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Xav Clarke 'Growing Up Is For Losers' by Kit Vincent

David Knight - 12th Apr 2024

Kit Vincent's video for singer-songwriter Xav Clarke's wistful Growing Up Is For Losers is an evocative, nostalgic recreation of an episode of boyhood friendship. It also serves as an introduction to the director and musician's bigger collaboration on Red Herring, the feature-lenght documentary about Vincent's diagnosis with an incurable brain tumour, released next month.

Following the news of his diagnosis, Vincent boldly addressed his predicament, and began chronicling the very difficult journey that he and his family have been undertaking, to come to terms with his illness. Treading a fine line between grief and humour, and celebrating the relationships that keep us going, particularly in life's darker moments, the result is Red Herring. An important part of the film is Xav Clarke's musical contribution.

Working in a similar way to Badly Drawn Boy's work on the movie About A Boy, the singer-songwriter was asked to compose both songs and music, performing the soundtrack, letting his songs inform the score, and vice versa - which reflect upon the big subjects of life and death with unguarded innocence.

The video for the film soundtrack's first single Growing Up Is For Losers was filmed after the completion of the Red Herring. Vincent directs the story of two schoolboys - himself and Xav as kids - on an adventure in the countryside to find a magical lake. Shot on film by DoP Rik Burnell (who also worked on the documentary) on location in Wadhurst, East Sussex, its humour-tinged elegiac quality is a perfect match for the 60s-ish acoustic feel of the song.

And when the boys find a harmonica in the lake it becomes a musical cue to bring us back to Xav and Kit in the present, performing the song - a sudden reminder that 'growing up' (or at least growing older) is inevitable. 

"I had always imagined the music in the film as having it’s own character," says Kit Vincent. "I didn’t want it to fade in to the background or drive the audiences emotions like with many other documentaries. I felt like Xav’s style of songwriting and the songs themselves would help up achieve something different and more akin to a kind of nostalgic early 2000’s indie film.

"So when Xav came to us with the idea of releasing the soundtrack as a standalone piece I was really on board. We immediately started thinking about how to incorporate the influences and ideas we had that were outside of Red Herring and decided we should create another video that has its own story. 

"Growing Up Is For Losers was the perfect track for this and it allowed us to play with this tongue-in-cheek idea of two young boys - younger versions of Xav and I - with this blissful ignorance of the world, full of hope on a journey to find a magic lake and instead what they get is a peak into the bleak and real future of what it’s like to be an adult who’s followed their dreams."

• Red Herring is in select cinemas and on demand from May 3rd. Watch the trailer.
  

David Knight - 12th Apr 2024

Tags

  • Director's notes
  • Narrative
  • Singer-songwriter
  • Red Herring

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Credits

Production/Creative

Director
Kit Vincent
Producer
Milly Upton
Production Company
Good Kid Films
Executive Producer
Ed Owles
Executive Producer
Kit Vincent
Executive Producer
Xav Clarke
Production Manager
Greta Stepanyan
1st AD
Josie Jacobs

Camera

Director of Photography
Rik Burnell
Camera Assistant
Ben Whittacker

Art

Production designer
Ellie Strong

Editorial

Editor
Kit Vincent

Grading

Colourist
Vic Parker

David Knight - 12th Apr 2024

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