Prodigy

Jude Grant’s music film featuring two songs from his album “Protagony” explores his journey in surrendering his expectations when it comes to love and romance.

Director: Ricardo Bouyett
Producer: Grant Mower
Music Artist: Jude Grant
Production Assistant: Daisy Cardenas

Cast:
Beloved – Edoardo Caputo
Lover – Jude Grant

Jude Grant approached me at the beginning of the year wanting to collaborate on a music film for his album ‘Protagony’. The body of work deals a lot with love and is an authentic journey of discovering one’s relationship to love itself, our intimacy issues, and offers a unique insight into the dissolution of young relationships and the roles we play in their demise. For months we conceptualized and landed on creating a film that highlighted the opening tracks on his album, “Opening Credits” and “Prodigy”, which lend themselves as proper introductions into Jude Grant’s world of ‘Protagony’.

Opening with lines from Arthur Rimbaud’s “Ophélie, “Opening Credits” teases at the themes and motifs that are further realized in the album. For this film, in particular, “Opening Credits” plays as more of a call back to Jude Grant’s nostalgia that is put under an emotional microscope in “Prodigy”. Throughout the aforementioned song, Jude Grant reflects on the fateful encounter with his previous lover and eventually the “prodigy in romance” poses the question: “Why’s the answer always a question I’m just too afraid to ask?” He responds to the question with a self-proclamation of naivety and youthfulness, chalking it up to experience.

Rose-colored classes take on a new form in this film as Jude Grant reminisces through the eyes of a phantom cloaked in red fabric. Constantly replaying that night and kissing what is essentially a ghost, Grant holds up a mirror to those of us who’ve used other people’s lips to remember a past that doesn’t want us back. Effectively reminding us that the losses we face in love are almost universal and transcend sexuality. Though we see a young musician on the rise deal with his failures in love, it is not to say that there isn’t triumph in both the music and film. This story is one of disillusionment, yes, but also of acceptance. Jude Grant’s character of the “lover” accepts the reality of his relationship to this ghost and surrenders the fallacy he’s built of them. He tries to find a way forward in that disappointment through his poignant performance and simple display of his memories. Jude Grant’s “Prodigy” is a reminder that losing in love is inevitable but there is still beauty in losing what is no longer for us.

Production lasted two days and we filmed in Grant’s hometown of Long Grove, IL. As soon as we wrapped I head straight into post-production and checked in with Grant to receive approval on the final cut.