Charles Bradley - Changes - music video (2016)

This is a highly emotional video, with the simplest tools. Good lighting, a face and eyes that expresses the loss suffered, that is all. Charles Bradley's album, "Changes" is released today, and this song is an amazing R&B cover of Black Sabbath's song. In 1972, the lyrics were inspired by Bill Ward's ongoing breakup with his first wife, but when Charles Bradley covers it we hear a completely different story, one of a dying mother and her son. Inez Bradley makes a brief appearance in the documentary you can find a trailer for here, and even in that it's clear she is his guiding light.

“I think about the lyrics very closely when I sing ‘Changes’ and get emotional,” notes Bradley. “It makes me think of my mother and the changes in my life since she passed away.”

We've seen the "face only" music video before, like when Sinead O'connor cried while covering Prince's song "Nothing compares to you", but this takes it up a notch. In this video, they've made the choice of having Charles Bradley not mime along, which make the emotion in his eyes even more powerful and every gesture mean so much more. Charles was originally set to sing along to the track and film in Times Square but, in the editing room, director Eric Feigenbaum (Remedial Media) says he “kept coming back to the take of Charles looking straight at the camera, telling the story with his eyes and reacting in the moment to the song. We only did that once. By the end of the take, everybody in the room was holding back tears.”

Client: Daptone Records
Director: Eric Feigenbaum
Producer: Jessie English
Production company: Remedial Media
Editor: Jimmy Giannopoulos at PGDM
DOP: Eric Feigenbaum
1st AC : Pete Moses
Key Grip: Akosh Barr
Hair and Makeup: Jacob Gerarghty
Production Assistant: Dima Dubson @dimadubson
Color Grading: Demon Dalton