Joe Wheatley directs an idiosycratic and mysterious road movie for Ben Woods, aka The Golden Dregs.

The black and white promo for Before We Fell From Grace opens with two characters travelling by foot across a wintry landscape. One of the pair - played by dancer Joe Grey Adams - is dressed entirely in white, and leads the other in a flamboyant folk-dance, seemingly inspired by some kind of otherworldly force. 

They reach a lake, and then the other character - played by Woods - pulls out a mysterious object. They walk further across the terrain through woods to a place where this enigmatic journey reaches its climax.

"Ben approached me after Mark Jenkin, my old university lecturer and friend, never got back to him - and I don’t mind that at all," says Joe Wheatley. "He had some key references such as Bait, Paris Texas and True Stereo, my video for Willie J Healey. If there’s anything I might know how to do it’s people wandering around in places.

"I loved the track. He’s an extremely talented artist and fellow Falmouth graduate. I had some pretty heavy duty darker ideas that he liked but we ultimately settled on this kind of meditation on loss. Initially Ben wanted to find a body but we settled on the thing in the video that I still don’t know how to describe but the amazing prop maker, Rosie Tonkin, seemed to be telepathic and absolutely smashed it. 

"For the majority of my filmmaking I’m having the most fun dreaming up a project and then executing it. My enthusiasm wanes when I cross the finish line as I’m often worried if it’s any good or not. This project has been the exact opposite for me. Our first shoot day was cancelled midway through. We then waited a month whilst Ben was on tour to complete the shoot.

"As the sands of time rolled on to our second shoot day we battled with daylight saving hours, some of the worst rain I’ve experienced, a pheasant shoot holding us up and Ben getting an unauthorised haircut. Needless to say I was thrilled to get this one across the line."