Towards the close of 2011, I interviewed music video director and band member Nambari Tisa. Nambari Tisa is Swahili for “Number Nine”. Who knows the story behind the name of the only male presence in the Murfy’s Flaw sextet? But here is the story behind the video of their exciting song “Hello Light”, which is also the title of their most recent Album.
ROFFEKE: Are you into photography? (Because in the video, I could recognize some photography techniques like silhouettes, time lapse, etc).
Nambari Tisa: I love photography though I'm very unskilled at it...Maybe one day I'll move on up. Although I can tell good shots... I never feel satisfied with capturing them the exact way I want or see them. Does that make sense to you?
ROFFEKE: Makes total sense to me! As a screenwriter, sometimes the ideas in my head and what ultimately ends up on paper are two different things! Speaking of ideas, how did you come up with the idea for this video?
Nambari Tisa: We discussed the concept with Ogopa (Lukas and Moses) and the shots I wanted and they worked the cameras. The rest was us getting the right shots. We had ideas for crazier shots... but in the end we put what we thought worked.
We had hashed it out with the band, a few early ideas were thrown out... and this is what we decided on. We wanted something simple but still capturing the essence of the song. That was the trickiest part. How to work with the light theme with the tools at hand. Now that it is done I'm having ideas of other ways to have done it... but it’s what I call the movie store problem.
ROFFEKE: The movie store problem?
Nambari Tisa: You know what that is, right? When you go to a movie store and you knew what you wanted but when you get there you forget and after you have left... you are like oh... I should have gotten this and that...
ROFFEKE: Ah! I see! So that's the movie store problem. I guess I know that as the book store problem!
Nambari Tisa: I guess one should always write a shopping list... but since I have such a bad handwriting and I don't really write anything down anyway... c'est la vie...
ROFFEKE: Are Ogopa into rock music? Or was it just a job for them?
Nambari Tisa: It was a job I guess. But Lukas really got to love the song. In the end it was difficult to get it away from him (laughs). He got attached. He unleashed some very nice ideas that we worked with.
ROFFEKE: How long did it take to shoot the video?
Nambari Tisa: We shot 15th of October. It was the only free slot we had...with all the Gigs, Road show, Album Mastering and Launch to do. All our Weekends were booked solid till January.
ROFFEKE: You shot in one day?!
Nambari Tisa: Yeah... well for the band shots... we had already planned the shots with Moses so it was just a matter of co-ordinating the band to be at the right places at the right time. There are some street level shots and others done later without the band and a lot of them didn't make the cut.
Well here’s what made the cut. Check out the Murfy’s Flaw video for “Hello Light”
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