We spoke to FRIEND director Noel Paul about his extraordinary new video for singer-songwriter Mitski, hearing about the idea at its heart, the pros and cons of working at a remarkable location and the big influence of experimental filmmaker Guy Maddin on it's breathless narrative style.

Although he has been largely occupied on a feature film in the past year or so, Noel Paul has managed to crowbar a couple of significant music video projects into his busy schedule. And both of them have contributed to a very distinctive storytelling technique that Paul has been working on for a while, where the action all takes place much more quickly than normal.

In his UKMVA-winning video for Black Midi's Sugar/Tsu, the accelerated pace of the video is a contributing factor in achieving a suitable level of weirdness that goes hand-in-hand with the eccentric nature of the band. Then in his video for Geese's Taxes, which came out last summer, it's central to the plot, as the band's show at a small club explodes into chaos.

And now, there is Paul's video for Mitski's Where The Phone?, where the technique is applied in its most ambitious form yet. It's fair to say that it transforms an existing text, and in doing so, creates something unique and hugely powerful. 

The base material is a gripping gothic tale, in which Mitski takes on a very surprising role - the guardian of a younger girl, desperate to prevent her charge to leave the picturesque house where they live, paranoid about her connecting with any of the stream of strange visitors who descend upon the house.

Under Noel Paul's direction, this is delivered at a crazily zany speed, rendering it strange and cartoonish. It's both highly original and utterly gripping - with a fantastic performance by Mitski in the lead role, leading to a jolting denouement.

It's undoubtedly one of the best videos of the year so far. So we got in touch with Noel Paul to find out how it happened.

PROMONEWS: How did this project start for you? What kind of brief did you get from Team Mitski?

NOEL PAUL: It started with a text message from Mitski’s manager that just said “Noel.” Then like 20 minutes went by with no follow up message and my curiosity was piqued. That’s how the real pros convince you to pitch.

Mitski’s prompt mentioned Shirley Jackson’s novel We Have Always Lived In The Castle as a vibe reference, and asked for an absurd video involving Mitski repeatedly facing obstacles of some kind.

Mitski can express all kinds of things with her body language. That emboldened me to ask her for an over-the-top performance.

The idea for the video seems a long way from the song title. Did the theme of the song influence the concept, or did it come from another place entirely?

NP: Well, the song seems to be about losing more than your phone. Losing yourself, or wanting to lose yourself, or wanting to get away from yourself and from the world. From everything in you and around you that’s hijacking your attention. That’s how it resonated with me, anyhow.

So a barrage of exaggerated gestures felt appropriate. The premise is lifted from the Shirley Jackson novel Mitski mentioned in her brief, with Mitski cast as a protective paranoiac struggling to keep a younger woman confined in a gothic house.

Above; Mitski (centre) and Noel Paul (right) on the Where's My Phone? video shoot in upstate New York, November 2025

She’s experienced in the medium and seems comfortable expressing emotion on screen. Was that a factor in the idea, and the choice of story?

NP: Mitski gives fearless performances and she’s a gifted mover. She can fight, jump, learn choreography, change her pace, and express all kinds of things with her body language. That certainly emboldened me to ask her for such an over the top performance. 

PN: Did your previous collaboration with Mitski have an influence or a bearing on this one? 

NP: In our previous video, Bug Like an Angel, Mitski was the fixed point around which the action swirled. She barely moves. She gives a quiet, inscrutable performance. The tension and power comes from her restraint, her stillness, and then the one moment of eye contact when she looks up. Where’s My Phone she gets to do pretty much the opposite of all that.

PN: What were the biggest challenges in pre-production? 

NP: The biggest challenge in prepro was finding a location. We needed a Victorian gothic revival house with a magical quality, it had to have a yard that set it apart from nearby houses, and it had to be inside the 25-mile radius “production zone” around NYC. That’s a tall order.

Above: "My producer Lucy and I just went and knocked on doors... Eventually we came to this little green house that looks like it’s from a fairy tale."

I follow some photographers who document neighbourhoods in the five boroughs. By trawling through their photos I made a list of houses that looked interesting, but I had no contact info for any of them. So my producer Lucy and I just went and knocked on doors. The first place we tried turned out to be right next door to an open-air shooting range and the sound of gunfire was extremely oppressive. That didn’t seem like the right vibe for Mitski so we moved on.

Eventually we came to this little green house that looks like it’s from a fairy tale. We rang the doorbell and met Edwin, its owner and restorer, who graciously invited us in and showed us around. His home is not only beautiful on the outside, the interior is essentially a museum of period antiques and furnishings. It’s extraordinary.

We were very fortunate to be able to shoot the video in such a special place with such a cool host. Edwin has a cameo in the video too: he’s the neighbour holding a rake.

Above: Autumn in New York; Mitski watches on at the Where's My Phone? shoot location 

PN: When and where did you shoot the video and how many shoot days? What were the biggest challenges on the shoot? 

NP: The shoot was two days in mid-November. I wanted the camera language to have the energy of a moth frantically orbiting and smashing itself around a lightbulb. But the house was cramped and full of precious antiques, so an FPV drone wasn’t possible. And anyways, I think they lack the finesse and personal touch you get with a handheld camera.

And we had to work fast. The shotlist was enormous. We did something like 35 setups per day. So a big part of the challenge was just how to let my DoP Ramzi Hibri be a moth without all the footage feeling too homogenous. 

I wanted... the energy of a moth frantically orbiting and smashing itself around a lightbulb.

PN: The storytelling technique in Where’s My Phone is something you’ve explored before, in your videos for Black Midi, Geese, Danny Brown. Where did it originate? How is it evolving? And how do you achieve it in terms of shooting - slower frame rate?

NP: Exactly, the similarity across all those videos is the use of slow frame rates, aka undercranking.

I think it originates with an experience I had as an art student many years ago when I got to work on a Guy Maddin film, The Brand Upon The Brain. It was the first time I was on a film set. Guy was constantly changing framerates, improvising shots, putting vaseline on the lens, often recording sound independently of picture, shouting directions at the cast mid-performance. There was a freedom and playfulness to his approach. It had a tremendous influence on me.

PN: Mitski gives an amazing performance in the video. What kind of direction did you give her?

NP: We worked hard to constantly shift gears throughout the shoot, both emotionally and physically. Ramzi and our cast needed to change their pace from shot to shot and move through space and emotional states at different speeds. We listened to different music on set to set the vibe, like Stravinsky’s Firebird and Popol Vuh’s soundtrack of Aguirre, The Wrath of God. 

Because the story is so hyperspeed and Mitski’s role has so much paranoid/protective motivation, there was a danger that her character could seem too one-dimensional. Ramzi, my movement director Monica Mirabile, and my dramaturg Martha West were all very attentive to this, helping to make sure we made space for Mitski’s character to give moments of sorrow, ecstasy, resignation, and serenity amidst all the crashing out. It required a lot of mental and physical dexterity from everyone.

Above: Mitski with co-stars Madison Wada (left) and Miki Orihara on set of the Where's My Phone? video, Paul sitting on the right.  

The other thing that really helped Mitski give such a great performance was the quality of the rest of the cast, many of whom are gifted dancers and movement practitioners that Monica brought onboard. Madison Wada and Miki Orihara, who play Mitski’s family, are both incredible dancers. So are Tara-Jo Tashna, Kate Williams, Christina Torres, Reed Rushes, Martha West, and Allison Hsu. And Sam Geller, who Mitski murders [in the video], is an Aikido instructor.

PN: What’s next for you?

NP: I’ve recently finished two years of editing and co-producing a feature documentary called Bucks Harbor, that's just premiered at the Berlinale. It was my first time editing a feature and it was an enormous undertaking - so much so that the only two videos I directed in the last two years were Geese's Taxes and Where’s My Phone. So now I’m starting to look for the next big project. And in the meantime I’m hoping to do more music videos this spring and summer.

• Noel Paul is with FRIEND London in the UK for music videos and commercials; he is repped for music videos by Sam Davey at Hurry Sundown.