A woman in a pink, see-through top and black underpants dances licentiously on a pole. Two female models, each dressed like an Axel Rose prototype, molest each other near the stage. Atop a coffee table, another model shakes her hips while overlooking a crowd of sweaty, head-banging fans. Onstage, Leaving Eden slams through their pounding metal anthem, "The Beast."

It's a typical rowdy rock video scene, but the band's instruments are not plugged in. When the prerecorded song blasting over the speakers ends fans and band members alike mop sweat and runny makeup from their faces, massage their aching necks, and get ready to do it all over again. This isn't a video, it's a video shoot, and its been going on for hours inside River's Edge Studio in Haverhill, Mass.
Outside of a couple of homemade videos, this is Leaving Eden's first experience in front of the camera. After two years of building a following, they're ready. Singers Carole Tardif and Loretta Gygnan, guitarist Eric Gygnan, bassist Joe Gygnan and drummer Matt Boucher performed last September before over 15,000 fans at the Locobazooka Festival in Fitchburg, Mass. They've played in 37 cities and have appeared with several major national acts, including Sevendust. They also recently completed their first full-length CD, Deception. When they made the acquaintance of film and video director Marcus Constance, who last year directed a video for Boston-based group The Charms, the band decided it was time to delve into the bizarre and arduous world of music videos. 

River's Edge Studio, birthplace of Godsmack's second album, Awake, is located in a nondescript brick building off a dodgy back alley by the Merrimack River. The second floor of the converted warehouse is split into two halves. On the left is a dingy boxing gym where punching bags hang like limp cadavers around a sparring ring. On the studio side, a maze of dusty, wood-floored hallways runs past a number of doorways with "No Trespassing" signs. From within each room, discordant metal blares and echoes down the halls. One of these rooms, in a back corner of the building, is the recording studio co-owned by Eric Gygnan.

To Eric and the rest of the band, the videos offer an opportunity to advertise themselves to record labels while enhancing the experience of the songs.

"My feeling is that if a picture tells a thousand words, then a video's gonna tell ten thousand words. A song will always take on a new meaning when you've got a video behind it," said Eric.
He also believes that music videos can be effective tools in demonstrating a high level of professionalism to curious record labels. The band has been in contact with several labels, and they hope that by presenting them with a few well-crafted videos, one of the labels will be encouraged to sign the band. It's this hope that motivated the group to commit so much effort and money into the project. They'll be shooting three consecutive videos at the studio in a single day, and the total cost will be about $13,000, not a slight sum for a group that still works day jobs. The videos were scripted by Constance, who operates his company, a713 Production, out of Stratham with his wife, Bethany.

At a meeting of the band and film crew on Tuesday, June 21, Constance explained the concept of the video for "The Beast." 

"It's gonna be like Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit,'" he stated simply.

Constance has traveled back and forth between New Hampshire and L.A. for most of the past two decades. He's worked as an assistant director on an impressive list of major Hollywood films, including Terminator 3, Bad Boys 2, Being John Malkovich, and Fever Pitch (see Constance schmoozing with Hollywood stars on his new Web site, www.a713production.com). But from the beginning of his career, Constance's dream has been to direct music videos. He hopes that by developing a symbiotic relationship with aspiring groups like Leaving Eden, he too will see his dream realized in the near future.

Each Eden video was originally conceived as a series of comic-book style drawings depicting the nascent scenes. Constance listened to the songs obsessively, attuning himself to the mood of each track, before brainstorming ideas for the videos. Though Eric had requested a Nirvana-style video for "The Beast," it was Constance who envisioned all the details.

"It is a very meticulous process," he said. "My big belief is that the more that you prep, the better it will turn out, because the prep part to me is the hardest part."

The five members of Leaving Eden are quickly becoming acquainted with the grueling process of video making. Before shooting began on Sunday, June 26, Gygnan's studio was transformed into a surreal film set. Artificial smoke and dim, blue light drown the stage. Expensive-looking film equipment and thick cables circumscribe the room. Scantily clad extras and production assistants armed with radios loiter in the hallways. 

At 9 a.m., Eric Gygnan and assistant director Marc Colucci are blazing down the halls in search of someone who resembles bassist Joe Gygnan. Joe has been forced to duck out of the shoot at the last minute because his wife has gone into labor. Eric eventually chooses an extra by the name of Gale Pauly. Pauly is immediately hauled into the dressing room, where hairstylists and wardrobe crew go to work on him.

With this obstacle overcome, the extras are herded into the studio and filming begins for "The Beast." The script is simple: Onstage, Leaving Eden tears through the raucous song. Meanwhile, the audience leaps and thrashes about like tadpoles on amphetamines.

The room is ungodly hot. But the heat is welcomed by the film crew, who covet visible beads of sweat on the tattooed flesh of the cast. Adding to the muggy environment is the smoke machine, which billows out fresh clouds every two or three minutes. Three crew members are assigned the job of wafting the smoke into the audience with cardboard flaps. Between each take, calls for more smoke reverberate through the room. More smoke please! Couple more blasts of smoke! Let's get a little more smoke on the stage!

The band runs through take after sadistic take. In one take, the camera is facing the band from the rear of the room. For the next, it's roaming through the audience. Next it's facing the crowd from behind the drum set. Then there's a take focusing on the dancer in pink. Then one on the girl in the torn prom dress. Then one focused on singer Carole. Then guitarist Eric. Then drummer Matt.      
   
Both the audience and the band manage to maintain a blistering level of intensity throughout every cut. Carole Tardif is especially animated, ravenously tugging at her long, black hair and exuding feral sex appeal. Eric plays close to the edge of the stage, provoking nearby crowd members to huddle in around him. They showed no sign of fatigue as Constance eyed the monitor and demanded still more meticulous takes. 

Around 1 p.m. the shots with the audience were finally compete. The extras thankfully filed out of the room and greedily attacked the catered pizza, coffee and beer. Outside, a rented ice cream truck provided frosty confections for everyone. 

Leaving Eden's work, however, has just begun. The next song they shoot, "Somewhere Behind," is a personal and emotional tune written by Eric. The camera is set up on a dolly to roll back and forth on tracks, allowing the viewer to move through the room. Again, the band is forced to run through the song over and over, with the mobile camera adopting new angles and focal points.

Then comes an outdoor scene, in which Eric is filmed walking down the street by a camera perched on the roof of the studio looking down on him. This scene is complicated by the sudden onset of a blustery thunderstorm. Lightning shreds the sky as the film crew stands outside, on the roof, holding lots of metallic, electrical equipment. Fortunately, Zeus spares the determined gang. 

Around 7 p.m. strategizing begins for the third and final video, which was for a slower ballad called "The Deep." This video is to be shot in a dim and narrow hallway on the third floor of the building. In it, Eric plays an ancient, wooden piano topped by a brass bust of Beethoven. Carole, dressed in a queenly gown, floats through the room to join Eric at the piano just as the tune fades out; a fitting ending to both the song and the day of shooting.

Reflecting later on the day's events, Constance offered thorough approval.

 "I'm really happy overall because we had three different songs, three different tempos of songs, three different looks, and to be able to do it in 15 hours.... I think we did really well," he said. "The footage is amazing. It looks really good. I'm very, very happy."

It had been a hell of a day for the band and crew. But three high-end music videos in one day isn't too shabby. When the editing process is complete, it will be up to Leaving Eden to promote the videos, as well as themselves, and book some actual airtime. The prevailing attitude is that in the end the result will be well worth the money and effort. Carole Tardif summed up the band's sentiments.

"I can't say it's been smooth, there have been a few kinks, but overall it's been a lot of fun."