Inspired by Belarusian protests and the pro-democracy movement of 2020 musical band Naviband and the musical chorus Volny Chor (literally "Chorus of Freedom") created a song which replicated a song from the movie "The Hanging Tree".
Unexpectedly for me, Naviband proposed to make a music video for the song.
It was a very challenging adventure for me because I faced about 30+ people (most of them I can't mention, as they are activists in danger).
The challenging task was to organise them together and... Just go and "make a music video".
I found an inspiring place which I thought should be good for the reason. I made a concept of the action. Then I bought smoke bombs from the football fans' store in white and red colours (colours of the flag used by the Belarusian national movement). I planned the action, filmed it and then edited and post-process the final music video.
It was released on the Youtube channel of the band.
The funniest thing for me is that the band was travelling with a professional documental filming group which was making a documentary about them. And both (the filming action and me) accidentally became a part of this film-in-making. And in this documentary, I am behaving as a film director :). But in reality, I was a shy and nervous guy doing all of this for the first time in my life.
This project pushed me to self-improvement in video production. With help of real professionals, I revised my filming skills and the gear I use.
I love this project for meeting extremely inspiring activists fighting for the value of freedom and democracy.
Backstage credits: Artem Lukjanenko