Video Chats: Ariana Natale on "Nightlight" by Dungeonesse

A concept that began with some test footage shot in an aquarium, "Nightlight" by Dungeonesse, directed by Ariana Natale, beautifully combines Jellyfish and an invented loft style bedroom in the middle of a warehouse in East Brooklyn. The video features Jenn Wasner of Dungeonesse in her fabricated bedroom and is full of silhouettes and soft-focus. We talked to Ariana about the video, jellyfish, and the history behind the props.

Doug: How did you get involved with the project?

Ariana: I wrote to Jon Erehns when the first single for the Dungeonesse album came out saying, “I really love this track! Do you guys have someone to do a video for it?” It turned out that they had another friend do a video for them, but they wrote back to me with a different track to write on. I had to go back and forth a bit with their label, Secretly Canadian, on the concept, which was a new thing for me because this was the first time that I had worked with an artist on a project where the label gave input. I had done a video for the band Sister Crayon, but their label had been pretty hands-off about that concept. This time, Secretly Canadian said, “We really want Jenn to be in it, and we really want it to be a narrative.” It was a really quick turnaround. I think I had a week to come up with something that I could execute well by the end of the month on a really small budget. For me, when you work with a low budget, you’re getting all your friends to work for free and pretty much doing everything yourself, so I thought, “What can I do? Can I handle this on my own?” I took a trip down to Baltimore with the intention of meeting up with Jenn and Jon, but didn’t actually end up seeing them, so I just decided to kill time in the inner harbor and snuck into the Baltimore aquarium instead. The whole idea came from that test footage that I ended up shooting in the aquarium that day.

Doug: The test footage you shot, that’s the jellyfish?

Ariana: Yeah, I asked my friend Samara Vise, who’s a photographer in Boston, to shoot more plates before our shoot dates, because I wasn’t sure what footage was going to composite in nicely. It’s not like you’re controlling the elements in a studio to composite them when you’re working with what’s already there, and I just needed to have more options to really make the effect work when it came time to put it all together in post. Then Samara drove down to New York for the shoot, and was second unit camera along with our DP Lindsay Stewart.

Doug: Within the context of the video, is it more of an interesting visual element that you had in there, or do the jellyfish represent something more than that?

Ariana: I don’t know, this is kind of crazy, when I was in the aquarium just wandering around by myself, I was just having all these weird day dream thoughts about the jellyfish. They look like these little beating hearts, and they’re squishy and delicate, but also kind of cute, but then also kind of dangerous, too. If you had two of them wrapped up in each other, maybe that wouldn’t be a good thing. Or if you went to touch one, it could sting you. But also in the video, I think the way that the device is used they’re these celestial beings, or dream creatures that are purging the character’s heart. That’s the way that it ended up unfolding, but definitely jellyfish hearts, something like that.

Doug: I’m curious about the lighting for the video. Were you trying to stay true to the song title in that sense, the song title being “Nightlight”?

Ariana: Light was a theme for what we were trying to do. Lindsay had a rig that we built to make headlights seeping through, and that was cool. But I think for me, I love the way the dream space ended up coming out, and the transition between light in the bedroom when it switches over to when she’s in that interior jellyfish room. Also, those silouette shots of Jenn from outside of the fabric parachute are my favorites in terms of what we did. Lighting was a huge concern, I’d say.

Doug: When it comes to the stuff that you’re shooting with Jenn, did that mainly come from the song title and lyrics?

Ariana: Well, it’s called “Nightlight.” The treatment that I wrote originally had a couple other things in it. There was this artist that I referenced from Berlin, Katharina Grosse, and she does a lot of large-scale work airbrush painting on different objects and surfaces. Basically the effect I wanted to achieve was inspired by this bedroom set that she had created for this installation where there were colors leaking all over the sheets. She also had some work in a show called Emotional Systems and in my head I connected the image of color leaking with that idea. I just wanted to have the jellyfish affecting her emotional systems, purging her heart of colorful stuff. The narrative is kind of about addiction, like if your heart is wrapped up in someone else’s, or it could be any kind of addiction really. The song is a little bit about that too. I’m not sure if Jenn wrote it that way, but the lyrics feel like they are telling the story of getting over an addiction, or purging your heart of something. That was the idea behind what was happening to her in the bedroom, or at least what motivated us when we went to shoot.

Doug: About the bedroom, it’s very convincing. I was originally going to ask whose it was, but then I think I saw a behind-the-scenes photo and it looks like it was shot in a studio, is that right?

Ariana: Yeah, my really amazing friend who is a visual artist, Nariman Hallet has a warehouse in East Brooklyn that he let us film in. My production designer, Bec Sloane, is like a magic lady and invented this New York loft style room, just out of different fabric and prop elements, so I was really happy with what she was able to do.

Doug: Did you bring anything?

Ariana: We brought a ton of stuff. We talked a lot about that character and ways to build her story. I feel like there’s a lot of history behind most of the props that were in that set.