Behind The Lens: Shelhiel on creating a futuristic Kuala Lumpur in – Bandwagon

It's the year 4000 and we're on Earth-527. Everything's glistening silver and intergalactic guardian angels roam cities. It's an unfathomable idea for us humans but Shelhielis giving us a glimpse of this alternative future through 'Superstrobe'.

Part of the bigger world ofSUPERSTROBEthe EP, theMalaysian artist created a parallel universe that mirrors his very own beginnings as an artist, building a story that brings together reality and fantasy. Taking on the role of Angel-527, the mythical being descends upon a futuristic Kuala Lumpur and goes through a cyclic experience of love and loss.

Bandwagon caught up with Shelhiel where he takes us through the beginnings of Earth-527 and production behind creating the 'Superstrobe' music video.

When I started writing my debut EP SUPERSTROBE, I knew that I wanted to keep it pure and back to my music origins since Ive tried to explore different genres along the way for years. I wanted to put out something that really sets the beginning for the sound of Shelhiel.

Therefore the visualisation of the SUPERSTROBE universe resembles the origin and the beginnings of me as an artist. The ideation started from my birthplace and the influences I had in my upbringingmy hometown Sungai Petani, Kedah, my beliefs and my faith in God. 527 is a codename for my birthday, May 27th, yay.

As I set on the vision I wanted to achieve for the whole EP, I started the mood board in January 2020. It really grew on to something bigger than I ever imagined.

SUPERSTROBE's visual identity is a marriage of influences of Malaysian Chinese, Sino-futurism & Christianity. Im trying to design a world that is real to me, yet still in fantasy expressionism. The whole universe of the SUPERSTROBE storyline is a cyclic story of the descent of the Angel-527 to Earth (track 1), finding himself and his purpose, and goes on to seek love and live life in the settings of the music video for 'Star ' (track 3), finds confusion in 'Chillin' (track 4), and reside on sadness in 'Runnin, Merindu' for losing his loved one (track 6).

'_____' means the trackwhich was actually meant to be the last track of the EPcan be a beginning or the end for listeners, to start the story all over again linearly, backwards or in a loop. The whole listening experience of SUPERSTROBE can be listened to in an ascending and descending order for different meanings of the story of Angel-527.

The SUPERSTROBE vision is inspired by Bjrks 'Utopia' video, as well as the Y2K, but bringing it into a Y4K setting of futuristic Kuala Lumpur.

I wanted to make a statement video of who I am and where I come from through abstract and conceptual story-telling. As I started to do sketches and a very rough storyboard, I divided the stories into 4 phases: Discovery, Flashback & Transformation, Enlightenment, and Into the Unknown.

Phase 1: Discovery In an alternative Kedah, which is the Jelapang Padi (the land of the paddy) of Malaysia, where I go back to my grandmas house every Chinese New Year, where I grew up.Phase 2: Flashback & TransformationGoing back to find who I am and I am born into this world, trying to portray an abstract meaning of finding purpose and the meaning of life of Angel-527which is tightly connected to my beliefs of faith in God.Phase 3: EnlightenmentThis is where the spark of life and climax of the video, where he found his higher calling as a futuristic guardian angel to serve Earth-527.Phase 4: Into the UnknownWalking into a mysterious advanced setting of Kuala Lumpur, he is ready to explore the world, thus the beginning of the EP SUPERSTROBE.

I start the whole project by sketching the storyboard first as you see attached there and discussed with my director Nelson Chong (@birdycantfly) and art director Curly (@thenameisbon11) about the whole concept. Nelson led and solidified the direction for the shoot, different phases and scenes, and Curly and I brainstormed on the outfits, VFX and mood for the video.

We would call and talk to the 3D team from China led by Cattin Tsai (@cattin_tsai) to further discuss the 3D world-building before and after the shoot. Not forget to mention our VFX heroes and editors, my day-one editor Azrol (@monameqa) as well as the director for my first music video Hiren (@hirashe_). What else can I say? Its the dream team!

During the early pandemic, a lot of the planning for the shoot and the EP were postponed and delayed, and it was really hard to execute an exquisite and futuristic-looking shoot with no experience of a green screen and 3D composition.

Also, we went back and forth on the post-production and edits. We put a lot of faith and trust into everyones expertise, and I am glad that it really turned out well in the end. Everyone really gave their best to push the boundaries of the outcome, I couldn't be grateful enough.

I think seeing the first final draft of the video was most exciting for this project. You might think its the shooting process but because all of us had no idea how it is going to turn out in the end, were just shooting by trusting our gut feeling and going with the flow.

Is the alternate universe of Earth-527 something youll be exploring more in your future projects?

I'm planning something to tie in the Shelhiel-verse in the end, yet were going to see how it goes these 2-3 years of my upcoming releases. SUPERSTROBE is designed to be the beginning of greater things to come!

Maybe a SUPERSTROBE (Remixes)shhh I didnt tell you that. Due to the pandemic, SUPERSTROBEs release campaign has been a bit incomplete without any live showcase so more live shows of SUPERSTROBE to come.

Take a trip to Earth-527 with Shelhiel's SUPERSTROBEhere.

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Behind The Lens: Shelhiel on creating a futuristic Kuala Lumpur in - Bandwagon