The music video for the latest single from Lady M has been released. ‘Paradox’ features Karl Queensborough, star of West End’s Hamilton, and the single is out now on all streaming platforms.
The music video was created by Lady M creators James Beeny and Gina Georgio with filmmaker James Hastings, who filmed and directed the video. It was filmed on the south-east coast of England across thirteen locations.
Lady M is an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and the song ‘Paradox’ is a twist on the infamous dagger scene in which Macbeth sees a vision of the dagger he will use to kill the King of Scotland.
The filming started at 6am on an extremely cold day, with the wind reaching forty miles per hour! The first location was the scene on the beach under the pier (you can see this at the start of the second chorus), so Karl had to face the icy temperatures and harsh winds in his smart black suit, putting on a pair of gloves and throwing a coat over his shoulders between takes.
The expanse of beach under the pier created a unique filming experience - when the tide is in, the whole area that Karl walked on is completely covered by the sea, so in effect, Karl was walking on what would become the sea-bed later that day. Under your feet you could feel the saltiness of where the sea had been, and there was an eery magic to the spot in the early hours of the morning.
Karl and the team moved from location to location, including a car-park, tunnel, and an underpass painted with sea-themed murals.
Some of the locations were more challenging to film in than others, such as the jetty, which stretched out into the sea, sandwiched by huge crashing waves on either side. Karl had to jump up on the rails on some occasions to avoid being soaked by the waves as they collided on the jetty floor.
Another challenging location was the cliff used for the middle eight section of the song. The team wanted to get a 360-degree shot of Karl performing it in one continuous take, and as the middle eight is about 45 seconds, they needed the area to be completely free of anything in the background for the entire duration. As the spot is popular for dog-walkers, it was difficult to get through a whole take without a dog or two entering the shot as the camera spun around! Adding to the comedy of the situation, the whole team had to run behind the cameraman as he spun around so that they too wouldn’t be in the shot. (For anyone who has seen Disney’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’, it looked a lot like ‘The Caucus Race’ where the animals run wildly around the Dodo while he sings his heart out on a rock).
The filming was spread across two days, and as the second day was filmed a month later, the weather was warm and sunny, so the team celebrated the wrap with some seaside classics including fish and chips, mini golf, and ice-cream on the beach. Karl was definitely the best-dressed person playing mini-golf that day.
‘Paradox’ was recorded at the world-famous Abbey Road Studios and produced by Lady M creators James Beeny and Gina Georgio with multi-Grammy Award winning record producer Rik Simpson, best known for his work with Coldplay (Viva la Vida, Mylo Xyloto, A Head Full of Dreams).
Photography by Chris Georghiou
