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Hi. The whip spider molt video is absolutely superb and one of the best vids i have ever seen.

Paul

 
Awesome, Henry! We've all been waiting for years for some celebrity to keep a pet mantis and bring this fascinating hobby into mainstream American life. Maybe we've been coming at it from the wrong direction. Mantises first, and celebrity follows. Okay, we're all counting on you!

I wish you were making videos when I went through my first divorce.

 
Peter Clausen said:
Awesome, Henry! We've all been waiting for years for some celebrity to keep a pet mantis and bring this fascinating hobby into mainstream American life. Maybe we've been coming at it from the wrong direction. Mantises first, and celebrity follows. Okay, we're all counting on you!

I wish you were making videos when I went through my first divorce.
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Thanks, Peter. Haha! Yeah, it's funny to think of my videos helping someone heal but I get it.

 
OK, so things just get crazier. Last week I read an interview with Inez van Lamsweerde who is a photographer that has worked on the last 8 of Bjork's album covers. In the interview she shares highlights relating to each cover.

In reference to the latest album she states:

"Björk sent a beautiful video of a spider molting out of its own skin and becoming translucent, and then filling up with color again. For her, that was really the basis of the imagery around this album, this transformation and soft, waxy, yellow-pink coloring—and again, the idea of having emotions circling around her. She said she wanted to have a wound on her body, on her heart area, in an abstract way."

https://www.artsy.net/article/editorial-as-bjork-opens-at-moma-behind-the

So it would seem she had the video in mind even before the album art was designed. The thought of Bjork sitting watching my video while suffering through her separation breaks my heart, while simultaneously filling me with warmth. It's one thing to know she'd seen it and liked it. It's quite another to know it was part of her healing process and influenced her artistically.

I can clearly see the molting process artistically interpreted in this video; the shallow depth of field in the opening shots of the black dead carapace, she's upside down, the split in the chest where she was wounded used to escape rather than the back as it is for most insects, her fingers drawing out the threads in much the same way the whipspider draws out its long feelers, and the motion of her hands as she sows up her wound reminds me of the whipspider feeling its new body with its feet.

Björk: Family (moving album cover)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAXvkbOzK6E

Tailless Whipspider molt - UP CLOSE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uzuYRY2faQ

Björk Debuts Virtual Reality "Stonemilker" Video

...

My experience with Bjork that summer involved her wearing a fitted sculptural black dress, pounding her chest in frigid temperatures, reliving her separation on camera while kneeling in a jagged ravine carved away by glaciers.

The woman we found in November was much different: her home was adorned with lilac candles, the air was moist and thick with neon yellow garments hanging and the tables covered in creamy lilac latex. There was a feeling of soft, translucent skinlike textures everywhere, evoking a sense of healing, molting and nakedness. This was the new Bjork we captured in "Stonemilker."
...
http://pitchfork.com/news/58920-bjork-debuts-virtual-reality-stonemilker-video/

 
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Björk is a captivating spider creature in the new Lionsong video

Björk season is upon us, and today brings the first official video from the fantastical, MoMA-featured musician's recent album Vulnicura. The visual for "Lionsong" features Björk dancing in an eerily lit space while wearing a pleather body suit and a dandelion-esque crown of thorns — a nod to the Vulnicura album art.

"Björk’s character for 'Lionsong' had to be smooth like a spider waiting in her web and seductive like a Balinese dancer cast in bronze," the video's directors, Inez and Vinoodh, told Noisey. "She is seen as if under a microscope, baring her heart while luring us inside the bloody galaxy of her own wound."

http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/12/8199615/bjork-new-video-lionsong-vulnicura

Take note of the stark white background and vignette showing in the corners like in my video, and the lengthening of her legs...

Björk: Lionsong

 
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spawn said:
How much money are you making off this licensing?
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I got paid only for use of my clip during her shows. I got a fair price considering it was only used for a handful of shows.

Inspiration is free! I'm hoping she comes back for more.

 
maybe other artists (such as kesha) will want to use some of your footage for their new music videos

if nothing else, it brings the viewers closer to nature and that's always a good thing

so not only have you provided an artist with really cool material, you have perhaps helped to reconnect young people with their organic roots, which is much needed in today's high-technology dominated first world

 
Very cool. I've had two tailless whip scorpions for over a year and have never had the pleasure of watching either one of them during a molt. I'm always too late for the event and just come across a discarded exoskeleton then a mostly dry but somewhat agitated to be disturbed insect. Watching your video with such close detail and great lighting was amazing. Thank you.

 
Predatorhousepet said:
Very cool. I've had two tailless whip scorpions for over a year and have never had the pleasure of watching either one of them during a molt. I'm always too late for the event and just come across a discarded exoskeleton then a mostly dry but somewhat agitated to be disturbed insect. Watching your video with such close detail and great lighting was amazing. Thank you.
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Awesome! Thank you.

I got very lucky catching that footage. She had been hanging from the very top of the enclosure, which is unusual, so I kept an eye out for a molt. The problem with documenting something like this is you need to be able to change the angle to get the camera positioned properly and you have no control over where they molt. Luckily this molt was from a removable lid. Once it started I was able to manipulate the lid to adjust for shots from all angles and at different magnification using the techniques I picked up documenting mantis molts. I saw it as a chance of a lifetime so tried my best to capture as much of the process in as much detail as possible. It was very rewarding to witness myself and a dream to be able to share.

It's turned out to be my most lucrative video, not that I've made very much, but more than any other video. Never expected any of that. I was just happy to be able to see the details of such an intimate process.

Got some photos too.

FXt8yGE.jpg


 
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