Close-up: Charles Danet – Les Amours Fantômes (Ghost Lovers)

(written by Charles Danet)

“The idea of ‘Ghost Lovers’ came to me and my lover Nina during the summer 2013, while we spent our holiday in the French countryside. The sun was warm and shining very bright, bringing on the garden a really luminous lightning. Nina began to think about a love story between a ghost and a young woman, inspired by an ancient painting called “The young girl and Death”. As the story was beginning to develop in Nina’s mind, we thought of making a black and white short film, in which I would be a ghost and she would be his lover. At the time, I was facing depression and thus, was sometimes daydreaming, so it would be really easy for me to act as a ghost. Then, using black and white pictures would help to believe in this ghost story.

We thought of different places we should use as a set to shoot the video, and thought of three different parts in the garden, and also the library, an old fashioned room, and a small room. Then, as Nina began to see clearly which story we could tell, I helped her to make the script coherent, making it easy to understand for the viewers. The film was shot quickly in the afternoon, and we filmed each other while Nina was taking care of making a nice photography.

When we were back in our Paris home, we uploaded the rushes on my computer, but didn’t get enough time to make the editing. This is why this movie took so long to be shown, as we almost forgot its existence. Then, I recorded an EP called CLOUDLESS SKY during the first lockdown in May 2020, and while I was searching for moving pictures to illustrate these instrumental songs, I was interested in making the editing of this short film. While editing “Ghost Lovers”, I first didn’t know which song from the EP would be the best to illustrate the movie, but CAVEMAN came quickly as the perfect song to match the atmosphere of the video, with its dark and melancholic mood.

Finally, the narration of this short film is what makes it interesting to watch, as the music I made during the lockdown was created as Library Music, which is music that illustrates movies. The cinematic aspect of Ghost Lovers, and also of the other songs from my EP “CLOUDLESS SKY”, brings a special and different atmosphere with each song, and allows the viewer to escape from these strange days’ reality. I was lucky enough to be helped on the mixing and mastering of the songs by Gauthier Havel from Studio Irréel, who enabled the songs to have the vintage and cinematic atmosphere I wanted.”

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The ‘Close-up’ series contains insight provided by artists about their work.