Savant “Solitary”

2001-savant-solitarySavant (who sometimes spell their name with a metal umlaut – Savänt) are here and they’re going to rock. I was delighted to discover that the “Solitary” video is shot in the same old warehouse location where Lucid 3’s “Shiver” video was filmed. I think it might be the since demolished old warehouses on Quay Street. While Lucid 3 were content to build a stage, add a bit of water and pose artfully, Savant have gone to the extreme for their Soundgraden-inspired track.

The band’s bio at Muzic.net.nz notes that the video was filmed using the fancy new world of digital cinematography “as used on Star Wars Episode 2.” It also reckons that this was the first time a digital video had been produced in Australasia. Well, that’s an important milestone.

The video starts with the band playing in the warehouse during the day. We know it’s daytime because of all the sunlight that’s flooding in through the many windows and skylights. The light has been digitally enhanced to resemble strong hazy sunbeams. It’s been manipulated to shine around the singer, like some sort of bad Christian film.

Then night falls and the lighting tricks get even tricksier. The warehouse is dark on the inside and the band are lit by areas of green, gold and brown light. And just in case this was not extreme enough, we then find the bass player floating in the air (i.e. hanging from a cable) because this is how hard Savant rock.

The thing is, this song has the lyrics “I’m a solitary man / Yes, I am”. Clearly a band who write big crunchy rock numbers like this do not care for subtlety. They’re going to go as extreme as they can manage. And I can’t help think that the band would have been really pleased with the finished product.

Best bit: the bass player’s extreme röck facïal exprëssions.

Next…pop-up pop.

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