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Ben Howard 'What A Day' by Cloé Bailly

Promonews - 9th Feb 2021

Ben Howard returns with the first release from his fourth album and a satirical take on the mores of the English landed classes in a widescreen comedy with bite directed by Cloé Bailly.

For What A Day Bailly plants the viewer firmly in the English countryside, with a hunting party of shotgun-toting gentry. These increasingly drunken upper class twits are prospective Elmer Fudds, on the hunt for rabbits - which are being protected elsewhere in the field by Ben Howard himself.

The fun really starts when one of the party begins to turn into one of the very creatures that he and his pals intend to fill with buckshot. Mysteriously sprouting a bunny tail, prominent teeth and floppy ears becomes increasingly difficult to hide from his boozed-up pals - leading to a shootout worthy of a decent Spaghetti Western.

Ben wanted to create a social satire about the vacuity of British nobility hunting parties.

“When Ben told me he wanted a dark comedy music vid for What A Day, I was just psyched," says Cloé Bailly. "It's my favourite genre to explore. He wanted to create a social satire about the vacuity of British nobility hunting parties. In his own words, it was a nonsense idea loosely based upon the Old English rhyme, ‘back to back they faced each other, drew their swords and shot each other’.

"People loving to hunt just for the sake of killing, not out of necessity, might as well end up shooting each other and loving it too... But what if on top of this nature took revenge? What if the predator turned into the prey so in this case a hunter turned into a rabbit?!

Cloé is a queen of dark comedy - I’m so grateful we got to work together on it.

The video was actually shot in Bulgaria - in countryside that could pass for the rolling hills of the home counties. 

"Shooting in the Bulgarian mountains was intense but Ben, the crew and I were like kids," comments Bailly. "It's exhilarating to play with human emotions in a huis-clos, to imagine what people are truly capable of. And it’s always so good to see a whole crew getting on board with such a nonsense concept based on animal hysteria and group homicide. And of course, it goes without saying that having a dozen adorable bunnies around makes any shoot sweeter...”

Ben Howard has added that “Cloé somehow transformed a basic countryside shoot ‘em up into an amazing tale of delightful retribution. Cloé is a queen of dark comedy and I’m so grateful that as friends we got to work together on it. The eclectic Bulgarian cast and crew somehow managed to pull this off in strange times, made all the more entertaining in a completely foreign language.”

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Promonews - 9th Feb 2021

Tags

  • Comedy
  • Director's notes
  • Narrative
  • Singer-songwriter
  • Hunting
  • English gentry

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Credits

Production/Creative

Director
Cloé Bailly
Producer
Stephanie Paeplow
Service Producer
Ivan Ivanov
Production Company
Executive Producer
Daniella Manca

Camera

Director of Photography
Nico Poulsson
1st AC
Konstantin Velichkov

Lighting/Grip

Gaffer
Alexander Trenev

Art

Art Director
Kris Lekov

Wardrobe

Stylist
Sergei Yordanov

Editorial

Editor
Flaura Atkinson
Editing company
Edit Producer
Angela Hart

Grading

Colourist
Matthieu Toullet
Colour grade company
MPC

VFX

Post Producer
Leianna Campbell

Commission

Commissioner
Laura Clayton
Label
Island Records

Misc

Production Services
B2Y Productions
Creative Director
Micha Barban-Dangerfield

Other credits

Electrician

Kiril Bakalov

Key Grip

Alexander Dimitrov

Set Dresser

Vasil Ivanov

Asst. Stylist

Maria Petrova

SFX Make-up Supervisor

Lyudmil Nikolov

SFX Technician

Andrey Velchev, Ivo Maximov

Cast

Julian Balahurov, Teodor Elmazov, Alexander Mitev, Ivan Matev, Nikolay Denov

Promonews - 9th Feb 2021

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