Animals will be featured and used throughout the film. Announcements will continue to spill out leading towards production set for Fall 2011.

The Sisters Of Mercy New Promotional Posters

Yesterday, we received several wonderful photos taken by Melanie Gordon from the original performance of "Animals Are Planning An Intervention," choreographed and performed by Lucy Rupert. Naturally, these quickly became two new promotional posters playing off of our tagline "When The Mind Gets Distorted...The Body Must Follow." Click the thumbnails below to see the full versions.

The Sisters Of Mercy also has a new project page on our website where everything along the way will collect and gather. And yes, that is the Joey Greco listed as the 4th lead. More details and other familiar faces to be announced soon.

Finally, at our most recent Celluloid Social Club visit, we met Meeshelle Neal. Meeshelle, also Leo nominated for her performance in the short film Therapy, mentioned that she really enjoyed The Rose and went on to write a very kind post about her evening out.

Sisters Of Mercy Film Mused By Morleysaurus, LittleSlean

Shortly after we announced the initial details surrounding our third collaboration with Lucy Rupert, a feature film called The Sisters Of Mercy, a few people who have been very kind to us in the past took the time to help spread the word. Jennifer Cooper's way-more-popular-than-your-blog Musings Of A Morleysaurus was the first. In part:

C.J. Wallis is one helluva talented young man. Not only is he an absolute darling within the independent horror industry, he is also an award winning music video director! His video for the absolutely gorgeous song The Rose, by Sarah Slean got him Best Music Video of the Year at the 2011 Leo Awards. I'm sure you will agree, this is impressive work but an impressive man who Heidi Honeycutt once also described as Canada's Best Kept Secret Weapon!

You can check out the entire article here and shortly there will be another article featuring the lurvly Ms. Cooper herself surfacing here which will have an interesting twist. Cameron over at littleslean also wrote up an article on the film (which included an additional Elective plug!).

The Sisters Of Mercy Featuring Lucy Rupert, Sarah Slean

Click To View Full Sized

On the day of my parent's anniversary, I am happy to announce a forthcoming feature film project titled The Sisters Of Mercy. The story takes place in 1939, mere months before the Second World War, and is a narrative adaptation of an original dance performance called "The Animals Are Planning An Intervention" created and performed by two time FortyFPS collaborator Lucy Rupert. A review by 96.3 FM in Toronto said of Animals:

The Animals Are Planning An Intervention is performed to a gorgeous string quartet by composer Sarah Slean. Lucy Rupert uses expressive animal imagery to explore the evolution contained within us. It is a beautifully conceived show, rich in set, lighting and video details. Her theme is loss and recovery, and she actually makes her lyrical body look angled and distorted.

In the film adaptation, Rupert plays the lead role of a mother named Marie who is unknowingly hand-delivered to a government institution by her three sons after a house-fire, that Marie escaped, claimed the life of her 9 year old daughter. The Sarah Slean arrangements commissioned for Animals will be featured and used throughout the film. Announcements will continue to spill out leading towards production set for Fall 2011.

Celluloid Social Club Photos, Screens The Rose

As was recently mentioned, our video for The Rose played in front of a sold out Celluloid Social Club last Tuesday. Additionally making our night in millions of different ways was the arrival of Mr. Chris Gonzalez and Paula Lindberg - who never could have imagined shooting Narcolepsy what strange things were awaiting her 6 years later. Click here to view the photos from the night, taken by Bob Soska.

The Rose Nominated Best Music Video Of 2010

Adding a significant amount of extra icing onto our sappy story cupcake, our Sarah Slean video for The Rose has been nominated for a Leo Award in the Best Music Video category - the fourth nomination in as many years. The Leo Awards, in the words of Wikipedia, are...

...the awards program for the British Columbia film and television industry, celebrating excellence in artistic achievement. Held each May or June, the Leo Awards honour nominees and winners in 13 program categories and up to 19 craft categories. The Leo Awards Red Carpet continues to be the largest red carpet event in Western Canada attracting the glitterati of the BC film and television industry, including stars and celebrities from US-based productions.

The awards will be handed out at The Fairmont Hotel on Saturday, June 11th. If you have not seen the video, you can view it below or get the whole story by clicking here.

Elective - The Stitch-Up Of Bloody Mary

Elective - "The Stitch-Up Of Bloody Mary"
Edited, Photographed & Directed by CJ Wallis, @fortyfps
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Elective Music Video Coming Soon

In the middle of a recent week-long editing adventure in Toronto on another director's first short film, I commissioned the usual suspects at Major St Productions to assist me in making a music video for "The Stitch-Up Of Bloody Mary" by Elective, which is my musical project with Kayleigh Goldsworthy

Despite a month long illness that included something completely limiting the use of her left ear, Lucy Rupert (who last worked with us here) toughed through over 45 minutes of continuous performance as we had to execute, set-up and light two completely different looks and set dressing and pack down production in under 2 hours.

Robert Walsh was on camera and lighting with myself and Jeffrey Zablotny operating other cameras from other angles to triple the amount of footage captured in the limited amount of takes. Elli Weisbaum, who has produced a few of my previous efforts, came out to maintain order and help operate the multiple lighting dimmers and cues with gaffer Todd Thompson. Make-Up artist Nicole Stredder politely rearranged my very male attempts to describe the eye make-up design I was hoping for on Lucy and this video would not in any way be what it is/was without the selfless efforts of these six individuals.

The plan is to release the video on Valentine's Day, Monday, February 14th.

Sarah Slean's "The Rose" Video Release Revealed

This morning was greeted with an e-mail from our new best friend Jennifer at BravoFact! letting us know that, almost a year to the date it was finished, our Sarah Slean music video for "The Rose" has it's national broadcast date which, in turn, means it can be finally be released online!

The video will be embedded here and released on Monday, January 31st and will be accompanied by another incredible making-of documentary shot and edited by Jeffrey Zablotny. Please visit our Rose Project Page on our website for a bit of pre-release context and other potentially interesting things.

The Rose: Six New Preview Stills

while we await the debut broadcast date from bravofact for our sarah slean video, six new preview/low resolution framegrabs have made their way up onto our flickr page. come have a look?

The Rose - More Behind The Scenes

20 more stills from the rose shoot in march have surfaced. these ones offer better looks at the set and various lighting set-ups. click here to view the stills.

there is still no word as to when bravofact will allow us to upload the video online at this point. rumor has it they loved the video a great deal and are trying to slot it in as early as possible into their schedule, unfortunately their schedule is often programmed a month or three in advance.