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The making of Silent Night, Hellfire Night
In general, I am the master of ‘making plans’. I very rarely managed to stick to them but it’s fun to sit an outline planned videos and covers for the coming months – and it always gives me a sense of accomplishment. 2021 however made a lot of that very difficult – it had been a fairly turbulent year but I had been trying to get things back on track after moving house and it was, for the most part, going to plan.
Then in the last week of November I suffered a back injury. It was mild, but it was impossible to stand up straight and most movement was painful. So that put the kibosh on my next video plans – which were to be something ‘christmassy’ and a general casual cover.
So whilst sat in misery in my studio, I suddenly came up with an idea to create a dark version of the well known christmas carol, Silent Night, and decided it was going to have a “Book of Revelations inspired Rapture/Armageddon theme. (I should point out that I mean the bible version of armageddon not the 1998 Michael Bay movie!).
So I downloaded Ableton, and despite having never written or orchestrated anything before in my life, decided to sit down and start composing this evil christmas carol. I can’t help but wonder if this was actually a result of some pretty strong painkillers; but even after I had stopped those I had a real drive to get this song finished and if possible, released just before Christmas.
Usually I am appauling at getting things done. If you give me 7 weeks to do something, I will still be sat the night before the deadline furiously trying to finish whatever it is I’m supposed to have done. I’ve always done it – I remember at the age of 8, staying up til 4am to get a medieval model house project finished because it was due the next day. It’s not the best way to work – but it’s my way to work. And so because of this tight pre christmas deadline, I worked harder than I ever had. I was determined that if I couldn’t get my originally planned christmas cover complete, I would at least have this to finish of the year.
And so began many hours of steep learning curves, swearing at ableton and testing out what seemed like hundreds of variations of instruments – to eventually have this new dark orchestration piece written. The words, thankfully, came a lot easier – at the end of the day, The bible has some pretty great material for stories in it!
But then came the issue of a video.
As you may or may not know, I do pretty much everything myself when it comes to videos and photos. I’ve had smoke machine triggers taped to my leg, remotes and switches for various lights hidden up my sleeves – and don’t get me started on the long winded edited and colour grading process in post! I love it, but it’s complicated at times. And what made this one more complicated was not knowing whether my back was going to manage or not. So in my head I concocted a plan – a video that would be really simple but as atmospheric as I could make it in my tiny wooden studio. I set about collecting dead leaves and drying them in front of the wood burner and pulling all sorts of dead weeds and sticks from wherever I could find them to create my scene. The idea was to have something that looked like it was inside someone’s house but with a hint of ‘post-apocalyptic’ decay, and whilst I don’t like to toot my own horn, I think I actually managed to pull off the idea I had in my head. The filming of this video was going to work a little differently to the traditional fare of lots of cuts and scene changes, and was going to lean more into the “one-take” shots you sometimes see cropping up in films. Whilst I knew this would look really different, it poses it’s own challenges. Firstly you have to perform the whole thing correctly in one full take. Whilst I’m used to performing full stage shows in one go, with (preferably!) no mistakes, doing something ‘perfect’ for film is a little different. There’s no room for any errors which can then be looked back on time and time again. I also wanted a different vibe between the first and second half of the song which would have involved a huge camera movement – something that although I tried, just couldn’t be done by myself or within such a small space.
As it is, I actually ended up asking for help with the camera. As a huge game fan, I love the first person feel – especially in certain games where you’re waking up in a new environment and looking around at your surroundings – my personal favourites being Skyrim and the opening of Fallout New Vegas, so this was something I really wanted to capture. You, the viewer, wake up to see a burnt christmas present, dead leaves, and skulls and are then greeted by a unusual character who then softly sings to you about the horrors of that night.
The character themselves is a sort of androgynous being. There was a little reminiscence of the angel Gabriel from the Keanu Reeves film, Constantine. Not man, not woman, just a being who, whilst mixed up in all of the goings on of the rapture, gives you the impression that they’re slightly enjoying themselves within the chaos. I’m sure I could delve deeper into the reason behind why I created this character but we’ll leave that be for now!
Another issue I had with the two long takes was not being able to take advantage of a traditional music video device – one in which the song is sped up – the musicians then mime and perform at this tempo, and then the footage is slowed down to fit with the song. It’s what gives videos that slightly ‘otherworldly’ feeling. So something I had to incorporate into my performance was making sure my movements and miming weren’t as deliberate as usual, and to almost mimic the ‘slowed down’ visual. It’s incredibly tricky and overall I wish I could have used the usual method for the second half as I feel it would have really given it an edge.
Looking back over the video – whilst I love the opening and probably wouldn’t change a thing, I do often wish I could have done ‘more’ for the second half. Not that I particularly know what that could have been. Fire had been a option (it’s usually something I would put in all videos if I could!) but fire, inside a wooden building whilst surrounded by dried leaves and sticks, just isn’t the smartest idea no matter how cool it may have looked!
Overall, I was really happy with how the project turned out – especially as it was created from nothing with no original plans – but usually that’s when I find the best stuff happens. Even though it was released very late in December 2020 it was still received well and has led me to make the decision to create a short album with around 5 more songs, hopefully for a 2024 release. All redos of christmas carols, and all following the dark Armageddon theme. The bigger plan will hopefully to get some other talented vocalists in to play some of the bigger roles in the apocalypse story, whilst I shall continue to voice the ‘androgynous angel’ character I’ve built.
I will also definitely be getting the tracks mixed by someone who knows what they’re doing – because through all of the struggles that I had getting this project complete, the back pain, learning ableton, setting up the studio for the set, filming, editing, all of that – absolutely nothing compared to how utterly horrendous it was to mix this song! Never again!!!!
SO if you’re interested in a dark, different take on a traditional christmas carol then do please go and watch ‘Silent Night, Hellfire Night’ on youtube and let me know what you think!
Don’t forget to come and follow me on Instagram for more regular day to day nonsense! @stefani_keogh.
Thanks very much and goodbye for now.
Stefani Keogh 