Maxim Kelly creates an off-kilter tribute to '90s rave culture for Belief  - the experimental dance music project of Stella Mozgawa and Boom Bip - featuring an impish dance elf who finds himself in an empty office. With a birthday cake. 

The video for Dreams, sees this intriguing character - played by Mark Crawley - break into expressive moves, as he confusedly comes to terms with his surroundings, and begins to sense the nearby presence of another figure: his somewhat hairier döppelgänger. 

In keeping with the era and the mood that he and DoP Arthur Loveday were trying to evoke, Kelly chose to shoot the video on MiniDV - the domestic format that was state-of-the-art back in the early 90s. But it is also composed and lit to make the format look as professional as possible, which gives the footage a distinctive high-end lo-fi quality.

Kelly says that the video was inspired by watching rave footage from the 90s, and marvelling at "people looking their worst but feeling their best, and dancing the night away" - and also a certain kind of video from the era. 

"There’s a sub-genre of music video which became very popular for a time. It’s just one person dancing in a pertinent space. I wanted to make my version of that video. Almost like a parody."

He adds that the decision to shoot on MiniDV was an aesthetic choice, and a homage to 90s rave footage. "Early on, Arthur Loveday and I decided to imagine that we were making a music video with the best technology we had available - and work to make it look as good as possible," he says.

"People today, when they shoot MiniDV, try to make it look bad, jerky and add glitches. But the technology is still great, and you can get some stunning results if you take the time and care to shoot it appropriately. And, it doesn’t hurt if you have Tom Mangham at Black Kite grading it too!”