Charlotte Appleton on making videos for Wiyaala
Noella Wiyaala finished work on a new music video for her song ‘Leno‘ which means ‘this Place‘. TheAfricanDream.net in a bid to find out more about this video caught up with Charlotte Appleton, the maker behind the Leno video and she tells us what it is like to work with Wiyaala.
Charlotte Appleton has directed five videos for Wiyaala so far with Leno being the most recent. The very first video was ‘Make Me Dance’; Wiyaala’s successful hit single from October 2013. Listen to Leno, a track off the multi-award winning Ghanaian artist’s self-titled LP released in 2015 that was nominated ‘Album of The Year’ in Ghana by Vodafone Ghana Music Awards.
“It became very clear very quickly that Wiyaala was different. As with all of our videos, Wiyaala’s creative vision merges with my own direction and on every video release I feel that we have succeeded in creating video art that pushes boundaries and expectations” — Charlotte Appleton
The video maker also says of working with Wiyaala that “it is a tall order when invited to represent the visuals for Wiyaala’s music and of course her vibrant persona. It is a challenge and a responsibility to her and her fans however. Wiyaala inspires me greatly as a director and we share a great deal of determination to push our work to the best it can be.”
Five videos down the line later, the vocal artist and video director have created an amazing visual for the video Leno. If you look at the videos produced up until now, you will notice how different they all are in concept, style and execution.
Charlotte Appleton tells TheAfricanDream.net that “Leno was no exception and I wanted to represent the beautiful track whilst doing something completely different to not only my own collection of videos, but also something extremely different to the videos currently seen in Ghana.”
She been working on projects in Ghana on and off for some four years now (under the name Mr. Chaplin) and has over the years become a fan of Ghanaian music. Her choice to work mainly with Wiyaala is because of the artist’s open mindedness about her visuals and uniqueness.
The video maker admires Wiyaala’s fight to carve out her own path and says: “from my experience in the Ghanaian music scene, this is very brave indeed. You need to be very confident and bold to do what Wiyaala does yet she is personally (and professionally) deeply humble.”
“Wiyaala is also exceptionally focused on set and on location, she takes her career seriously and throughout her rise to success she has always remained grounded. I don’t remember her complaining once when we were shooting for hours on end in -1 degrees centigrade. In fact when I suggest we take a break, she actually replies ‘no, I am OK let’s do this’”
Leno was shot on location around Yorkshire in the United Kingdom where it gets really cold in January, which is the month the video was shot in 2016.
Charlotte says of Wiyaala’s attitude to weather conditions: “I have worked in some of the hottest and lowest temperatures with Wiyaala, and I can honestly say out of all of my work, Wiyaala’s videos are some of my personal favorites and hold great meaning for me, also her performance on ‘action!’ always hits us with everything she’s got.”
With each Wiyaala project the duo continue to grow, seeing Wiyaala inspiring Charlotte to push her personal boundaries.
Wiyaala personally says she “trusts Charlotte to take me out of my comfort zone because my most crucial objective whilst working on my videos is to capture the magic that resides in my soul and Charlotte does a great job of capturing it in every note, of every frame.”
’This Place‘ for Charlotte is the magical, mystical Yorkshire woodland. She says “it was a pleasure to create a version of it for Wiyaala, her team and her audience in the Leno video”. Check out Charlotte Appleton’s House of Chaplin Show reel below as we bring you a teaser for the new Wiyaala video soon. To get in touch with Charlotte email her at charlotteannieappleton@gmail.com
Written by Oral Ofori
Oral Ofori is Founder and Publisher at www.TheAfricanDream.net, a digital storyteller and producer, and also an information and research consultant.
