Band: Cold Arizona

Vocals: Indee Killed the Pop Star aka Jennifer Zuiff

Written and Directed by Eva Midgley

Produced by: Peter Scott

Location Services & Travel: Barbarita Tours, la Paz

Edited by: Chee-Han Kartosen

Cinematography by: Alfredo Baroso (underwater)

Cinematography by: Eva Midgley (above water)

Graded by: Luke Osborne

Post production by Luke Midgley

The first time I heard the On A Hill I was stuck in traffic in New York, torrential rain heaving around me. Jennifer (Zuiff’s) pure voice infused with raw melancholy brought me to tears. Without the lyrics spelling it out, you understand it was about the pain of losing someone. Before the song was over I was scrambling to get hold of Peter Scott, of Cold Arizona, to convince him to let me shoot the video.

Despite the song being called On A Hill, my instinct was to set it under water. A man under water, while the woman, his love, is above. He is joyous and at one with the sea, but slowly it weighs him down and he drowns in it. She cannot reach him unless she is willing to join him. The loss is to addiction.

The underwater DOP, Alfredo Barroso, who lives in La Paz, spends a lot of time in the mangroves in San Everisto, Baja California, filming the incredibly beautiful and diverse ecosystem. He showed me some footage and it was magical. Completely off the grid, we camped out on a beach near the mangrove forest, a box of wood shavings for a toilet, beaches full of rattle snakes, midges that are immune to any spray, with a. My camera bugged out in the heat, so we hung out on our little boat to wait for it to come back to life.

At night, when the tequila came out, we had long conversations about addiction. In one way or another, all of us had very direct experience with being next to someone who was struggling with alcohol or drugs, standing by their side wanting to help, being unable to, and having to make difficult choices to self-preserve.