‘Alchemy’ - Behind The Scenes

A month in France & shooting ‘Alchemy’ music video

September 6th 2019

We have just returned from travelling throughout this summer and our latest destination had been the magical South of France.

We spent days waking up to the ocean and nights enjoying the incredible seafood, playing billiard and going all out on tourist karaoke. Ate so much crab, mussles and french fries in french cheese sauce – it’s a wonder i didn’t bust! We lodged on the beautiful island Isle D’Oleron, where my partner and producer Jovan Ducret’s family roots are from. And while I have been to many amazing places in my life and I come from an amazing place myself as well, France, is something else:

The little causeways, the towers and harbors where Eleanor of Aquitaine used to gaze out in the ocean from, the culinary culture, the food markets filled with people buying flowers on a regular Monday along with mussles and wine, the smell of smoked meat and fish everywhere, the little stores selling botanica and healing crystals, the apothecaries selling soaps and herbs collected locally. A bouquet of smells, sounds and tastes. A true festival of the senses!

In between stuffing our faces with food, we managed to film the music video for my song ‘Alchemy’. 

We filmed in 2 different ocean-side locations and in both cases we had to work with nature and the elements, the geography and texture of the area. We were very blessed to have specific instructions from locals who knew what time the tide withdraws so we can film in the space freed up and of course by what time we ought to not be standing there anymore as the tide would return and cover the area again with water.

We had to deal with a lot of wind which made filming challenging in the following ways:

1 – Oftentimes I was unable to hear the playback because the wind was so loud so I had no idea whether my lip-sync game was spot on. 

2 – The wind was making our brave camera-man (that’s Jovan ahah) super shaky!

3- It was COLD! I literally had a hard time standing still and not shake because of how frosen i was.

Either way, the filming was a success and we even caught a view of the Phare de Chassiron lighthouse (built in 1836).

Here is a little behind the scenes video:

All my love,

Elina