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North Downs 'Here Come Butterflies' by Jake Mavity

David Knight - 9th Apr 2024

The return of Jack Sibley's music project North Downs after a four-year hiatus is heralded with the psych-drenched electronica of Here Come Butterflies and an absorbing visual interpretation directed by Jake Mavity, featuring Farah Ashraf as a girl undergoing a remarkable transformation.

In the video, the girl's commonplace life on a canalside walk is interrupted by visions, and then a room of TVs with distorted images of Sibley performing, and another version of herself, trapped in the TV, wearing a green party dress. When 'real' Farah connects with the girl in the TV it triggers a change, where she becomes that other version of herself, within an enclosed mirror-lined space - until she is ready to emerge from the cocoon.

Sibley's brief for Mavity was to represent a butterfly's transformation within its chrysalis - in the song he draws a parallel between humanity's incessant drive for technological advancement with the instinct of a caterpillar building its cocoon - and Mavity's response was to take a strictly in-camera, analogue approach, mostly eschewing digital VFX in favour of practical effects.

Most crucially he built a real, mirror-lined 'cocoon' space, in an LED studio, in which he had enclosed Ashraf. Previously shot footage was played onto the LED studio floor, reflecting up on to the mirrors in the cocoon surrounding Ashraf.

“Jack approached me with not just the banger that is Here Come Butterflies but also an intriguing creative vision too. There seemed to be a commonality with the transformation we underwent everyday via our online, digital lives.

"So the question was how best to explore what happened inside a butterfly’s cocoon during metamorphosis? How could we peel back the skin and expose the flesh beneath.

“We built a 3 metre high, mirrored cocoon and then projected imagery we’d shot from an LED floor, creating a kaleidoscopic effect. We also played footage of North Downs performing through various analogue filters, adding effects and pulses organically and instinctively as the track played.

"It was a wild-pitch acid house mindset and meant there was a degree of uncontrolled rawness that complimented the ethos of the track perfectly.” 

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David Knight - 9th Apr 2024

Tags

  • Director's notes
  • In-camera FX
  • Narrative
  • Pick of the Day
  • VFX
  • Electronic
  • Psychedelic
  • Rock
  • Alternative
  • Cocoon
  • Mirrors

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Credits

Production/Creative

Director
Jake Mavity
1st AD
Sam Barnham
PA
Mikki Hackett
Runner / BTS Camera
Seb Degni
Runner
Darlington Anyiam

Camera

Director of Photography
Thom Neal
Focus Puller
Nacho Munoz De Leon
DIT
Pete Banks

Lighting/Grip

Gaffer
Blake Kent

Art

Production designer
Sam Tidman
Art Runner
Bailey Betteridge

Wardrobe

Stylist
Jenny Cogan
Hair & Make-up
Morgan Lashley
Costume designer
Totty O’Clee

Casting

Casting director
Hammond & Cox
Lead actor
Farah Ashraf

Editorial

Editor
Jules Bayer-Crier
Editing company
TenThree

Grading

Colourist
Dan Levy
Colour grade company
Rascal Post

VFX

Post production company
Absolute Post

Agent

Director's Representation

Commission

Label
Space Daddy Records

Other credits

Construction

Freeform

LED Flooring

Dynamo LED

Mirrors

Cut Plastic Sheeting

TV Props

Pure Energy

Analogue FX Processing

Jack Sibley

Co-Creative Direction

Jack Sibley

David Knight - 9th Apr 2024

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