New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Known throughout the Southwest United States for their stunning recreations of Santana's music, Savor recently produced videos for several of their original songs. The goals: to help keep the band engaged with their listeners, and to provide a new avenue for people to discover their own music.
Released several years ago, Savor's album Moviendote has received rave reviews, and sold several thousand copies at their shows. Now three of the songs have videos to accompany the music.
"We had two obstacles to overcome in filming these videos," explains guitarist and songwriter Michael Caroff. "The first is that the band members' residences are separated by as much as 300 miles. But more importantly, we had to ensure that the entire process take place under the stringent safety precautions necessitated by the pandemic."
To make sure that the conditions were safe for everyone involved, each band member performed to the songs individually, against a "green screen" background. Other than when they were performing, the band members wore face masks. At all times, the prescribed social distancing was observed.
Although people in Southern California are more familiar with the group in their role as a
Santana Tribute band, the decision to make videos for the original music was a logical one.
"We already have a very well-produced live-performance video for the
Santana music," recounts Caroff. "So there was no need to repeat that in a studio. And I had wanted for quite long time to produce videos for the songs on our album."
The first of the videos to be released is for the title track: Moviendote. Besides band member performances, the video includes clips of people dancing, from kids to seniors. The concept reflects the song title, which means "move yourself" in English, and serves as an encouragement to keep people active even while sheltering in place.
As a bonus, later this year the band will release an additional video titled "Behind the Camera: Making the Videos." This includes a look at the process involved in creating the pieces, as well as some commentary from the band members about what the shutdown has been like for musicians.