NASHVILLE, TN — CMT recently premiered rising country star Karissa Ella’s new music video for her single More Like Her. The track is off her EP “Blossom” and shows Ella (karissaella.com) as a younger version of herself, as well as at her present age, singing about wanting to be the little girl she once was.
Quinton Cook directed the video, which was produced by Glitch, LLC (www.glitch.video), with Jonathan Marzolla serving as director of photography.
“When I first heard the song from Karissa’s team, I immediately had the vision,” recalls Cook. “I quickly wrote my thoughts and off I went to meet with her. I wanted to show the innocence of a child and how we lose it so quickly. When Karissa looked into the mirror we had on-set, I wanted her to see the little girl she used to be. The little 12-year-old that never had to worry about things we do today. Once we had our story locked came the fun part.”
Richard Peterson served as Stedicam operator for the project.
“I knew I wanted a bright video with darker tones,” Cook reveals. “I wanted Karissa to shine like the star she is, but communicate the story in a darker way. The studio location we ended up shooting in was perfect for this. Located in Inglewood was a white room with natural light flowing in from every angle and allowed us to make the vision happen.
“My DP (Jonathan Marzolla) and I have worked closely on several different projects, at this point he can read my mind and did just that in this video. We spent two hours crafting this look and once we were locked, we brought in Karissa and the rest was history.”
The video’s second location was an old, abandon house. A mirror was placed outside, where the viewer would see it as being out of context. As the sun began to set, the production crew raced over an overpass to shoot the final scene.
“This scene was massive,” recalls Cook. “It really accomplished the goal of taking the mirror out of place.”
The project was shot using two cameras: an Alexa Mini LF and a Red Helium. Cook edited the video himself using Adobe Premiere Pro 2019, and Marzolla handled the color grade using Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve.
Overall, Cook says he is thrilled with how the video ultimately turned out.
“Getting to work with Karissa was amazing! She had all the trust in my crew and I to make it happen, which made the day so much fun! I can’t wait for the next one!”