Director

Isaiah Seret

From alt-J&#39;s striking original idea, Isaiah Seret has crafted an experimental epic for their song Pleader that draws on different artforms&nbsp;and ultimately has nearly spawned a new one. This is a music video that could also described as a short dramatic musical.&nbsp;It&#39;s set in a coal mining community in a South Welsh valley in the early 20th century, and at the heart of it is a young miner and his wife. But their fate is bound up with the decisions made by the whole community, who decide that the woman has to produce a child. In that way, they sew the seeds of their own destruction - but this is just as much about the boy with special powers who is left behind.&nbsp;In the midst there are real scenes of birth and destruction, powerful performances from Sophie Cookson and Morgan Watkins as the couple, and Ewan Hipperson as Llewelyn, their son, and a huge supporting cast.&nbsp;There&#39;s enough surprise and mystery here to keep you coming back looking for answers. And at its core, a breathtaking sequence: the terrible power of a volcanic cloud, destroying everything and everyone in its path.[imgtoken data:1] &nbsp;

Sonya Sier

Biscuit Filmworks

Rupert Reynolds-MacLean

John Lynch

Rupert Hornstein

Marie Lanna

Mr Gammon

Kharmel Cochrane

Rebecca Mason

Louis Barron

Stewart Reeves

Work Editorial

Time Based Arts

Simone Grattarola

Sheldon Gardner

Lock It In

Andrew Law

alt-J 'Pleader' by Isaiah Seret

alt-J - Pleader (Official Video)

The beautiful Jodie Smith plays the singing nun who flees the convent to find success as a singer and VJ on Eighties music TV &ndash;&nbsp;but perhaps only in her imagination &ndash; in Isaiah Seret&#39;s little&nbsp;pearl for Devendra Banhart&#39;s&nbsp;Für Hildegard von Bingen&nbsp;- &nbsp;a project for MOCAtv.This is exquisite &ndash; it&#39;s&nbsp;wonderfully shot by Wyatt Troll &ndash; which just adds weight to Isaiah&#39;s burgeoning reputation as a narrative stylist.&nbsp;

Candice Ouaknine

Prettybird

Anne Johnson

Wyatt Troll

Adam Willis

Mindy Le Brock

Jasmine Albuquerque and Kristen Leahy

Andy Barrios @ A52

Paul Yacono

Damion Clayton

Rock Paper Scissors

Jodie Smith

Joel Virgil

Devendra Banhart 'Für Hildegard von Bingen' by Isaiah Seret

Devendra Banhart - Für Hildegard von Bingen - Art + Music - MOCAtv

Unless you haven&#39;t seen&nbsp;The Wire, who can forget Omar Little, the Lone Ranger of the ghetto?&nbsp;Michael K Williams created an unforgettable character with Omar, and&nbsp;having followed up with another&nbsp;well-respected role in&nbsp;Boardwalk Empire, it&#39;s no surprise that he&nbsp;delivers a compelling performance&nbsp;for Isaiah Seret&#39;s futuristic carnage bumper for MGMT&#39;s Cool Song No. 2.&nbsp;This is stylised narrative at its best, demonstrating that&nbsp;as well as Williams,&nbsp;Isaiah&nbsp;is a man at the top of his game.&nbsp;Underlit Porsches, PVC-wearing drug-cutters, and golden houses built in the desert &ndash; the video is a visual feast. And then there&#39;s the story, which develops in unpredictable ways - from gangster film to sci-fi shocker to love story.With narrative-led music promos it&#39;s sometimes easy to forget the song, band or original purpose of creating a visual. Not so here, as&nbsp;Isaiah has cast members perform key lines whilst going about their day-to-day business of creating a future drug our children should steer well clear of.&nbsp;Violence clashes occur in some of the most stylish yet&nbsp;unique garments our shops have never seen &ndash; as Isaiah explains on his&nbsp;website. It&#39;s the little touches like this and many others&nbsp;that allow the stirring story of love, pain and regret to blossom.&nbsp;Should this be a full length feature-film?&nbsp;Possibly. Would we like to see more of Isaiah Seret? Most definitely. We caught up with Isaiah in a soul-searching interview where we discussed a pacifist&#39;s take on violence, what it took to complete a project of this scale on a budget and how and why they ended up shooting in the desert.I read you came up with the concept for this video having just finished a commercial shoot in South Africa, did the story evolve or stay very much as first thought?When we wrote the treatment, Mindy (my co-writer &amp; stylist) and I were sitting in the Port Elizabeth Airport, totally stuck, no flights out. So we would write, and then try and deal with our tickets, and write some more. By the end of the day, we had a treatment that is really close to what we see on screen. I would say most of the changes came during casting and scouting, which added a lot of depth to our characters and scenes.This was obviously a mammoth production, did the result match your expectations?Originally it was a bit more sci-fi, and we were planning on building a lot of sets, but the reality was we had so little money, sets weren&#39;t an option. At the same time, I discovered this artist, Robert Stone, who had built this place in Joshua Tree. Honestly I didn&#39;t even want to shoot in the desert, but seeing this home was like finding a missing cast member. But the artist had never let anyone shoot there, from Beyonce to Rihanna, since he didn&#39;t want his house branded as the &quot;Rihanna&quot;&nbsp;house. But I wrote him directly, told him my story, and somehow he loved it, and let us shoot there. So the location enriched our world, and also became the bones for the drug room and so on.&nbsp;Pain and suffering are reoccurring themes of yours often told through violence, why do you think these themes have struck such a chord in your creative imagination?I am really drawn towards understanding violence, both pre-meditated and impulsive acts. Maybe it&#39;s because I&#39;m a Buddhist, pacifist, but it fascinates me. I use it on screen as a way to bring characters to feelings of regret and loss. Basically, some form of heartache. Heartache is the best, in particular because it&#39;s one of the few emotions that triggers people to genuinely change their lives - to reevaluate everything - or take a full moral inventory. A person with a broken heart, or filled with regret, can fully transform who they are.But arriving at that place with our character is a little tricky. Usually you break a person&#39;s heart through the loss of a relationship or loved one, but I feel committing violence on another&#39;s behalf, or as a duty, also gets us there. In this film we do both - the soldier like violence, and the loss of a loved one.&nbsp;Actually the director Alejandro Jodorowsky once said, &quot;You can&#39;t have spirituality without violence.&quot;Michael Kenneth Williams is known for his intimidating roles in&nbsp;The Wire&nbsp;and more recently&nbsp;Boardwalk Empire, what did he bring as a critically acclaimed actor?Michael has perfected the quality of gangster vulnerability - which has clearly fascinated folks who enjoy his shows. And in this film, Mindy and I wrote a character that is the most sensitive gangster on the face of the earth. He is violent, but every action destroys him. Michael really loved this and really merged with that role. I mean, you can see it in his face when he is strangling the man at the gate. I&#39;ve never seen him go that far, actually.There is a running theme of&nbsp;The Wire&nbsp;characters in your videos. Having previously hired Chad Coleman, would you consider the show an influence &ndash; and is it going to continue?&nbsp;Saul Levitz, the video commissioner at Columbia Records, told me we are two for two on&nbsp;The Wire-casted music videos, so&nbsp;we are taking polls for who&#39;s next. He&#39;s voting for&nbsp;Bunk, and I&#39;m thinking&nbsp;Stringer Bell. But, in terms of strong TV influences, I think I&#39;m more a&nbsp;Deadwood&nbsp;man.&nbsp;So many aspects of the promo are captivating, how important was it to have such an experienced and talented team behind you?I mean we always want to work with great collaborators, like cooking with artisinal ingredients, but with this job in particular, I needed people willing to work incredibly hard for no money. Which is OK if we are all learning, but since every aspect of the video was technical, I really needed super-talented people involved&nbsp;or it would have been a huge mess. However, with the exception of Barney, who did the prosthetics and who I didn&#39;t know before, I only forced my close friends or people I have really built a good working relationship with to work on this.&nbsp; Most importantly these are folks who have good attitudes, but still go the extra mile to make something special. And in the end, when the workload was really crushing, I had to promise not to take another job like this for a long while.&nbsp;Lastly, in terms of talent, I knew that with all these great image-makers we would have something aesthetically strong. But at the core, Mindy and I didn&#39;t want to make a stylized &quot;music video&quot;, we wanted an emotional narrative. So we absolutely needed actors that wouldn&#39;t get overpowered by the visuals. Michael and Henry Hopper (who played the lover) were both that calibre of actor. I feel like no matter how crazy the world was that we threw at them, they reacted to it from within the character and made it their own. On film this means everything - it&#39;s the moment when it all becomes completely real.* Check out Luke Tierney&#39;s blog,&nbsp;Word Is Cheap, or his Twitter&nbsp;@wordischeap, for more thoughts on his favourite music videos.&nbsp;

"Violence fascinates me" Isaiah Seret on making the video for MGMT's Cool Song No.2

MGMT - Cool Song No. 2

Unless you haven&#39;t seen The Wire, who can forget Omar Little, the Lone Ranger of the ghetto?&nbsp;Michael K Williams created an unforgettable character with Omar, and&nbsp;having followed up with another&nbsp;well-respected role in Boardwalk Empire, it&#39;s no surprise that he&nbsp;delivers a compelling performance&nbsp;for Isaiah Seret&#39;s futuristic carnage bumper for MGMT&#39;s Cool Song No. 2.&nbsp;This is stylised narrative at its best, demonstrating that&nbsp;as well as Williams,&nbsp;Isaiah&nbsp;is a man at the top of his game.&nbsp;Underlit Porsches, PVC-wearing drug-cutters, and golden houses built in the desert &ndash; the video is a visual feast. And then there&#39;s the story, which develops in unpredictable ways - from gangster film to sci-fi shocker to love story.With narrative-led music promos it&#39;s sometimes easy to forget the song, band or original purpose of creating a visual. Not so here, as&nbsp;Isaiah has cast members perform key lines whilst going about their day-to-day business of creating a future drug our children should steer well clear of.&nbsp;Violence clashes occur in some of the most stylish yet&nbsp;unique garments our shops have never seen &ndash; as Isaiah explains on his <a href="http://www.isaiahseret.com/MGMT-COOL-SONG-No-2">website</a>. It&#39;s the little touches like this and many others&nbsp;that allow the stirring story of love, pain and regret to blossom.&nbsp;Should this be a full length feature-film?&nbsp;Possibly. Would we like to see more of Isaiah Seret? Most definitely. We caught up with Isaiah in a soul-searching interview where we discussed a pacifist&#39;s take on violence, what it took to complete a project of this scale on a budget and how and why they ended up shooting in the desert.I read you came up with the concept for this video having just finished a commercial shoot in South Africa, did the story evolve or stay very much as first thought?When we wrote the treatment, Mindy (my co-writer &amp; stylist) and I were sitting in the Port Elizabeth Airport, totally stuck, no flights out. So we would write, and then try and deal with our tickets, and write some more. By the end of the day, we had a treatment that is really close to what we see on screen. I would say most of the changes came during casting and scouting, which added a lot of depth to our characters and scenes.This was obviously a mammoth production, did the result match your expectations?Originally it was a bit more sci-fi, and we were planning on building a lot of sets, but the reality was we had so little money, sets weren&#39;t an option. At the same time, I discovered this artist, Robert Stone, who had built this place in Joshua Tree. Honestly I didn&#39;t even want to shoot in the desert, but seeing this home was like finding a missing cast member. But the artist had never let anyone shoot there, from Beyonce to Rihanna, since he didn&#39;t want his house branded as the &quot;Rihanna&quot;&nbsp;house. But I wrote him directly, told him my story, and somehow he loved it, and let us shoot there. So the location enriched our world, and also became the bones for the drug room and so on.&nbsp;Pain and suffering are reoccurring themes of yours often told through violence, why do you think these themes have struck such a chord in your creative imagination?I am really drawn towards understanding violence, both pre-meditated and impulsive acts. Maybe it&#39;s because I&#39;m a Buddhist, pacifist, but it fascinates me. I use it on screen as a way to bring characters to feelings of regret and loss. Basically, some form of heartache. Heartache is the best, in particular because it&#39;s one of the few emotions that triggers people to genuinely change their lives - to reevaluate everything - or take a full moral inventory. A person with a broken heart, or filled with regret, can fully transform who they are.But arriving at that place with our character is a little tricky. Usually you break a person&#39;s heart through the loss of a relationship or loved one, but I feel committing violence on another&#39;s behalf, or as a duty, also gets us there. In this film we do both - the soldier like violence, and the loss of a loved one.&nbsp;Actually the director Alejandro Jodorowsky once said, &quot;You can&#39;t have spirituality without violence.&quot;Michael Kenneth Williams is known for his intimidating roles in The Wire and more recently Boardwalk Empire, what did he bring as a critically acclaimed actor?Michael has perfected the quality of gangster vulnerability - which has clearly fascinated folks who enjoy his shows. And in this film, Mindy and I wrote a character that is the most sensitive gangster on the face of the earth. He is violent, but every action destroys him. Michael really loved this and really merged with that role. I mean, you can see it in his face when he is strangling the man at the gate. I&#39;ve never seen him go that far, actually.There is a running theme of The Wire characters in your videos. Having previously hired Chad Coleman, would you consider the show an influence &ndash; and is it going to continue?&nbsp;Saul Levitz, the video commissioner at Columbia Records, told me we are two for two on The Wire-casted music videos, so&nbsp;we are taking polls for who&#39;s next. He&#39;s voting for&nbsp;Bunk, and I&#39;m thinking&nbsp;Stringer Bell. But, in terms of strong TV influences, I think I&#39;m more a Deadwood man.&nbsp;So many aspects of the promo are captivating, how important was it to have such an experienced and talented team behind you?I mean we always want to work with great collaborators, like cooking with artisinal ingredients, but with this job in particular, I needed people willing to work incredibly hard for no money. Which is OK if we are all learning, but since every aspect of the video was technical, I really needed super-talented people involved&nbsp;or it would have been a huge mess. However, with the exception of Barney, who did the prosthetics and who I didn&#39;t know before, I only forced my close friends or people I have really built a good working relationship with to work on this.&nbsp; Most importantly these are folks who have good attitudes, but still go the extra mile to make something special. And in the end, when the workload was really crushing, I had to promise not to take another job like this for a long while.&nbsp;Lastly, in terms of talent, I knew that with all these great image-makers we would have something aesthetically strong. But at the core, Mindy and I didn&#39;t want to make a stylized &quot;music video&quot;, we wanted an emotional narrative. So we absolutely needed actors that wouldn&#39;t get overpowered by the visuals. Michael and Henry Hopper (who played the lover) were both that calibre of actor. I feel like no matter how crazy the world was that we threw at them, they reacted to it from within the character and made it their own. On film this means everything - it&#39;s the moment when it all becomes completely real.* Check out Luke Tierney&#39;s blog,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.wordischeap.wordpress.com">Word Is Cheap</a>, or his Twitter&nbsp;<a href="http://www.twitter.com/wordischeap">@wordischeap</a>, for more thoughts on his favourite music videos.&nbsp;

United States

Bradford Young

Luke Lynch

Braxton Pope

Todd Thompson

Nicole Disson

Bryan Younce

Jamie Kohn Rabineau

Michael Kenneth Williams

Henry Hopper

Jahmin Assa

Alex Bickel

Ari Robbins

Barney Burman

Adrian Gilliland

Max Sweeney

Andres Barrios

Wayne Dalgish

Indie Rock

Alternative

MGMT 'Cool Song No. 2' by Isaiah Seret

She looks sweet, and the setting is gorgeous but Norah Jones' shows a very dark heart in the video for Happy Pills, directed by Isaiah Seret, and beautifully photographed by DP Bradford Young. 
Set in a Mad Men-era suburbia, Norah proves the old 'hell hath no fury...' adage - and the ending is a bit Psycho...

Isaac Haggy

Doomsday

Dave Hussey

Mike Maguire

Elise Majorossy

Jim Jones

Chris Wiesehahn

Eli Metcalf

Kemal Harris

Mandy Lyons

Norah Jones 'Happy Pills' by Isaiah Seret

Norah-Jones-'Happy-Pills'-by-Isaiah-Seret

After the controversial Jonestown Massacre-themed <a href="http://www.promonews.tv/2011/07/19/cults-go-outside-by-isaiah-seret/" target="_blank">Go Outside</a>, Cults return to Isaiah Seret to direct the video for Know What I Mean. And it's another story touched with searing violence.
This is more of a straight cinematic drama, about a boy and a girl (Cults' Madeleine Follin and Brian Oblivion), the girl's fearsome father, and a nearby deserted carnival. More on this beautifully-mounted 'dark romance' at <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2012/02/08/146462475/the-dark-romance-of-cults-you-know-what-i-mean" target="_blank">NPR.org</a>

Jason Baum

Cults 'Know What I Mean' by Isaiah Seret

Wizard-Sleeve’s-Get-Down-Tonight-by-Thomas-Goldser

A remarkable, ingenious, but also chilling and even morally questionable video for Cults' Go Outside, which puts the band within a sequence of true events - involving one of the most notorious cults of all - that led to one terrible tragedy. Heartbreaking stuff. 


Isaiah Seret's statement on the making of the video for Cults' Go Outside
"To tell the story of Cults' hauntingly beautiful track, "Go Outside", I was inspired to bring the band inside the world of Jim Jones' famous religious cult, Peoples Temple, and the eventual tragedy in Jonestown. Fortunately, when exploring the feasibility of this video I became acquainted with Fielding M. McGehee III, an expert on Peoples Temple history and the primary researcher for the Jonestown Archive. It is thanks to him and his encouragement that I was able to take on this project and through his support gained access to over two and half hours of home videos showing Peoples Temple in Jonestown. For this music video we didn't want to put a spin on the footage or the peoples lives--instead we wanted to re-tell and humanize their story. In order to achieve this we used a combination of stock footage, visual effects and other tricks to embed the band into the historical footage. This was achieved through my collaboration with my visual effects supervisor Bill Gillman and my cinematographer Matthew Lloyd. Lastly, I am moved to say when we completed the video we were able to preview it for some of the survivors of the Jonestown Massacre, who expressed their appreciation of our focus on the lives of the People's Temple members as opposed to exploiting the graphic images of the final tragedy."

Isaiah Seret

Director

Interviews featuring Isaiah Seret

Videos featuring Isaiah Seret

2017 (1)

2013 (2)

2012 (2)

2011 (1)

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