Synopsis

Cut Copy perform against a stark, studio-built backdrop while a succession of athletes enters from different directions, each apparently competing in a different sport. Hockey players, baseball players, martial artists and other competitors collide in a deliberately mismatched parade of equipment, poses and movements. The band's calm, static performance contrasts with the increasingly chaotic action around them. A small romantic thread develops amid the confusion, before the video pushes its dreamlike logic toward an unexpected, surreal conclusion.

Factoids & Trivia

• The video was made for "Need You Now," the opening track on Cut Copy's 2011 album *Zonoscope*. The song's gradual build from restrained synth pulses to a larger electronic climax is mirrored by the video's steady escalation from oddity to outright absurdity.

• Cut Copy had wanted to work with Keith Schofield for some time after discovering that he was a fan of the band through the Internet. The project was built around one of Schofield's ideas involving a photography-based visual trick.

• The band traveled to Los Angeles for the shoot. Dan Whitford said the group spent much of the production seated in director's chairs and laughing at the athletes performing sports they were not normally associated with.

• The action was filmed with the performers and band members working in front of a green screen, allowing the athletes to appear to run through and around the band's performance space.

• The clip deliberately mixes sporting references rather than presenting a coherent competition. Its comic effect comes from familiar athletic gestures being transferred into the wrong context, including equipment being used for unexpected purposes.

• A short teaser released before the full video showed a hockey player swinging a samurai sword, offering an intentionally misleading preview of the clip's strange sports-world logic.

• Contemporary coverage highlighted the video's combination of moving portrait-like compositions, a small love story and a finale that abandons ordinary narrative logic.