Josh Sondock's first project through London production studio KODE is an astute reflection on the image-making process itself. We talked to him about how he made his ingenious version of a one-take video for Nick Leng.There is something particularly satisfying about watching Josh Sondock's video for Nick Leng's Morning/Midnight - a video that consists of different layers, which works on almost as many levels within the film itself. It's one of those rare beasts that verges on the magical.First of all this is a terrific showcase for the relatively unknown South African-born singer-songwriter. Leng demonstrates a charisma and charm that persists, even as our view of him alters slightly, every few seconds. The second element is that repeatedly changing perspective - and also the revelation, fairly early on, that the image of Leng we are seeing is an image within the wider frame of the video - but that again is revealed to live within the video, as a mediated version of Leng.So the video has an intriguing meta-fictional device - but it also keeps the viewer guessing as to where that device is heading. And then things do happen in the choreographed journey through Leng's performance of the song, and through layers, to make you think: how did they do that? And ultimately, there is so much going on, you may not even spot that the video was apparently achieved in a single take.Josh Sondock has described the video, both accurately and mysteriously, as "a one-take music video in which a musician makes a one-take music video, in which a musician makes a one-take music video, in which a musician makes a one-take music video, in which a musician makes a one-take music video, in which a musician makes a one-take music video."But we wanted to find out more. How did he do achieve this feat? Why did he pursue this idea? And was it really a one-shot video?So Josh spoke to us, from his home in New York, to explain more about his tour de force for Morning/Midnight...Above: Josh Sondock (left) with Nick Leng on set of the Morning/Midnight shoot (photo: Nick Ventura)It's a one take video - but it also follows the timeline of a day, from morning to night, of him getting more and more frustrated.Promonews: It's a great concept. Is this something that had been lurking in the back of your brain for a while, or did it come out of the conversation with Nick Leng?Josh Sondock: It's the real deal but originally the idea was a bit different. It was going to be in this large auditorium space and it was going to be a one take, but without all the layers. It was just going to be Nick, but both the camera movement and Nick's choreography was going to have to be so precise, that I realised that was going to be hard to pull off if Nick was a bad actor - which you sometimes don't find out as a director until they're on set.And so I kind of was like: 'What's a different way that we can kind of evoke that same effect in a way that relies less on Nick and relies more on me'. I can trust myself to be able to execute a far more precise plan, if that doesn't rely on a performance that I can't guarantee. I started to think through, and I've always loved Rian Johnson's Mountain Goats video for Woke Up New. I mean, the technique is stolen from that completely. You stole the idea...?I stole the idea. But I think that the Mountain Goats video was really a proof of concept. It's the visual trick [of moving through layers of screens], but in my view it was the first step. There were so many more cool things that could be done.So how did you move the idea on from the Mountain Goats video?Well, monitors and cameras are high quality enough now that we don't need to do any VFX comps, as Rian did. We can do everything practically. Technology has come to place where we could do it better and also we could do more tricks faster.Rian Johnson took two days, and doesn't have all the tricks and all the storytelling that I think mine does. And we could do the same thing in one day.After I did a 'pre-pre-vis' - with my girlfriend in the Nick role - I knew that the technique was right for the song. And also, that I was the kind of director - fairly fledgling; detail-oriented; trying to prove myself without exploding from self-doubt - that could pull it off.After the concept was approved, I went back to the location and then filmed a pre-vis in the actual rooms!Nick was exhausted by the end of it... which was always part of my plan.Where did you shoot the video, and what did you have to do to prep for the shoot?We shot it [in an apartment] in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. It had all sorts of issues - no plumbing, and no electricity when we found the location. It had been a home and the person who had lived there was a hoarder. And so I had to basically get 'Porta potties', get the electricity turned back on, get the carpets cleaned, get the house cleared.Then I decided - I think maybe the day before the shoot - that at the end of every take... that we 'come out' of the video somehow - the camera realising something is wrong, so we keep coming to an end. We had pretty minimal lighting, but my DoP Andre Gavazzi - who's such a talented guy - organised the lighting so you could actually see Nick's face when he's up close.And we also shot it from morning to midnight... that opens with him in the morning and it ends with him at night. So the actual process of the video is a one take video, but it actually follows the timeline of a day of him getting more and more frustrated with the video. It's just so funny, because he was so exhausted by the end of it. He just legitimately was, which was always part of my plan. I wanted to wear him out. So it really is a one-shot, but that one-shot was created over the course of a day?Yes, exactly. And every time we got a layer I had to be moving on. It was like: 'Okay. Take three, we're moving on with it. That's going to be on the monitor'. And we had to just buy it. And then take three was baked into take four, take four into take five, take five into take six...There's one moment in the video that every time I watch it I'm like: 'That can't be correct' But it is. It's the last time we zoom out of the umbrella room and into the green room, where he's sitting with the lyrics on the wall. It just looks fake. We did it and I watched it back on set, out of the camera, and I did think: 'this looks fake'. But it's all real.The very last take is the whole video played back in reverse, audio and video...What about the reverse footage? You just played it out in reverse in those shots?The very last take we got is the whole video played back in reverse, audio and video. And then what you're seeing when you watch the video is just that final clip flipped.Then the whole crew literally watched the [finished] video at the end of the day. Everyone was like, 'this is so fucking cool'. Nick said it in one of the BTS clips: 'It's just a hit of dopamine.'EQUIPMENT USED IN EACH 'LAYER' OF THE VIDEOLAYER 0 - ARRI 416 [FILM] W. SD TAPLAYER 1 - RED KOMODO 6KLAYER 2 - ALEXA MINI W. ANGENIEUX 24-290MMLAYER 3 - ALEXA MINI W. ANGENIEUX 24-290MM & CHRISTIE 35K LUMEN PROJECTORLAYER 4 & 5 - ALEXA MINI W. ANGENIEUX 24-290MM What is the bigger theme going on here? Is it about the ubiquity of screens in our lives?I get that. But I think less about our lives being dominated from screens though, and more about curating your image. [We are] continually trying to curate and then re-curate and re-curate our image, to just be cool.For example, most of Nick's previous videos and Instagram content is in black and white. So I made that decision to make the most internal screen - or first screen - black and white, as if that's the version that he's curating.We continually try to curate, and then re-curate, our own image.So he's becoming more 'real' as it goes on?Exactly. That's the whole thing about meta, right? When you do stuff that's meta is you comment on the thing, and then you comment on the thing, and then comment on the thing, and so on.I was also inspired a lot by Bo Burnham: Inside. It's one of the best things I've seen in a long time, and it also plays on that similar thing of, I don't know, not to getting too 'in the weeds' of things... I think it's interesting how people sometimes think that if you can name something, if you can be meta about something, then you're excused from that. If you're aware of one of your flaws, then you're excused for that flaw. And a lot of music videos have become that it's like, if you show the set, you're aware of it, and you can name that it's a music video, And so suddenly it makes it better. But I don't think it really does.Being meta, in its own right is cool or whatever, but it's just a tool. It doesn't excuse the video from being good or bad, or telling a story or evoking something.I guess the added bonus was that Nick Leng is also really good in it?He's so good. I didn't have to really coach his choreography at all. He just nailed it.• Josh Sondock is represented by KODE for music videos and commercials in the UK - see more of his work here. Contact Claire Stubbs at Mouthpiece for more details here.

Things really took off in April - so we hung on to our hats and just tried to hold on, as the videos kept on coming...So it's a substantial round-up this month, including some real blockbusters: Henry Schofield's video for Ed Sheeran and Lil Baby; Autumn de Wilde latest promo for Florence; Harry Styles cool return courtesy of Tanu Muino; and a Todrick Hall epic by Roy Raz - all filmed wholly or partly in pre-war Kyiv.Furthermore we had the latest collab between Kylie Minogue and Sophie Muller (guest-starring disco legend Gloria Gaynor); the latest episode of Samm Henshaw and Jim Pilling's mini-series; 070 Shake reunited with Noah Lee; the continuing adventures of Wet Leg, this time with the versatile Lava La Rue; an intense Bishop Briggs shot by Tim Mattia; the mesmeric Nick Leng video by Josh Sondock... and lots more besides.

In our new series talking to up-and-coming talent in the world of music videos, we chat to the editor Jamie Hodgson, who has been making a serious impact over the past eighteen months with his work on a number of acclaimed projects.Jamie began his career in 2014 as an assistant editor at Work. Having travelled widely and bolstered by his background in tech and computing, Jamie quickly became senior cutting assistant in the London-based editing company, completing campaigns alongside Work’s roster of editors.He was promoted to full editor in 2020, and since then Jamie has worked on music videos and other projects for Mansur Brown, George Ezra, Arlo Parks, Pa Salieu, Celeste and Metronomy - alongside directors such as Jess Journo, Filmawi, Milo Blake and Raja Virdi.He says that his customary approach on these projects has been to put the music itself ahead of everything else. "The first thing is really listening carefully to the track and make something that fits the contours of the track," he says. "They say that musicians make good music editors, and it's true that a lot of the job is quite rhythmic, seeing what works well with the picture. In my opinion, you can't stray too far from that rule." And here, in Jamie's own words, are the favourite projects he has worked on... so far. YouTube Legacy Series: Pa Salieu x Tokyo James (dir: Filmawi) (2020)"My first opportunity to edit my own stuff beyond assisting were on performance videos for relatively unknown bands. I enjoy the restrictions sometimes of doing a performance video, building something that works well with the track."Then I did a YouTube documentary about 18 months ago that was about Black fashion designers and artists, where the artists performed as part of the doc, but they were made very much like promos - directed by Filmawi. The one that got most traction was with Pa Salieu - performing Over There [with designer Tokyo James] - shot on a rooftop."That project was great because it was working with artists that you might have heard of, and for music you liked."Metronomy – Things Will Be Fine (dir: Juliet Casella and Thibaud Caesar) (2021)"Joseph J Goldman was the producer on the YouTube Legacy Series and then Filmawi's Mansur Brown video, and got in touch about the Metronomy video. We had a Zoom call with the directors Juliet and Thibaud - who are based in France -at the start."Their idea of having Metronomy play the teenage versions of themselves really fed into nostalgia for me. Probably when I first came across them it probably would've been on MySpace - which of course features in the video. And I saw them loads of times around London when I moved back after university, around the time of the second album.There’s a sense of joy that carries through the Metronomy videos."Juliet and Thibaud's backgrounds are as artists. And their idea for the video was closely storyboarded. To have this storyboard, was great - it doesn't happen that often in music videos - and the first assembly was really the storyboard cut. From that point I think we realised that it needed to intercut some more and to be more dynamic. Because it's a music video people tend to want to make things more high-tempo, rather than let shots breathe. But in this case I do think that it was beneficial. "They speak English, but I think it can be more difficult to gauge someone's reaction to the cut, when it's not the directors' first language. And everything was done remotely of course, which is a different beast. But on the whole, it was mainly positive. It gave me a bit more time to work things out before sending stuff back to them without people peering over your shoulder.Obongjayar – Tinko Tinko (Don't Play Me For A Fool) (dir: Milo Blake) (2022)"This was my first time working with Milo Blake, a very talented director. In the video Obongjayar plays a janitor at an internet café. He logs in and types in the track name, and slowly you realise it's him singing back to himself, in the same location - but it's a very different, upside down version of his world, and that world starts to infect the real world.The challenge on this one was how you feed in the narrative into performance."We had a pretty crazy schedule on this - I initially had a day to assemble the first edit. The challenge on this one was more about how you feed in the narrative into performance. It's how you make it visually interesting and dynamic but keep this narrative thread running through it so it all makes sense. And once again it was VFX-heavy - lots of screen comps and other things going on."I feel fairly comfortable about doing comps to a certain level. When you're assisting here, on commercials, VFX is often what you learn first, before the editing. Often editors are concentrating on the cut, and will roughly comp something together and then call you in to work on it.Passenger - In The Blink of an Eye (dir: Raja Virdi) (2022)"The concept was to use a satellite crane camera to cycle through key moments in the artist’s life - with a series of hidden cuts giving the impression of a one-shot. Really the credit for this one must go to the direction and production - it was essential that the duration of each shot was spot on, if not there was really nowhere to hide… And of course the performance and set design was vital to drive the narrative."In terms of edit, it was relatively simple as most shots were tied to the specific lyrics, so the structure was pretty locked in. It was mainly about picking the best take for each set up and cleaning up the transitions a little."Metronomy – Right On Time (dir: Juliet Casella and Thibaud Caesar) (2022)"That was a massive post job. I don’t think I’m shattering the illusion here to say that a lot of wires needed to be removed. The VFX took a long time, there was a lot of back and forth. I did a few 'dirty comps' to begin with. The stuff that was easy to do, I would comp out, but with the more difficult skydiving stuff, I left it as it was. I don’t think I’m shattering the illusion to say that lots of wires had to be removed."But in terms of the edit, it was a similar situation as before – I started by assembling the storyboard. Again there was a bit of a desire to make it more high-tempo in parts, and we did move stuff around a little bit. It was a reasonably smooth process, not a lot of edit changes."I loved working on those Metronomy videos. There’s a sense of joy that carries through them, especially Right On Time. And that's really nice, especially in the times that we’re living in."Mansur Brown - My Prayer (dir: Filmawi) (2021)"We had a bunch of time to work on this - we started in January and finished in May. We also had lots of footage to work with, and Filmawi was in the room the whole time. Everything, every cut, was considered. And it's a long, instrumental track - over six minutes."The imagery that Fil shot worked really nicely in terms of the edit. For instance, the parallels between shots of trees in the forest and streetlamps in the city. There's a fair amount of stock footage in there too, and we spent a lot of time looking for the right thing that works, so it didn't look out of place."Then there was the VFX element as well, which was great. Fil spent a lot of time getting that right, to create the tiny universe within the film. Terrence Mallick's Tree Of Life was a big influence on this film. That features a floating light and we used that as our placeholder for this one while we were editing. "This is the favourite thing I've worked on. It works really nicely with the music, especially the nighttime scenes. When I hear the music now, I immediately think of the video."• Jamie Hodgson is an editor at Work Editorial. See more of his work here. Contact Charlie Dalton, Jamie's producer at Work in London here.

Our pick of the videos featured in March demonstrates how things are hotting up in 2022 in terms of music video production.From the return of Arcade Fire and Emily Kai Bock; through to the spectacular ambition of Stromae, reunited with Henry Schofield; Sudan Archives steaming up a furniture store with Jocelyn Anquetil; a subterranean Thom Yorke for The Smile, working with Bait's Mark Jenkin; and the political rage of rapper Residente, collaborating with Gregory Ohrel... There is some very good work here - and, as ever, lots more besides.

Our pick of the videos that featured on Promonews in February, is another smorgasboard of exceptional creativity for Arlo Parks, Chase & Status, Florence, Foals, Grimes, IDLES, Joy Crookes, Koffee, Yves Tumor - and many more.

Directing duo Bedroom - that's Soren Harrison and Amir Hossain (aka 'Blackksocks') - recently directed their first video for Lava La Rue, West London-based alt-pop artist, visual artist and founder member of the NiNE8 collective: the brilliantly colourful, cartoonish and subversive video for Vest & Boxers. The video comes over like an amped-up British kids comic, with Lava La Rue (real name Aiwa Laurel D-G, better known as Ava Laurel) as the irrepressibly cheeky star in a more grown-up story than you find in The Beano, involving the older teenage pursuit of finding love and sex, through an acid-twisted spell of speed-dating. The terrific visual virtuosity on display and their revelation of Lava La Rue as an exciting new artist, is another notable moment in the remarkable progress of Hossein and Harrison. They have been shooting films together since their early teens themselves, and still in their early twenties, have already directed more than 20 official music videos - including many for Beabadoobee - as well as shooting album covers and numerous other projects.As ever, the video was produced through COMPULSORY with Kiran Mandla executive producing, Henry Cisterna producing, with the video shot by DoP Billy Kendall and art directed by Rose Moya. We got in touch with Bedroom, to ask them about how this one happened.On-set photo: BedroomWe decided to go all the way with influences across Italian Gialo Cinema, Nobuhiko Obayashi, OG Scooby Doo and Metropolis....How did the project start? Did you know anything about Lava La Rue before you heard Vest & Boxers?We were introduced to Ava growing up in West London, and interviewed her for our first book when we were 16. It wasn't until years later that we finally reconnected to create something together.What input did you get from the artist on the idea – either from the brief or in conversations with her? Ava had a full-blown vision behind Vest & Boxers when she came to us with the project, full of sexy speed-dating mania, alter-egos and hints towards a menacing plot twist.The track instantly spurred visions of the spooky, exploitative B-movie cues that we had always wanted to push, and our privilege of full creative control led us right down the rabbit hole.Ava had a full-blown vision behind Vest & Boxers when she came to us.What came first – the narrative of Ava’s flashback to her weird date, or just the whole disorientating and cartoonish visual approach?The conception of the music video's style came at a time when the days were at their shortest and it got dark so early. We wanted to create something menacing and mysterious, yet with a mind of its own, and we couldn't predict where it would settle.Our short attention spans combined with our love of classic comic, cartoon exuberance, created the kind of childlike chaos we tried to adopt across the whole piece.There are so many great visual ideas here - including some ‘blink and you miss it’ moments. Was this a typical Bedroom video in the way you came up with elements and graphics around the story (eg the ‘W’ with eyes, the Trellick tower shot, the face in the table, misted-up camera, etc.)?The post-process was where the video found its true potential, having over two months to experiment with after Soren decided during the shoot that he was going to edit it himself.We realized quickly that we could push the style to somewhere we haven't totally gone in our work before, and decided to go all the way with influences across Italian Gialo Cinema, Nobuhiko Obayashi, OG Scooby Doo and the innovation behind Metropolis (1927). Thanks to Wil Salcedo, who produced the incredible stop-motion, mixed-media animations and titles, we could put our own twist on the brief.The team behind this video are incredible. An all young crew, excited to create within an extremely collaborative, DIY environment. Billy, the cinematographer, is an old friend from making films together back in the day, and shooting our local landscape in a way that we hadn't see before was very satisfying.Photo: BedroomWe decided to take a step back from our typical neurotic approach.What techniques did you employ for the transitions, to make Lava’s world more fuzzy and surreal? Do you get to ‘pre-viz’ how these are going to work in the finished video?We knew that this was the type of film that would shrink under the pressure of a fine toothcomb, that it's spirit would be suppressed with a magnifying glass held up to every part of the process. So we decided not to storyboard too finely, or create timecode animatics, taking a step back from our typical neurotic approach to let our shoot breath a little.Each person behind the curtain of this film left their imprint on it, from Rose [Moya]'s uncompromised detail across the production design, to Henry [Cisterna]'s endless calmness in the most dire of moments.What were the biggest challenges you faced on the shoot day? The only challenge we remember was the silent suffering we all experienced whilst being stuck in a confined location with raw fish. We can still smell it, sizzling under those lights.Has this video allowed you to show a different aspect of what Bedroom is about, and what you can do?Vest & Boxers pushes the visual signatures and frenzied fun that we have fallen in love with since we were little, experimenting with concepts that aren't frightened to be themselves - much like the characters and performances within these worlds.• Bedroom are represented by COMPULSORY for music videos and commercials. See more work here.

We spoke to Joe Connor about how he came to work with Japanese superstar Hikaru Utada, how they bonded over their shared love of the works of Carl Jung - and why he flooded the music video shoot for Bad Mode.Joe Connor has worked with numerous big artists - The Rolling Stones, Rag 'N Bone Man, Biffy Clyro, Mumford & Sons, to name a few. But it still came as something as a surprise that Connor's latest video is for a Japanese pop legend.Hikaru Utada certainly has that status, the American-Japanese singer-songwriter being a huge star in Japan since the Nineties. But she indeed turned to Connor to help launch her latest album Bad Mode with the video for the album's title track. The result is a sumptuous performance video with a surprising twist. In one of several performance set-ups, a reflective Hikaru contemplates a new love affair while she sits waiting in a taxi rank - which is then flooded, and transformed into a pool, seemingly when the fishtank in the office overflows.With cinematography by Alex Jamin, and production design by Luke Moran-Morris, the look of the video is as glamourous as befits an artist of this stature. But Moran-Morris's production design is also ingenious: he built the main set on stilts above an underwater tank, then lowered the set into the water tank at a studio in Basildon during the shoot.So we spoke to Joe Connor about the project, and how he ended up in Essex with a Japanese pop queen... How did the project start? Were you surprised to be asked to write a treatment for a top Japanese artist?This particular project came about in a very strange and unusual way. I was contacted almost out of the blue by a representative for Hikaru who wanted to know more about my process, how I work with an artist. We struck up a really good relationship and before you know it, half of Tokyo was flying out to an underwater tank in Basildon.Even though I hadn't worked with Hikaru before I knew she had worked with Rina [Yang, the DoP] and I'd actually randomly recommended a friend of mine to Rina, to be a lighting designer of Hikaru's tour a few years ago. So there were some strange connections. It must be fate. I wrote the idea thinking the room was purgatory - an inner space where the main character is stuck. How did you come up with your idea? And how does it relate to the song, Bad Mode? What sort of references did you include in your treatment?This is the first time I've written an idea for a track without knowing the meaning of the lyrics. I'm a lyric-focused director, not in the sense of replicating the exact meaning, but in looking behind them and finding the emotional state of the artist writing them. It was almost impossible to do that process on this, as the translation into English doesn't quite work. There are Japanese slang terms that are only really understood by those that know.That being said, I got a very deep feeling of someone caught in limbo, held in a space unable to move or progress forward. That feeling formed the basis of the idea; waiting for a taxi that never comes, and waiting so long the room floods. I wrote the idea thinking the room was purgatory - an inner space where the main character is stuck.When I pitched it to Hikaru I thought she'd laugh me out the room. But it turns out we both have the same Jung books on our respective bedside table. Once you know someone is a fan of Jung you can move ideas into a dream space without fear that it'll be too 'out there'.Hikaru is an amazingly perceptive person and we resonated really well. My interpretation of the track captured how she felt when she was writing it, and once we had that understanding it all just fell into place. Was there much communication with the artist ahead of the shoot? Did they have requests or requirements about how they wanted to video to look and how they wanted to be filmed?I had a lot of chats with Hikaru but they were more focussed around how the video needed to feel, rather then specifics regarding looks or filming style. I knew I wanted to push this video and be a bit looser with the operation then I'm used too.I love focussed and composed photography but it felt like this one was crying out for Dutch framing, handheld camerawork, and a bit more looseness. It was unusual territory for me but my DoP Alex Jamin, brought so much to the party that it kept me from wanting to nail everything down. It was a very free and alive project in that sense.Luke Moran Morris... really brought some A-grade execution to this project.Where (and when) did you shoot the video? Flooding a set is always going to be a tricky business - how did you achieve it?I knew I wanted to build the set on a water tank. I've shot at Basildon for The Maccabees and more recently with Biffy Clyro, so I know the limitations of that facility. Writing ideas for specfifc locations is always helpful - it allows me to know what I can achieve and still surprise people with a bit of a creative twist.I must say that working out the set, how to build it on stilts, how to light it, how to lower it was all down to the genius of Luke Moran Morris and his team. He really brought some A-grade execution to this project. We then shot the dry section of the video before lunch, then lowered the set over lunch and while we were shooting the other set-ups (they were partly in there to give me that buffer while the set was sunk, allowing me to keep shooting without losing time) and then once the set was submerged we shot the second half of the video.The main challenge was containing the potential for chaos. A project like this can easily spiral as water starts to flood the set. So my main consideration was keeping the focus, keeping it fun and getting what we needed in the time we had. • Joe Connor is based at Rogue Films, and represented by Alexa Haywood at Free Agent UK for music videos. More work here.

January is often the sleepiest month of the year for music videos and last month was no different. But if it was the customary quiet start in terms of releases, the big-hitting quality of much of the work made up for it. Big videos for The Weeknd, from Cliqua and Matilda Finn; Grimes hitting gaming culture with Anton Tammi and BRTHR (good move Grimes) and the opening salvos of FKA twigs collab with Aidan Zamiri for Caprisongs. And much good stuff besides...