Video: Wait. Think. Fast., ‘Draw an Open Door’

Kevin Bronson on August 28th, 2020

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“We’ve been outnumbered by the crazy side / stupidly tethered to the world,” Jacqueline Santillan sings on “Draw an Open Door,” the new single from Wait. Think. Fast., the rock project she helms with her husband Matthew Beighley.

It’s the latest in the duo’s catalog (two albums, a sprinkling of singles) of shimmering rock anthems, this one arriving hopefully but warily like morning sunlight through an open window, a promise freighted by the heaviness of the world. “The lyrics muse on the instances in life when the world’s problems, the weight of being human, come up against your will; the desire to rise above and move forward,” the duo says. “When you feel yourself going dark, draw yourself an open door and fight your way through.”

Featuring Tom King on drums and recorded between Beighley’s home studio and the Cave Studio in Glassell Park, “Draw an Open Door” is the duo’s second single of 2020, following May’s “Chorus of Trees.” For the new song’s video, the duo convened with a small crew at the currently shuttered dA Center for the Arts in Pomona for a COVID-19-safe shoot, collaborating with visual artist Erté deGarces.

“He creates systems-based videos and performances that aim to flatten and conflate documents and images with the realities they represent,” Santillan explains. “The process involves placing the subject visually on top of and alongside herself, at scale, and choreographing to convey interactions, shapes, textures and a sense of multiple voices. DeGarces had contributed previously to our “Chorus of Trees” collage video, and we were fascinated by it.

“This collaboration was a dream — an incredible, real life, moving puzzle we got to play around with for a few days. As someone who doesn’t enjoy being photographed or filmed, it was liberating because I was focused on the process, the space and the idea behind the entire collaboration. You let go of vanity.”

||| Watch: The video for “Draw an Open Door”