‘Purple Skies’ follows the relationships between two brothers. It is an exploration of loss and grief, as well as an ode to life, love and youth.
A few years ago, I arrived in Johannesburg, and along the expanding concrete highways, I was met with swarms of delicate butterflies. There's a phenomenon in South Africa called the annual butterfly migration where thousands of brown-veined white butterflies fly across the country from places like the Karoo towards Mozambique and northern KwaZulu-Natal. This phenomenon is a beautiful tragedy in that their flight is actually an emigration and not really a migration, as they only fly one way and then die at the end of their journey.
And then last year the world was hit so unexpectedly by the Covid-19 pandemic and the immense hardships, hurt, frustration and loss that has come with it. I treated on the 'Purple Skies' music video during these intersections. I wrote it with loss in mind. I wrote it for my father, I wrote it for Charlton and Toufeeq (the talent in the music video), and I wrote it for everyone and anyone who has lost someone close to them.
This music video was a passion project with a very small budget. It was therefore only possible through the crew who came together to make this through care and a mutual understanding of the project - a reminder of why we are all in the film industry and why we love doing what we do.
Charlton, Toufeeq and I have been waiting for an opportunity to create something and when this music video came along, we thought, "this is it!" Charlton and Toufeeq are brothers, not biologically, but through a life-long friendship - and so their performance is as honest and raw as it gets. I was also drawn to the seemingly contradictory nature of having two muscular, male break dancers move to the gentle and slow paced track.
Meghan Daniels - Director
Credits
Starring: Charlton Taylor and Toufeeq Baatjies
Director: Meghan Daniels
Music by: Diamond Thug
Management agency: Aloe Aloe
Music label: Kudukudu
Executive producers: Danilo Queiros and Tourmaline Berg
Producer: Meghan Daniels
Director of photography: Nick Burton-Moore
1st AC: Dale Burns
Camera operator: Dylan Boerstra
Loader: Tafadzwa Pasi
Stylist: Erin Simon
Hair stylist: Marchay Linderoth
Editor: Tomas Wells
Colourist: Kyle Stroebel
Colourist facility: Refinery
VFX artist: Nicholas Ellis-Brown (Iconic Digital)
On set assistant: Sarah Hugo-Hamman
On set photographer: Tara McAuliffe
Supported by: Panavision
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