“I began directing music videos because I wanted to create fantastical worlds and alternative realities,” says director Lisa Mann, who skillfully achieves those objectives in Yellowcard's Light Up The Sky. As ominous clouds hover overhead, the band performs on a bleak apocalyptic landscape inhabited by a grotesquely deformed population. Inspired by the song's optimistic lyrics that beckon to Light Up The Sky, the ghastly surroundings are ultimately brightened by a stunning break in the clouds, releasing a downpour of liquid sunshine in the form of orange rain.

“The characters needed to feel like that had been roaming this desolate landscape for years after a really big party took place,” explains Mann. “In my head, the back story of the characters were in this otherworldly land where everything has been taken away, burnt and blackened, but they are somewhat hopeful that one day it will change, one day they will see something different.”

Toronto post production house Optix did some composites and animated the cloud. “It was very time-consuming in post, perfecting the effects and creating the cloud as it had to look as tangible as the rest of the piece,” says Mann.

Optix and editor Mark Morton did a great job: the landscape and sky are superbly-executed palettes of grey tones. Mann was strongly focused on creating a monochromatic world for a couple of reasons, allowing only skin tones on the band and characters as a source of colour. “When deciding on the painted backdrop, we chose to work with something that wasn't just black and white because that would be too easy and obvious,” says the director. “I wanted it to feel like it was this grey, depressed world and allow for excitement when the colour came at the end.” But Mann adds she is also highly colour-sensitive

“I like the monochromatic world - it's peaceful and beautiful to me. My house is very monochromatic: we don't even have plants or flowers. At one point the band asked if it would rain many colours, but that would have blown my brain cells.”