Featured Selection

Ethan Gold

"I’m Always Sad"

Filmed aboard a night train travelling between Rīga and Tukums, I’m Always Sad turns a moving railway carriage into a space for reflection, memory, and emotional drift. Shot over a single evening in Latvia, the video draws together local crew, musicians, and performers to create a visual companion to a song born from travel, distance, and disconnection.

Below, artist Ethan Gold reflects on the people behind the project, the challenges of the production, and the ideas that run beneath the tracks.

How many people worked on your selected video? Who played a key role in it?

The music video for my song “I’m Always Sad” was filmed in Latvia on an early January night train, riding back and forth twice from Rīga to Tukums, using Latvian crew, extras, and musicians to play my band. Directed by Ari Gold, who kept an eye on drama and look and vibe and my performance. Producer Toms Beķeris was also essential, putting together a fantastic Latvian crew and cast of extras. The band Zōna learned the song enough to brilliantly and dramatically pretend to play. Elza Ābele was essential in creating the slightly Soviet look we wanted. Editor John Paul Horstmann did heroics to take footage from multiple cameras from a chaotic one-evening shoot and turn it into the dramatic piece it is. The whole Latvian cast and crew were amazing.

Location and visual simplicity became central to shaping the final atmosphere of the film.

How long did it take to make it? What was the process (in short)?

Pre-production was about a week or two, shooting was one evening, and editing took a long time.

As with many productions built around real-world conditions, the footage presented challenges that only became apparent once the editing process began.

What challenges did you face while working on the video?

We have the Latvian rail system to thank. The biggest challenge was in editing, for John Paul to get the snowy gloomy night look despite our footage having some great snowfall from the end of the night, but no snow at the beginning when we started shooting.

Among the many images captured during the journey, one sequence stands out as the emotional centerpiece of the film.

What part of the video is your favorite?

There’s a moment towards the end of my singing the last lines of the album “it’s my black wolf that I feed”, when the editing between the slow motion of the band, shots of buildings, and the moving trains creates a kind of stomach-dropping visual poetry.

Is there any message that the video is sending that you don’t want the viewer to miss?

The song was written on a train ride from Berlin to the Netherlands in winter, alienated and far from home, with war ongoing in Europe, disconnection from community and self throughout the world, social insecurity from social media, disconnection from the Earth, and many of us carrying trauma. The train is both literal and metaphorical. But art can be a balm for pain. This is my lullaby to the black current running under the tracks of my life, and maybe the lives of others.

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