music video production

About the Video

Ever the brilliant artiste, when Kylie Spence came to us with a second single, “Allergic To Your Love,” we at Spirinity immediately knew that we would need to dial up the artistry and emotional weight in this video’s visuals in order to create worthy resonance. Ultimately this involved Kylie literally painting herself into the video itself in a number of different ways (You’ll have to see it to see the vid to see what we mean!). And since her lyrical styling is always thought-provoking as well, we knew that the visuals would have to contain some air of mystery about them too!

While listeners can definitely read different meanings into this song’s lyrics, Kylie herself wanted to bring particular awareness to relational abuse and toxic relationships thorough this video. Being no stranger to exploring the nuances of deep—even heavy and painful—emotions, it didn’t take much for this singer-songwriter to emulate a variety of these throughout the scenes in this video.

Like the initial lyrics themselves, the opening scene sets up imagery that can be analyzed in a multiplicity of ways: red paint dripping slowly from the edge of a bathtub onto alabaster tile below… As Kylie rises from the tub, the story flashes forward—or is it flashing backward?? In any case, we soon see her character is a painter struggling to bring her artistic vision to visual life. The attempts seem to resemble some sort of self-reflection or personal definition, but she struggles to actualize or articulate them genuinely, freely, truly. Clearly she is toiling through conflicting messages about or definitions of herself as she attempts to process them through her art, however painful such a process might prove. But where is the confusion, where is the conflict, where is the pain stemming from?

Throughout the video, we see Kylie receiving texts and messages from her boyfriend, messages growing more and more anxious as time goes progresses, but something seems awry with their relationship—and perhaps with the history of his treatment of her. Are her conflicted interpretations of herself related to such conflicted relationships and the messages they bear? At the same time, we see juxtaposed clips of Kylie also growing more and more frustrated with her artistic attempts.

The Conclusion

As we come to close of this particular story, we see the artist finally resist the temptation to allow abusive relationship to return again; she refuses to allow its messages to enter back into her life. And this resolution, in turn, shifts the experience of her self-reflection. Finally realizing freedom from the bondage of these abusive messages, she becomes better able to create the art she always desired, a truer image of self-expression, and she is finally satisfied with the result.

And returning now to the opening image of the dripping tub… we find this bookended image takes on new meaning, new resolution—and definitely new hope. As Kylie falls back into the tub—an inverse of the original image—we see that it now represents renewal, a kind of baptism into renewed life. But there is still more to learn, there are still more challenges to surmount, and there are still more personal revelations to be discovered, especially in the heart of this artist.

For those who have experienced relational abuse, we hope this video inspires new possibilities and hope for healing renewal—for coming to truer and more beautiful messages about who you are. If you find yourself in an abusive situation or a toxic relationship of any sort, we hope this art might inspire courage to leave it behind, to get help, and to find renewed freedom.

The Concept

Our writing and creative team had an absolute blast dreaming up ideas for Kylie Spence’s “Lying Eyes” music video for Kylie Spence. All of her artistry exudes both a palpably confident intrigue and vulnerable searching, a rare air of sensitive strength.  To match the sound and meaning of this particular song, we developed a kind of jigsaw mystery in the video’s story, portraying Kylie’s recent relational struggles through flashback and present-day storylines, all imbued thickly with symbolism.  Only as the story closes along with the song do all the threads come together, allowing Kylie to move forward with new, albeit haunting, revelation.

The Video Shoot

We shot the video in the desert with a 1967 Cadillac convertible and international Gucci model, JJ. And—oh, baby!—does that car deliver visual punch in this video, and JJ’s no less easy on the eyes either! Moreover we knew Kylie would be able to embody the various emotional movements of the song in her acting, so for her counterpart in the video knew we needed to find an up-and-coming actor who could emotionally rival her—a mystifying someone whose eyes could draw our audience in vulnerably close, though they would already know all along this song is ultimately titled “Lying Eyes.” But you’ll have to see the video itself to see how the lyrics ultimately bear out in the visceral visuals. We will leave the ultimate mystery for you to explore, but here is a preview of some of the plot elements.

The Plot

The story starts when Kylie moves to kick JJ out of her car, out of her life, once and for good. But immediately after and all too quickly, she begins to reminisce about happier times they shared together, remembering the relationship through rose colored glasses, as they say.  And, heck, we’ve all been there! Suddenly, however, almost as if summoned by her reflection, JJ appears and disappears again before her. After pulling over, while she looks around for him, Kylie stumbles across a photograph, but we don’t yet see its image. As she reflects on it, again, somehow JJ appears now in the driver’s seat of Kylie’s car, beckoning her over. Mesmerized by JJ’s charisma and motivated by her previous rose-hued reflections, she gets into the car with him, but knowing all to well where this can lead.

As Kylie sings now about the relationship again, the two drive through the long, deserted desert roads. But just as surprisingly as he appears, JJ disappears again in the blink of an eye. At this point, despite the struggle with her torn feelings, Kylie gets more honest with herself about the reality of their relationship. She’s reminded of the games JJ continuously played with her heart, and she regrets letting him back in so easily. When he appears suddenly in the middle of the road ahead of her, Kylie decided to end the relationship once and for all in one desperate, decisive move. As she speeds towards him, he gives one last look of desperation before she zooms right past or through—you’ll see what we mean. We see that JJ has transformed into something new, something we will leave for you to see—but to be sure, Kylie will only have her memories and honest reflections to contend with in the end. She closes out the video with more questions than where she began, but she also has more resolve, more clarity, more confidence in herself. But some mystery still remains as to what was real and what was not.

Spirinity Productions directed, produced the story, produced the video, cast the talent, and edited the footage for this video.

Spirinity Productions produced, directed, filmed and directed Aidan Alexander’s cover video for “Dancing On My Own”.