Regina Spektor Lives Out Her Fantasy in New Video

Posted on Jun 5th 2009 2:00PM by Dan Reilly
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Judging by her albums, Regina Spektor doesn't need much help when it comes to indulging her creative urges. But on the video for 'Laughing With,' the first single from her new album 'Far,' she found a new tool to help her express herself: CGI. "We would just kind of brainstorm in a world where you can make anything happen," Spektor tells Spinner. "You can be like 'I'm going to walk through a door and there's going to be a big, giant apple in the room.'"

Spektor credits surrealists such as Magritte, Buñuel and Chagall as the inspiration for many of the video's reality-altering visuals. "Adria Petty, who directed it, and I are more comfortable in the surreal than in the linear world, in a way," Spektor says. "We wanted to play around with perspective and kind of reveal like when you look at something and then you turn it into something else." Turning their fantasy world and objects into reality on the Hollywood set was more of a challenge though. "The whole lot was painted like a green screen, and we had these guiding images and little pink X's on things, and I just had to pretend," Spektor says. "I'm such an immediate gratification person that it was hard to wait a month so that they can build your world. But it was really fun."

One of the few real props in the video was the blue grand piano painted with clouds, which ended up becoming the album art for 'Far.' "We were all storyboarding the video and the storyboard artist drew that picture," Spektor says. "It just looked so much like a cover that we kept it." Unfortunately, Spektor couldn't take the piano home with her. "Of course, I wanted to keep it," she says. "It lives in California now. But, I think he got to keep his clouds."

As for the religious theme of the song and much of 'Far,' Spektor isn't afraid of any backlash or controversy over the often controversial subject. "Worrying about consequences of thoughts and language is the beginning of a lot of scary things," she says. "It's bad to be silent and kind of tiptoe around our world. Our world is very bizarre and overwhelming at times. People should feel free to think out loud." If that fails, they can emulate Spektor and give in to their imaginations, with or without CGI.

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