Synopsis
A young boy witnesses his father being shot during a criminal job. Desperate to reverse the loss, he seeks help from a mysterious woman whose ritual appears to restore the dead man to life. The reunion is uneasy, and the father's return seems connected to a gun and a disturbing family legacy. Presented through eerie black-and-white tableaux with selective movement, the video gradually blurs the line between memory, supernatural intervention, and the boy's fractured perception, culminating in an ambiguous and unsettling final turn.
Factoids & Trivia
- The video was made for Joel Compass' debut track and released through Black Butter Records and Polydor. The song appears on his 2013 EP "Astronaut."
- Its visual language is based on cinemagraphs: each shot combines a mostly frozen image with carefully isolated movement. The effect gives the film a flickering, uncanny quality.
- The production team filmed roughly 10 seconds of motion for each setup, asking performers to hold their poses. In post-production, still frames were layered over the moving footage using masking, rotoscoping, and stabilization in Adobe After Effects.
- Producer Dilly Gent introduced the filmmakers to Chris Marker's 1962 film "La Jetee," a major inspiration for the video's still-image storytelling and its meditation on life, death, and memory.
- The cast includes Jim Tavaré as the father, Nicholas Neve as the son, and Veronica Bloom as the doctor.
- The production was handled by Prettybird, with Patrick Scola serving as cinematographer and Cooper Roberts as editor.
- The video became a Vimeo Staff Pick shortly after its release.
- It won the Grand Jury Prize for Music Video at SXSW in 2014, as well as 2013 MVPA awards for Best International Video and Best Directorial Debut. It also won Best Urban Video at the 2013 UK Music Video Awards.