This music video was shot on Avenue D in New York City. We found an amazing location: Local residents had renovated their city garden and erected a wonderful red cabin, Appalachian style. They used it for parties and relaxation. (The surrounding gardens that they maintain (as volunteers) are so lovely, that upon entering the yard and relaxing on the porch of the cabin, one can almost forget that they are in New York City). The men were friendly and happy to let us film for free.

As shoot time approached, we secured the help of videographer Bill Swofford, collected costumes and props, and prepared a cd with the song "My Virgin Widows" repeating about 10 times, so that we could lip-synch without stopping and starting a million times.

On the day of the shoot, it threatened to rain, but we decided to press on, and shoot as quickly as possible. We arrived with beer and snacks for the men who allowed us use of the garden, and they stayed to watch us work. The set up was quick, two cameras, a cd player and a few props. Our bass player, David Mecionis, was asked to play a trombone along to the track instead of bass, and our drummer, Hajji Majer, played a snare drum which was tied around his neck. Eric played banjo, and I sang. We were intentionally going for the "Appalachian-state-fair-Disney-murder-ballad" vibe, and we got it, especially after Eric got his hands on the footage. The whole shoot was wrapped after only 45 minutes, as it began to rain, but we were done anyway. It was probably the fastest shoot in Blessed Elysium's history.

Eric changed the video footage, which was pretty good to begin with, but not exactly the look we wanted. In After -Effects, he altered the colors, added film effects, like flicker, hairs in the projector gate, and film grain. He pumped the colors up to an almost technicolor look, and added some blur so that the footage would not look like digital video footage anymore. After he fixed the footage, he added animation. the graphics came from a book "The Dance of Death", and Eric cut some of the pictures out and animated a drumming skeleton. First, he shot footage of himself drumming to the song, then he brought in the skeleton and animated it's movements over his own, so that the skeleton appeared to be drumming in beat with the song.

Eric then created the bouncing skull over the song's lyrics, and an adorable title card, reminiscent of old Warner Brothers cartoons, asking the audience to sing along with Mors Syphilitica. Of, course, the lyrics Eric wrote for the song are violent and graphic, although so poetically written, most people don't catch their meaning right away. The video is doing the festival circuit presently.