you for a while

Sleeps with Butterflies

Music and lyrics by: Tori Amos

“I was sent a mock up of this person’s vision Laurent Briet, the director. It was detailed…the artwork. Because it was based on the artist Aya Kato. When I was able to really see it, not just read about it, but look at it…mainly because he had sent me his idea in a way which allowed us to watch it instead of just reading about it. Because he is artist, computer dude, I think stepping into that world, for me is, um, a language I don’t understand but I really am drawn to it.”

“So, as you can guess, the post-production was quite complicated. Um, it was very much about his skill as the special effects guy working with Aya Kato. So this story had been mapped out for me by drawings. It was similar to Fairytale because I had to be exactly in the right place at the right time.”

“Um, the idea of twins is something directors always, I don’t know what it is about directors, me, and twins. I think maybe they pick up on some other side I play pretty close to my chest. This song is about two voices, so he thought it was pretty important they were both represented.”

“Um, we decided we wanted to make it a fantasy world with an Asian influence. I’ve always been drawn to that artistic sensibility. The thing about this shoot is that I was really intrigued by post-production. Um, not all videos are about post. Some are very much about the casting and the planning. This was very different. Um, questions like, okay, how do you make butterflies come to life without that looking ridiculous. A lot of the treatments had avoided butterflies and he and Aya Kato said, well why? They are beautiful things. Um, we are in a war, we need transmutation…I get that. So to be able to work with beauty instead of blood and guts and gore. I mean, are you nuts? Let’s do something that lifts people. Some of the time the videos that look really simple take a lot of skill in post production.”

“I’d be on blue screen for hours and hours and hours and people would be coming to me with these beautiful drawings, which I had seen, and they would say, “Okay, you are surrounded by beautiful butterflies now and, um. So here you are with your ass aching on this hard blue screen and they’d say “You are on a mushroom now!” and I’d say, “I wish I were on many.”

~ Tori Amos on “Sleeps with Butterflies” (from Fade to Red DVD)