“No Fear” is the first single from my upcoming EP, Mirrors & Medicine.
The song has become a personal anthem in my life, and I hope it resonates with others in the same way.
Too often, we are afraid to step beyond what we know. We allow uncertainty to outweigh the opportunity to move forward in faith toward something greater, something purposeful and something we were made to pursue.
No longer will the fear of rejection, failure or whatever else fills that blank keep us from becoming who we were created to be.
Turning a Leap of Faith Into a Music Video
When I developed the treatment for the Deraj “No Fear” music video, I immediately pictured someone taking a leap of faith.
What better way to portray that than by having me jump from a mountain?
I also wanted the video to begin in the middle of someone’s journey.
It represents those moments when we have already come so far in pursuit of something, only to reach a point where we feel we cannot go any farther.
The remaining pieces began falling into place as I continued thinking through the concept.
Finding a Mountain in Central Florida
After completing the preproduction sketches and test shots, we spent one day filming in Orlando, Florida.
I was fortunate to find a dirt mound near my home that provided the mountain-like setting I wanted.
You will not find many actual mountains in Central Florida.
Apparently, filmmaking sometimes requires faith, creativity and a generous definition of topography.
Building 18 Fantasy Landscapes
Postproduction took nearly a month.
The process included editing and color-grading the performance footage. I also sorted through more than 500 still photographs.
From there, I composited 18 fantasy landscapes in Adobe Photoshop and animated the scenes in Adobe After Effects.
The finished video combines live-action footage with environments built from those photographs and digital elements.
I could not be happier with the result.
It was an incredibly fun and creative project to make, and I hope you enjoy the finished video.
Watch Deraj’s “No Fear” featuring Ginelle Yvonne below.
About the contributor: Jared “Deraj” Wells is an Orlando-based hip-hop artist, producer and multimedia designer. His work combines candid lyricism with influences from hip-hop, pop, rock and alternative music, while his visual projects extend that creative approach into design, photography and video production.