Charlotte Arene is a filmmaker & animator specializing in stop motion and After Effects. Having long been a fan of her intricate work visualizing memoirs, monologues and dreams, I commissioned her to direct the music video for “I Miss the Old You.” Our collaborative process took place over email and international Zoom calls, each of us exchanging reflections on the song’s themes of loss and regret. My aim as a producer was to build a sandbox with enough fertile ground to support Charlotte’s process with the trust that’s essential for a creative partnership. She describes her instincts creating something that resonates with the lyrics & melody just as strongly as with her philosophy as an artist:
La mer à boire (2020) by Charlotte Arene.
“Five months prior to Sean offering me the visualizer for ‘I Miss the Old You,’ I’d taken a deep dive into the huge boxes of photographs and negatives stored in my parent’s basement. I was looking for childhood pictures of my older sister to animate them into a short film. It was to be my wedding gift for her and her fiancé.”
“As an animator, the experience was exhilarating. As a sister, it was extremely moving. What I felt as I went through these hundreds of photographs was surprisingly akin to sorrow, and it was still lingering at the back of my mind when I first listened to Sean’s song and imagined how I could respond to it.”
Concept art & animation notes by Charlotte Arene. (Photo courtesy of the artist.)
Sean’s sister flies a kite at a family picnic, circa 1990. (Photo courtesy of Christensen family archive.)
“I knew I wanted to work with photographs again, and Sean was very open and generous when I asked if I could work with some of his childhood pictures. We exchanged via email, made a selection, and discussed how I could stage them. Early on, I was fixated on the idea of a force of some kind, pulling those photographs away from a desk or a wall…a physical representation of that tug I felt when I listened to the song. It started off as a gravitational pull, then evolved into a surfing motion. Finally, it settled on a strong wind. It’s funny, in retrospect, how the idea got lighter.”
“The minute this image took root, I saw something in three pictures of his sister I hadn’t noticed before: she was holding onto a string, so fine I had missed it at first. The string led to something upwards and out of frame. Then it hit me. She was holding a kite. The image just fell into place and I knew this would be the perfect photograph to animate. I’m glad it resonated with Sean and I’m very grateful to him and his sister for allowing me to use it.”