Music: director Nuno Barbosa layered images of pop artist Emmy Curl over her body during this one-take music video for her single Come Closer.

In Barbosa's video, Portuguese singer Curl's image is projected onto her while she stands against a plain black background.

Multiple projections of the singer performing slightly different motions overlap and conflict with her body as she mouths the lyrics to the track.

"The first thing that came to my mind after listening to the lyrics was two beings coming together," the Porto-based director told Dezeen.

"We decided that we were going to use Emmy's image only – her true self versus her projection."

On occasion, visualisations of Curl covered in four different UV paint patterns are directed onto her face and neck – synced to echo her movements with a slight time delay.

Artist João Tiago Fernandes created the body-paint designs, which reference snippets of the song's lyrics.

For example, an animated painted bird takes flight from her neck after she sings: "I've got wings that taught me how to fly."

The complicated production process consisted of three main procedures.

In the first round of filming, Barbosa shot frontal and profile images of Curl to be used as projections during the final performance.

Curl then performed choreographed movements while covered in luminous paint and under a special UV light.

Barbosa took the sequences created during these earlier sessions, added basic effects and animation via software, and projected the resulting clips onto the singer while filmed again.

Curl performed a slightly different choreography than in the projections to create various effects across her face and body, using a mirror to work out where the images were landing.

"That setup was pretty awkward," Barbosa admitted to Dezeen. "The projector was settled on an ironing board, with the camera above it. The camera was right above the projector lens to get as little distortion as possible."

The video took three weeks to make in total, with no post-production done on the final take.

"We want to show the imperfections and fragility of reality," said the director. "The final result has an analogue feel that would have been impossible to achieve in a post-production environment."

Come Closer is the first single to be taken from Emmy Curl's album Navia, which is due out in early 2015.