Manchester four-piece Everything Everything called upon Ross and Bugsy of OneInThree to translate the plaintive, melodic tones of new single My Kz, Ur Bf – released to coincide with numerous festival dates throughout the summer – and the directors created their own distinctive take on the frozen-time method.

“There was a very specific brief from the band for this track, and they wanted to make sure we featured an Iraqi insurgent in the video,” say Ross and Bugsy. “They were also very film literate and had made a series of their own videos prior to this one. The gist of the band’s briefs and the songs lyrics is essentially capturing the contrast between the minutia of everyday relationships played out against the backdrop of war and disaster.

“As a way of dealing with this issue we were inspired by The Guardian’s ‘Points of View’ ad, in that we wanted each shot starting out showing one thing, but then as the camera tracks backwards it reveals more of the story, occasionally confounding your expectations. This concept extended to the video as a whole, in that the combination of shots is actually revealed to be the set of a video, when finally a missile strikes and blows everything up.

“We shot on the Canon 1D as it was small enough to complete one of our camera moves through the car windows. Each individual camera move was meticulously planned, previsualized and timed, having to link from one to the next with no room for error. Technically the frozen time effect is very simple, all the actors just had to stand still while we hung a few key props to make it look like time was standing still, this same technique was used in last years Phillips Carousel. Some of the actors had better body control than others and special thanks must go to The Mill for their tireless work in steadying and fixing a number of the shots.

“Also big shout outs to Patrick Craig, Ross McLennan, Bex Crofton-Atkins, and especially to our art director Nathan Parker. One day before the shoot we asked him to turn the set of The Bill into a post-apocalyptic wasteland, with no extra budget”.

Everything Everything
My Kz, Ur Bf (Geffen)
Director: OneInThree
Producer: Patrick Craig
Production Company: Colonel Blimp
DoP: Ross McLennan
Art Director: Nathan Parker
Editor: Ross Elliot Cooper
Post: The Mill
Grade: James Bamford
Flame: Paul Downes/Siro Valente
Shake: Georgina Parr
Commissioner: Richard Skinner
Watch: Quicktime Movie