Videos
From Id|entities
Track: Silence
Album: Id|entities
Released: Jan 23th, 2011
Sript, edit: Ovro
Camera: Ovro, Niko Skorpio
Tidbits
The video was shot one summer night in 2007 or 2008 near our home at the Finnish countryside. The building is an abandoned pig sty and was a gloomy sight to see during night-time walks. These days that building has been turned into a car workshop and is surrounded by an ever increasing collection of older Mercedes Benz cars.
Silence was the first track I not only started, but completed for Id|entities (back then, the album's working title was "Multividual"). It was finished in 2008 (!!) and hasn't been much tampered with since. Suitably, Silence was also the first video to be made for the album... All the while, it was always clear the track would be the closing one.
Track: Caustic
Album: Id|entities
Released: June 9th, 2011
Sript, edit: Ovro
Camera: Ovro, Niko Skorpio
Tidbits
Caustic's video material dates back to 2006 and was shot at an abandoned mine in Southern Finland. Stills from that location were used in Vipea Aurea cover booklet. Video's still images capture the burning down of a storage hall at an abandoned and now gone grain silo. Field recordings of the same fire were used on Id|entities, but I'm not revealing the track here.
Track: Addict
Album: Id|entities
Released: June 12th, 2011
Sript, edit: Ovro
Camera: Ovro (stills), Niko Skorpio (video)
Tidbits
The odd, odd formations in the background video is actually melted rubber, found in abundance behind an abandoned... no, actually behind an active workshop in Southern Finland. We were traveling through quiet roads at Midsummer 2010, spotted the location and went over to shoot. Foreground still images were shot in our basement somewhere around 2010/2011. I acquired a large amount of discarded lab stuff and set up a rather disturbing looking "lab" in our basement, complete with petri dishes, test tubes, syringes (the red stuff is beetroot juice, which was one of the things tested at the lab I got the stuff from) and whatnot.
Track: Delusionalist
Album: Id|entities
Released: June 12th, 2011
Sript, edit: Ovro
Camera: Niko Skorpio (video)
Tidbits
We're back with the melted rubber here. It was simply too good looking not to use and since Niko hadn't done anything witht he shots, I grabbed them. The second video layer was shot sometime in 2006, at a location in Turku with huge amount of red tiles just laying on the ground. While we were there, me taking stills and Niko filming video, a car drove in, a guy got out and started questioning the reason for us being there. After we explained we were only taking pictures of the site, we were left in peace.
Newspaper clippings I simply stole from the 'net. They are appearing also on Id|entities cover/poster art.
Track: Fate Dealer
Album: Id|entities
Released: June 13th, 2011
Sript, edit: Ovro
Camera: Ovro (video), Niko Skorpio (stills)
Actors: Ovro (stills), Niko Skorpio (video)
Tidbits
Poor Niko, always the bad, bad guy on my tracks! The thing is, he does it simply spendidly.
The background video is shot in a cemetary of Salo, Finland. It was Christmas time, around 2010. The stills are from my series of photograps called "(in)Human Condition" from early 2000's.
Track: Know Thyself
Album: Id|entities
Released: June 14th, 2011
Sript, edit: Ovro
Camera: Ovro, Niko Skorpio
Tidbits
This video uses footage shot in one of the few remaining run-down industrial/workshop areas in Turku, with interesting and decaying back alleys. The material dates from 2006 or 2007, I quess. The video captures 2011 version of Know Thyself, the track got worked over for the album version.
Track: Loner
Album: Id|entities
Released: June 16th, 2011
Sript, edit: Ovro
Camera: Ovro (b/w vid), Niko Skorpio (colour vid)
Tidbits
Background video was shot in an abandoned (see a trend, here?) house in Kaarina, while location hunting for Equation Impossible video in 2006. Ovrlay video was shot on and around Turku market square in the summer of 2011. I had our older dog with me, which helped with walking around following people without actually seeming to follow them. My apologies for the unsuspecting victims of my accidental stalking!
From Mosaick the Serpent
Track: Equation Impossible
Album: Mosaick the Serpent (Mosaick the Serpent / Vipera Aurea double EP), 2006
Released: Sept. 3rd, 2006
Sript, edit: Ovro
Camera: Ovro, Niko Skorpio
Actors: Ovro, Niko Skorpio
Tidbits
The video was shot on a shoe-string budget in late summer, 2006. I had at my use me and the track's vocalist Niko as actors and camera operators, our digital video camera, camera stand, clothing found from second hand shops (both Niko's suit and my dress cost 1 €), a basic video editing software (which I needed to learn to use when I got to the editing stage) and Will to make the video happen.
The video was shot with this single camera at two locations: the outside images at Luolavuori, Turku and the inside bits at an abandoned house in Kaarina. Finding the perfect location for the inside shooting was difficult and we spent many a day visiting abandoned sites in and around Turku. We had finally settled in shooting in one specific house in Kaarina, only to find that the intended room had had its walls spray painted and windows smashed. Luckily, one of the other rooms turned out to be quite suitable, as was one small spot by the stairs.
This particular abandoned house had been a "cost a HECK lot of money" yuppie house in its prime. However, the owners had made their money in quite hazy businesses and having made multiple millions in debt, packed most of their stuff and skipped country, leaving their former house littered with courtdocuments and other interesting paperwork, memorabilia (including wedding pictures), their kids' toys and whatnot. The atmosphere in the house was surreal, gloomy and downright perfect for the mood of the video shot there.
The inside shooting was done in a couple of hours. We had to be quick and discreet, as we certainly weren't supposed to be there. It was quite easy to get into the mood with the house in the state it was and with the history it had. Afterwards, we both needed a good long shower to get rid of not only the dirt of the house, but of the characters we played.
It turned out we did the shooting just at the right moment. Somebody set the building on fire pretty shortly after we had finished our business there!
