Alexis Taylor 'House Of The Truth' by Simon Owens
David Knight - 19th Aug 2021
Simon Owens toys with the X and Y axes in his new video for Alexis Taylor, with the Hot Chip frontman apparently scaling walls with the biggest rope you have ever seen.
Echoing the myth of Sisyphus, and employing a technique possibly last seen in the Batman TV series back in the 1960s - namely, tilting the camera 90 degrees - Alexis 'pulls' himself up different vertical structures and through spaces using a giant, thickly braided ship’s mooring rope.
He also travels through intensely colourful doors travelling from external to internal locations and back again.
As with their previous collaborations, such as Oh Baby, Simon Owens uses irreverent, perception-challenging methods to present Taylor's serious ruminations on life in the House Of The Truth.
It's that unfeasibly large rope that really gets you...
SIMON OWENS:
This rope pulled a ship out of the River Mersey!
"As perfect as it might sound genuinely came from listening to the track. I felt the melodrama of the song, a struggle, a constant struggle, with Alexis pulling himself somewhere, and then realsing 'somewhere' was nowhere.
The Sisyphus part was some post-rationalization. After telling Alexis the idea he compared it to Sisyphus, natch. Then the ['60s TV] Batman did come up in preproduction, from my art department, and with more post-rationalization, I have since been describing the video as 'My Sisyphean Batman'.
"I found the rope, 200m long, in Northampton. This rope pulled a ship out of the River Mersey! After a week of persuading, the owner agreed to cut 10 meters for me — He actually gave me 20 meters, with which I used only 3.5 meters.
"I felt pity for the man with a van who brought it from Northampton to London. It's ridiculously heavy -, 3.5 meters needed four people just to hold it."
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David Knight - 19th Aug 2021
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Credits
Production/Creative
- Director
- SO
- Producer
- SO
Camera
- Director of Photography
- Ben Magahy
- Focus Puller
- Jay Notley
- 2nd AC
- Cristian Ionut Necula
Lighting/Grip
- Gaffer
- Bruce Magahy
Art
- Art Director
- Sian Murphy
Editorial
- Editor
- SO
Grading
- Colourist
- Jack McGinity
- Colour grade company
- C
VFX
- VFX
- Daydreamer Vfx
- Post production company
- Daydreamervfx
Commission
- Commissioner
- Verdigris Management
Other credits
Spark
Howard Morton
Grip
Sid Jones
Art Department Assistant
Rafe Mullarkey
Van Hire And Driver
Howard Morton
Runners
Jack Baker, Matthew Gowenlock, Felicity Chalaby, Sonni Mason
Assistance
Jerome Danvers, Noah Taylor, Jim Simpson
Hat
John Booth
Second AC And DIT
Clothes
Bernhard Willhelm
Additional Cast
Kenichi Iwasa And Sian Murphy
Additional Editing
Jim Wright
Camera And Grip Equipment
Focus 24
Rig
Feral Equipment
Lighting
Pixi Pixel
Insurance
Somesuch
Huge Thank-you For The Support Of Ben Mitchell From Focus 24.
David Knight - 19th Aug 2021