The Young Irish Director Winning Big in L.A with New Music Video ‘need to feel your LOVE’

The music video “need to feel your LOVE”, directed and edited by Ciara Schaefer to the song of the same name by 49th & Main (ft Chameleon), made waves across the pond at the Los Angeles Movie and Music Awards, winning Best European Music Video. Not only that, but the video also won Best Choreography at the European Music Video Awards this summer. I had the absolute pleasure of catching up with Ciara, talking through all of her recent successes, struggles on set and the bright career ahead of her.

Where are you based?

I'm currently heading into my fourth year at the National Film School in the Institute of Arts Design and Technology in Dún Laoghaire (IADT).

Are you originally from Dublin yourself?

So it's a bit complicated. I'm half Irish, but I was born in Belgium, then grew up in the Netherlands before moving here (Dublin) when I was a teenager. My dad is German, Belgian, Slovakian. So hence, my surname is German.
 So yeah, it's a little bit complicated.

Your newest project “need to feel your LOVE” just released today. How are you feeling?

So truthfully, on a bit of a buzz, because obviously we just released it and the support has just been incredible.

How did “need to feel your LOVE” begin?

So it all originally came from a college project. We had a module to create a non-dialogue short film, and as someone who has a background in movement and dance and gymnastics, I was just like, well, dance is a form of communication without dialogue. 

So I really wanted to do something with dancers for the short film. However, in college it's very competitive, and only a couple films get selected to be made. Unfortunately, mine didn't get selected, but that didn't stop me. 

It ended up being about two years later or a year and a half later that I ended up creating the project. I had already reached out to the dancers a couple years ago who’d agreed to be part of it. So I reached out again and they were still interested in being involved, which was brilliant.

We started to get the ball rolling by doing some rehearsals with the dancers. Hands down to Georgia Whittingham, who plays Beatrix in the music video, because she helped us get free rehearsal space in the dance studio she teaches in. Without her and her connection, it would have been very expensive.
So thank you Georgia, she's brilliant. We also collaborated with Gabo, he's a self taught dancer, but he has such a brilliant mind and brilliant choreography as well. I just felt like he would fit the role perfectly as well. 

This music video got some success in the Los Angeles Movie and Music Awards. You guys won Best European Music Video, correct? 

Yeah, yeah, we did. I woke up and I saw the news and I just screamed. I ran around the house and I picked up my dog, and flung her out the window, I’m just joking. I was so happy. Oh my God, I was ecstatic. 

It was insane because before that we won Best Choreography for the Europe Music Video Awards. It’s incredible especially since it's quite a unique music video. Usually there's one choreographer assigned to choreograph everybody. But in “Need to feel your LOVE”, I really wanted it to be a collaboration of all the dancers, so all the lead cast helped choreograph their own characters' roles. 

Focusing on working on what emotion your character is feeling in this moment and which kind of dance style and dance moves will help represent that emotion in the best way. It was important to bring each of their personalities to the characters.

You’ve got a background in dance yourself, correct? 

Yeah, so I think my first love is actually gymnastics. I have done competitive gymnastics since I was like six or seven years old. My favourite discipline was the floor routine, which is a combination of dance and gymnastics. Then when I was a teenager, I went to a good few dance classes, I joined a couple troops etc. Movement is such a big part of my life, especially if you're feeling happy or sad, you just want to have a dance in your kitchen. I feel like it's quite relatable, or even going to the club with the girls and going for a boogie.

I think it really influences a lot of my work in terms of videography, cinematography and directing. I think in the future, I just want to incorporate more movement for my next project. In particular, I really want to incorporate stunt doubles. So that should be exciting as well.

“need to feel your LOVE” wasn't the official music video for the song though was it?

Yeah, that's actually a great question. So it's a spec video. It's a video that shows off an artist's work. So all of us, the group of dancers and crew, wanted to showcase and highlight our skill. Sometimes there are projects that land on your lap that don’t align with what you're capable of. So you take on your own initiative to make a project to show what you're capable of as a director or as a cinematographer, and that's what the spec music video is. So the artist 49th and Main, they're well aware of and they really appreciate it. I even had a chat with them in person, but no, it's not the official music video for them.

What were some difficulties you faced creating “need to feel your LOVE”?

So there were a lot… a lot of ups and downs as well. The lead dancer pulled out of the music video, which was so disappointing, she just wasn't available the week running up for the rehearsals, which was just devastating. I had just landed in Brussels at the time when she was telling me and I was like, oh shit, I need to figure this out, what do I do next?

One of the backing dancers, Becky, within the week, she stepped up to the table to be the lead dancer and, oh my God, she picked up the choreography so quickly and I cannot thank her enough. She did such a brilliant job at bringing the character to life. I really admire how  dancers are just incredible at picking up choreography. They could see it once and they'll be able to regurgitate and repeat the moves back to you so quickly. It's insane how talented they are, I just want to continue working with dancers. But yeah, that was a big struggle. 

I cannot forget my co producer, Beruh. She was just incredible at helping me figuring out locations, because it turned out to be quite a challenge. We were originally going to shoot at the IADT library, but they don't allow film students to film in the library although we were promised we could. It was really annoying. However, thanks to Beruh we secured Griffith College library instead. They were the best. They were so welcoming and made it so easy for us to film there. We didn't even have a supervisor; they just gave us the keys to the library on a Sunday.
 We had the whole space to ourselves. You know, things may seem like they're going wrong, but it always works out in the end.

What was something new you learned while making the music video?

I edited the video as well and had to deal with things that maybe I didn't fully consider in pre-production. So I'd say the biggest thing I learned, especially from editing, is the time it takes for the camera to move to each dance sequence. Sometimes I had to cut them off a little bit and we missed some of the dance sequence because I was just timing it from the second that this sequence ends and when the next one starts. So it didn't end up incorporating the time it takes for the camera to transition, which meant taking away like two seconds, but it does affect the edit a lot.

Was film something that you always knew you wanted to do, or was there a defining moment?  

It was definitely in TY during COVID. Especially after the junior cert, I realised, oh, I hate exams, like exams are just not for me. I always loved doing course work and like putting my soul and energy into creating something beautiful.

But also, I had a lot of people with me who did YouTube. I was always so curious about them, how they do it. I never became a fully YouTuber myself, but obviously Seán Treacy (DOP of the music video) is a YouTuber and they would teach me a lot of things. I don't think I ever fully built up that confidence to be a full-time YouTuber or be that consistent. 
But I think I found my place behind the camera, just creating the work that I want to do in the form of directing. That was definitely where I fell in love with filmmaking.

Do you kind of have your eyes set on a new goal that you want to work towards now? Is it music videos,
is it short films, feature lengths? What's in the future for Kira Schaefer?

At the moment I'm going into final year and I'm taking a little bit of a different direction. I'll be doing a documentary. I'm so excited to broaden my horizons.
 But I think no doubt I'll always be doing music videos. I'm obsessed with them. I even have another music video coming out next month around Halloween for this band called For Nina for their song “Swallow”.

In terms of probably the next five years, I definitely want to make a feature, but features do take between three and five years to make. It is no easy or quick business. So probably getting the ball rolling with the feature film is definitely on the table for me.

Watch need to feel your LOVE here.

Written by Jack Murray (@Jack.mrry)

Edited by Alex Kelleher (@alex_kelleher_)