There it is, the new album from Poets Of The Fall, called Carnival Of Rust. This is in stores in a couple of weeks, and a single cd named Carnival Of Rust has been released from the album. Naturally a music video has been made from the song, today we’ll see Ville Toivosen’s interview about making of the video. The band and the makers of the video are interviewed.

First we’ll talk to the video’s director, Tuomas “Stobe” Harju, who tells among other things about the animation technique used in the video. Lets see what Ville and Tuomas talked about.

(Mark appears on the screen)

Mark: Welcome Voice’s viewers to Poets Of The Fall’s shooting of Carnival Of Rust video. Here’s our video booth and here are some bigger and smaller booths and the crew working their stuff. This is going to be really fun, stay with us.

(Tuomas “Stobe” Harju is interviewed now)

Interviewer: What is the idea of this video?

Tuomas: This is Poets Of The Fall’s video, the band sing a bit about everything like quite often about relationships. Now that I’ve gotten to know Mark more I know better what he sings about. The ideas are often quite personal, so I won’t go deeper into that. I’ll let the fans quess and iterpret what it is about. But I can tell that there’s the whole range of relationships in the video, between the lines. From there you can start guessing what it means.

Interviewer: How much the video is designed by you, and how the band affects the video?

Tuomas: Well, it’s a fact that the band affects always. I think that the song is the idea, it’s just my interpretation what it looks like. First the band gives me the song, I write an idea about it, and the band adds something own to it. This video has lots of small details that came straight from Mark, Ollie, Captain and rest of the band. in percents I’d say it’s about 70 - 30. 70 percent comes from me and 30 from the band to the final idea of the music video.

(bits of the video and the making shown, Interviewer talks to Mark)

Interviewer: So we’re here at the shooting of the Carnival Of Rust video. How would describe the song? What is it like?

Mark: It’s quite a strong song. Starts calmly and gets stronger when nearer the end, musically. In terms of lyrics, I’d say that it describes our, or maybe it’s my opinion of it, but it describes the double standard and grotesqueness of everything. However, there inside is that small beautiful thing that is good to keep in mind. From there the idea starts to open.

Interviewer: okay

(Stobe is interviewed)

Interviewer: So you have done the poets’ previous video Lift, and the Guardian Angel video for Lovex and this one. All of these have computer graphics, is it a thing that you like to put in videos?

Tuomas: It’s a thing that I have to put there. In Finland the budget for videos is in some videos okay.. But I work in a production company called Nitro, which does great work in 3D, so why wouldn’t we use it? When you think of it, if we film a car, we get a car going on a road. If we have the possibility, why don’t we make the car fly? It give much more choices, new ideas might come in post-production too, so that’s why 3D is very good.

Interviewer: in music videos made around the world now, how much 3D is used? Is it very common?

Tuomas: It seems that the trend is nowadays to shoot in sets and for real. What I’ve noticed, is that in the late 90s and in the beginning of the 21st century usind 3D became more common, like in Chris Cunningham and Bjork’s videos and so on. They were just a small element in them, at that time 3D was quite common. Nowadays a very few directors and visualists use it in videos. It may be used in some small effects, like for putting bolts on birch tree branches. I don’t see any point in that.

Interviewer: This your second video for Poets Of The Fall, what is it like to be a director for them?

Tuomas: It’s awesome, they are great guys. I remember when shooting Lift, I had only met Mark before hand and talked with him. And usually when working with a rock band, I think they are “rock princesses” and they say something like “I’m not putting that make-up on.” Poets Of The Fall and Lovex have been great to work with. The guys from Lovex are in the end a bit shy, and poets have the attitude that they have come there to work. That’s their thing. I was laughing when I met the band first time because I thought they would be sitting there drinking some beer, but no. They were all laughing, having fun and talking some smart stuff. If I can comment here, I have to say that musicians nowadays are even better son-in-law alternatives than athletes.

(Back to Mark)

Interviewer: Today is shot the musicvideo for the song Carnival Of Rust. How has the shooting been going and what kind of director Stobe is?

Mark: The shooting has been going well, the only thing is that this hat is too tight. *laughs a bit* It has been quite calm, actually this is the same place were we filmed Lift. Stobe directed that video and we liked to work with him, so working with him has been good now too. In that sense there isn’t much to complain about. But I think this is going to be a very long day, I’m lucky if I can get home around 3-4 am to fall to my bed.

(The man who made the set, Sami Silvennoinen)

Interviewer: Thee videos circusbooths look very finished. How long have you made these?

Sami: We came here yesterday morning and 02.20 I left the studio.

Interviewer: Was everything done here?

Sami: The walls of this booth (points at the ball throwing booth) were prepared one day before. We have had much work with this booth, the style of it changed a lot along the way from the original pic. Doing that was very satisfacting, in a small set like that the details affect so much that the work is trying to search all the details from shops and trying to put them together. It takes it’s own time.

Interviewer: Have you had a situation where you have done a great set for a video, but the director has screwed up the job. Afterwards you’ve looked the video and thought “What a great set but otherwise the video sucks.”

Sami: That’s a good question, I haven’t thought about that. No, I can’t really say so. At least in music videos no.

Interviewer: So can you ruin the video with the set?

Sami: Yeah you can, it works both ways.

Interviewer: Now we’ll just have to exitedly wait the poets’ result. The set is good, and we’ll see what Tuomas does with it.

Sami: Yeah, now we just have to wait for that.

(Mark interviewed)

Interviewer: What is the funniest rumour about you that has been around recently? Like in tabloids and so, or has there been any?

Mark: Someone had taken a photo of me and some woman. It wasn’t me in the pic and I’m not sure if it was the right woman that was supposed to be there. So me and some Miss Finland had a “scandalous affair” at some point.

Interviewer: And there were some other people in the picture?

Mark: Yeah, just the names were were “correct.”

Interviewer: The whole last year you have been doing gigs after releasing the first album.

Mark: Yes

Interviewer: Has there been anything surprising in doing the gigs? I mean like in the gig places and in touring.

Mark: Now that I think back to it, after the recording break I think that it was quite a culture shock even though I have performed and done gigs my whole life. To go with your band on a tour for months, stay there and visit home once in a while. It was surprising that we made it as sane as we did.

Interviewer: So it’s a tough job?

Mark: Yes it’s quite tough. And what surprised me quite a lot – this top hat is way too tight, it must be made of some kevlar or something – was that how quickly you can get to that state where you are so tired and so. And suddenly you just can’t do anything, and everything starts to annoy you more and stuff like that. You just fell to the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the most important thing was that you could eat and sleep enough, and do your job.

Interviewer: Ok. last summer you probably saw nearly every gig place in Finland. How are they? Is there much glamour in a rock star’s life?

Mark: That’s a good question. I remember thinking on many gigs that “Is this really my life?” when I came to the place. The focus goes to keep your singing and performing to people and that the people get a good feeling as the main thing. I like to be on live gigs and I know that if the gig is good, you can get a good experience from it. But when you come to the gig place, and there smells cigarettes and alcohol from yesterday and feeling tired you start to put the equipment ready, you think that glamour if quite far from this.

Interviewer: From what signs have you noticed that you are in “the frontline?” I mean like tabloids, or have you been asked to be on commercials because of your music?

Mark: Those both things that you mentioned, among others, we have come across with. Also the people that we are on gigs with, and how many gigs are there show that. And still things like record sales show it too, we have been a year on the Top 40 list, the album has been there almost constantly since it came out. Those are the signs that show that this worked out well, better than we originally thought it would.