ORANGE Album Cover – Making Of Video
An ORANGE Mess … Album Cover Photo Shoot
Along with the question for the perfect album name came another big challenge: What’s going to go on the album cover?
It wasn’t that we couldn’t think of anything. It was more that we had too many ideas and found ourselves drawing up tons of different versions and directions to go with.
Here are some ideas we had in the beginning. For the sake of brainstorming we sometimes used already existing art to mock up an idea, sometimes drawing up rough sketches from scratch:
We liked the idea of going all out on the colour. We wanted something fresh, something that represented the playful spirit of the album. The all-encompassing motto of this whole project, for both music and artwork, was “More orange, less clockwork”. None of the ideas above really hit that mark for us.
That was until we thought about taking the colour aspect, well … literally. Orange paint … Is there anything more playful, fresh, and joyous than actual orange paint? That was it! The idea alone got the kids in us all excited.Lisa went straight to Google and Photoshop and started copying random people and pixelated colour splashes together to visualise that concept. Get ready … we’ve never looked that good:
Scary, right? Haha!But that mock-up was enough to give us a good starting point and we all agreed to go ahead with this idea.Papa Rudi and Lisa went straight to work researching photographing techniques. They also needed equipment to capture such high-speed movement as flying paint droplets, so we ordered special flashes and did a lot of testing.
There are a tons of images like this on our hard drive now:
When we had finally figured out how we’d capture the perfect photos there was one last thing to decide:
Where could we do the video shoot?
We doubted any studios would let us rent the place and make such a mess. So the answer came quite naturally: Our dining room of course 😉
In the making-of video you can see what we did to prepare the room and keep all the walls and equipment clean: Lots of plastic covers and a kiddie pool to put our chairs in and collect the paint.
The shoot itself was quite the challenge. The paint got us cold very quickly and we couldn’t make many attempts before we simply were too soaked to get good looking results.
Dad and our stepmum Michaela were standing to either side of us, each with a bucket of paint in their hands. They counted: 3, 2, 1 …. and the paint came flying while dad pressed the shutter in his other hand to activate the camera and flashes.
We took about two dozen shots of the two of us, then we scraped off some more paint from the floor and did another set of photos – this time without us in it. That way we could get some design elements for the release (post-edited by Lisa):
We finally wrapped up and made a beeline for the showers, trying not to leave a trail of paint on the beige carpets! Dad and Michaela started cleaning up and we soon had our kitchen restored back to normal. We even ate dinner there that night!
Watch the whole making-of and let us know what you think! 🙂
Stay groovy,
Mona & Lisa
I loved the video! The Close To You song for this video is one of my favorites too! Lisa’s lead guitar🎸 part is really unique and perfect for the song.
Great video! Looked like a fun thing to do, and I’m glad I finally got to see it! I’m also glad you used one of my most favorite songs for the backing track! Well done!
Mona and Lisa, now I appreciate my “Orange” album cover even more than I already did! That you for all you did to make your “Orange” album cover so artistic and fabulous! I take only one single exception to what you wrote above: You both are every bit as beautiful as anyone who could ever be pictured in such an album lay-out! I hope you both see just how beautiful you are, and how much positivity and joy you bring to everyone! You are so gifted, in your singing, music, writing, art, and all that it involves, but even more than that, you are gifted in touched people’s hearts and souls on a deep, profound level. I feel love in your music, and it is inspiring! I’m sure this represents countless others, but from the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU for touching my heart and blessing my soul! Isn’t it something beautiful how music can make people who haven’t ever met and live on different sides of the world feel connected? That’s what great art like yours does! Peace, Love, and Stay Groovy (because you already are!),
David (St. Louis, MO – USA)
First time seeing. Amazing how you thought the whole process out. And pulled it off as a family project.
Then has dinner afterwards. The end product was super orange and I bet it was fun. Stay Orange Groovy !!
Love what you do and Love the way you do it ??????❤️❤️❤️❤️
Thank heavens for digital photography and Photoshop, eh ladies?
Back in the pre-digital age, a cover shoot such as this one likely would have taken several long days of very hard work. Several rolls of exposed transparencies would need to be developed, dried, examined for quality and artistic merit, before doing the whole routine over again and again (and again), if need be.
Now we have the luxury of examining the RAW files immediately (while the mess is being mopped up), and pieces of various different shots can be combined easily in Photoshop to create the desired look and lighting effect.
Which is not to imply your shoot wasn’t hard work! I’m certain it was. Your dad and stepmum really will do anything for the MLT Twins’ career, won’t they? Thank you kindly for the fabulous video!
The artist becomes the canvas wherein the art is revealed !!!
Your dedication to your art never ceases to amaze me. The time and effort you put into your beautiful creations is awesome and it’s always a treat to see these ‘behind the scenes’ videos of your work. I bet papa Rudi and Michaela had fun throwing the paint over you!
I’m looking forward to what you come up with for your much anticipated third ‘originals’ album.
Hello all,
Hahaha, what fun! A couple of questions did arise.
1) How did the paint taste? You could see it went in your mouths.
2) Did the masterful Photoshop Queen Photoshop in the orange in the foreground?
3) Do you Still find ORANGE now and then in places you missed?
Thanks so much for a wonder laugh and behind the scenes footage.
Have a Fantastically Orange Groovy Weekend .
Rick
This is awesome on so many levels!
Can’t find the video? ????
Please click on the top image on this page. The video should start playing then.
Please let me know if it worked 🙂
Did you pick Orange because the Beatles already had Apple?
Loved reading that! So much hard work and effort went into making it seem so effortless.
ORANGED and then juicy some….freshly squeezed creative concepts….Quenched the artistic thirst…such fab apPEEL????????????????????????????❤️????
What a great video! And such a wonderful song, of course!
Sometimes we forget to appreciate just how much legwork, planning, and creativity goes into producing music and art, like the cover of your Orange Album. Watching this video is inspiring to say the least. Creativity is such a great gift we have.
It was actual paint?! :O All this time I’d assumed you used water and digital coloring. That’s some serious commitment to your art!
Art can be messy at times. Lol