Maxi Mclachlan latest promo for the excellent Porij, sees lead singer Egg perpetually rotating and transitioning into other versions of themselves and the other band members.  

As forms change and accessories switch up at a breathless pace, the aesthetic in the video for Unpredictable is trippy and uncanny in the best way. And it ends with the reveal of the greenscreen environment that's also enhanced by VFX.  

"The point was to try and create a video where Egg is constantly rotating, but their clothes transform until it becomes so extreme that they warp into other band members," says McLachlan - who also directed the video for the Manchester's band previous dance-pop banger My Only Love.

"When we first discussed the video we knew we wanted it to reflect the chaotic but very carefully produced track. The song is more digital in feel than some of the other songs on the album so we wanted it to exist in a more digital world as opposed to the more tactile feel of our video for My Only Love. [So] we also embraced using some AI features throughout the video as those programmes are by definition ‘unpredictable’. I wanted to create the feeling that Porij becomes so unpredictable that not even the machines can handle it and the whole simulation shatters."

Mclachlan says the challenge was trying to generate energy in a video where the performers are rotating on a static spot, and how it was going to turn out was itself unpredictable.

"It was a real learning experience in post to discover what AI is and, more importantly, is not capable of… at least not yet. In the end it was pretty much stop motion animation made by exporting each frame and selecting areas for AI to create new clothes while animating warping features of faces each frame by hand. The backgrounds themselves are static images created in AI that I then animated in post. It pushed me and my wee laptop to our processing limits."