After his wonderful, multi-award-winner for Memory Tapes’ Yes I Know – including winning at last year’s UK Music Video Awards – Eric Epstein has finally directed a new music video. Perhaps surprisingly, its for the modern classical pairing of American violinist Hilary Hahn and German pianist Hauschka for their track Draw A Map – but this instrumental piece is the basis for another work of delicate magic and wonder from the director and hugely talented visual effects artist.

In the video a woman researcher produces an unassuming wooden box, which turns out to be an intriguingly arcane recording device that produces a physical manifestation of a waveform, hovering just above the machine. It may not be as spectacular as the ‘disappearing man’ effects of Memory Tapes, but the excellence and impact of the effect is in its subtlety, and it forms part of the narative which explores a process of experimentation.

“The video shows a researcher working on a machine to record sensory experience,” Eric Epstein explains of the Hilary Hahn and Hauschka video. “She’s figuring out how to process the signal by recording herself and trying to tune patterns out of the chaos. Later on, recording multiple test subjects in one location with different senses isolated, is a bit like recording a band playing with multiple microphones. But music sort of is a wavey thing that connects to other senses in mysterious ways, so I suppose it’s about synesthesia.”

Hilary Hahn and Hauschka
Draw a Map (Deutsche Grammophon)
Director: Eric Epstein
Producer: Eric Epstein
Associate Producer: Desmond Williams
Prod company: [none]
DoP: Eric Epstein
Art Director: Eric Epstein
Prop Construction: Andi Burnett & Eric Epstein
Stylist: [none? I loosely advised the actors as to what to wear, and went through some options with the lead]
Editor: Eric Epstein & Robert Lopusk
Colourist: Eric Epstein
Effects: Eric Epstein
Actors: Jordan Bruner, Nadia Husain, Kevin Lawler, Edward Tasick, Ayli Velorok, Desmond Williams, Nancy Diana Wong