Local hip hop artists Jenna Dean and producer Sydney Strabala have produced a new video for their song "Venice Beach". Catch them live at Headliners on December 8 for a Dare to Care benefit concert, also featuring Nashville's Luthi. More about the video:
The music video captures the reunion of the full band visiting their guitarist, Jason D’Mello, now a Venice Beach local. For the past year, the band has continued this cross-country collaboration and will be releasing a full-length album, titled “Coronation (1558) in the coming months. Venice Beach is the closing song on the concept album, which is a coming of age story of enlightenment. The video depicts imagery from vocalist Anthony Raspberry’s lyrics intended to capture “heaven on earth” through the freedom and beauty found in Southern California. In his words:
“California has long been regarded as the land of opportunities, rebirths, and openness. From the Gold Rush in the 1840’s, to Hollywood, to hippies trying to find a new way. This song is about the idyllic California. A place where everyone is free. Acceptance is for everyone. Healthy food trends all start in CA. New ideas about love. Peace. No judgment. Be who you want to be. Sometimes I throw up the W hand sign. It signifies a coming together of the four corners of the earth and creating/finding the California/world of our dreams. Essentially CA, and by extension, Venice Beach becomes Heaven on Earth.” - Anthony Raspberry
The music video is collaboration among several LMU graduates from the Entrepreneurship Center (where D’Mello is a professor), Film School, and Dance School. Sydney Strabala, Danielle King and Will Houlihan co-directed the video over two days of production.
Danielle King, a rising star in the Dance industry, combined her knowledge from studying Dance at Loyola Marymount University and experience as a professional dancer in the commercial dance industry to choreograph several site-specific dance scenes throughout iconic locations along the Venice Beach Boardwalk, and Historic Canals ft. professionally trained dancers local to Los Angeles! Even more impressive, these dancers showed up at 5am to beat the daily Venice bystanders to capture scenes on the beach and inside of the bowl at the skate park. King has worked with artists such as Wiz Khalifa, Ty Dolla $ign, Kehlani and Little Mix, and most recently worked on project with Disney Parks Live Entertainment where she starred as her own Disney princess. After landing the role of videographer for Beyonce’s choreographer, Dana Foglia, Danielle has been passionate about merging the worlds of film and dance, and this music video allowed her to continue refining and expending her artistry.
The video also depicts incredible never been seen aerial imagery of the Venice Pier and California coastline using epic drone videography. The filmmakers also brought in camera operator Connor Gordon to film an underwater guitar solo. The genuine community and mischief behind the scenes can be felt when viewing the video.
This video hopes to show the beauty of Venice Beach through musical fusion, choreographed dance scenes in public, aerial and underwater photography, and an authentic experience captured on film of a band reuniting in the place that inspires them to create music and live by the following words found in the lyrics of the song:
"Stay up all night and watch the sunrise
then stay up all day
and watch the sunset
and since we’re only here
for a short time
we might as well live this one life with no regret."
