New Video: Waterhouse

Director Jared Ingram shot this video for Petracovich a few years ago. He says "the song made me think of rain - the kind that starts with a few drops on the ground. And you wonder, is it raining? Did I just feel something? Then it starts to pour and you run for cover. And before you know it, the rain is gone. The sun comes out. And you just wanna take a nap."

The song, Waterhouse (from Petracovich's first album, Blue Cotton Skin) comes from a dream I had, of being a house, that was slowly filling up with water. It was a peaceful feeling, of blue coming in, taking out all of the contents, and then the house itself floating away. Being dismantled slowly and unemotionally.

I found the kalimba, an African thumb piano, to bring the mood of metal and wood, plunky like water falling, and Andrew Gikaumakus on the drums, big and hollow. Tad Wagner produced the tune.

My Dad is a photographer, but I'm still camera shy, and having several cameras at once, oooh, I had to really center myself. I sang along, at various speeds of the music, some slowed down, some speeded up, so Jared could edit with different speeds. It was a good challenge, fun, a little out of my comfort zone to be on camera, but that's always good. And Jared's a great director, low key, able to see the funny.

We started the shoot, the paint drippers started dripping from above, little tongues of cool paint hitting my hair, and then growing in globules and dumpings, it tasted chalky, a little stingy in the eyes, but kind of freeing just to let it happen, to get it all over me and act like it was the most normal thing.

And then, go to the bathroom, wash it out of my hair in a cold-water sink, and do it all over again for more footage!

I loved Jared's ideas, the washed out lighting, the use of color as a main theme, the drops that fall in time to the music.

When I went to the salon to get my hair cut, they said, "WHAT did you do to your hair?" It's all worth it for the glory of show biz.