“It was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever filmed because I felt I was on the verge of throwing up,” Chaudoir says. This studio gave a “northlight” look and had a rawness to it that matched the subject matter, Chaudoir says.Ī nurse and piercing unit were on hand, but no thimble, so the bleeding most often came from casted girls’ thumbs as they pushed the needles in. The sole light source was diffused sunlight shining through the ceiling windows of the second floor daylight studio. The final third is Björk’s direct-to-camera performance.įor the boldest effect, Knight directed Chaudoir to shoot the piercings by placing the Sony Mini DV camera on the women’s bodies-mostly chests, arms, and shoulders-and getting as physically near as he could while maintaining a close, macro focus on a wide-angle lens. Marin manipulated most of the private and piercings shots into very abstract, line and watercolor-like drawings. The first two-thirds of the video contains a great deal of post-production digital effects by Peter Marin (nominated for a 2002 Best Special Effects in a Video CADS award for his work). The piercings video and film shoot were done in a day in June 2001 in Nick Knight’s northwest London photo studio. The music video contains three stages of shooting : a video shoot of piercings, a private video shoot handled by Björk, and a film shoot of Björk. They were very thrilled to be working with each other,” Chaudoir says. “You very much got a sense that there was a special collaboration between them. He has worked with her on half a dozen other projects. But when Björk asked him well in advance to direct this one, he agreed. Knight is most famous for his stills work-e.g., in English Vogue, Christian Dior ads, and his book Skinheads-and isn’t particularly interested in music videos. I made myself very available, turned down other work.” “When my agent told me that it was for a Björk video it was thrilling enough, but when I heard it was Nick Knight as well, I pursued. She has consistently created interesting pieces of work and consistently played around with her image,” Simon Chaudoir, (Aphex Twin “Come to Daddy”, Best Cinematography CADS Award Portishead “Only You” Lauryn Hill “Ex Factor”) the director of photography for the video, says. “Everybody wants to make a video for Björk. I just facilitated her,” Nick Knight, the music video’s director, says. “I think ideas-wise it really all came from Björk. The last shot shows its unusual laced back : a silver chain passes through three pairs of loops that are vertically aligned, pierced into her skin, and bleeding. She is sewing a wedding dress into her skin-it turns out to be a topless dress (designed by Alexander McQueen) -and this caused MTV to ban the video from airplay. The music video is about a woman preparing herself for marriage and for her lover. The music video for “Pagan Poetry” is a strong visual representation of Björk’s feelings for her lover and may easily be considered her most personal music video to date.
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