Ninian Doff's video for JJ DOOM's Guv'nor heralds the return of the US hiphop legend DOOM, now relocated on British soil... And the video is also, not to put too fine a point on it, a bit of a head-fuck.

A shot of DOOM in his trademark facemask soon reveals itself to be a split screen, down the middle of the shot, and soon the rightside and leftside of DOOM are going their separate ways, with DOOM himself - particularly his mask - staying resolutely together in the middle of the screen. Its an absorbing visual technique that's great to watch, albeit somewhat discombobulating...

Not surprisingly Ninian is not keen to give away all the secrets of his split-screen technique, but he reveals it took a lot of explaining before they even got started. "Split screen is something that's been used a lot in videos so it's always fun to try and push it further still," he says. "A lot of the pre-production meetings were spent with everyone just trying to understand how it would work and look, so I also shot a lot of test of myself walking around to explain it.

"I kept just saying to everyone that it's just footage of a man walking, it's really simple! Which is all it is really, just looks a bit more complicated than that. However the success of it working has to be attributed to an amazing crew who all kept up with it even at the most confusing moments and achieved all the complex timing perfectly."

Watch 'JJ DOOM 'Guv'nor' by Ninian Doff' here

Featured sponsors