Fiona Jane Burgess finds the beauty in the ordinary for Wolf Alice's Sofa, and employs the song's title and central metaphor as a clever visual device.

The video for The Sofa begins with a band performance in a sitting room - with lead singer Ellie Rowsell lying comfortably on the eponymous object, from which she delivers something like a personal report card on her life. As she does so, the sofa beings to glide laterally from the room into a London street - a transition that's achieved in-camera, in one shot.

This is where the residents are engaged in activities that reflects Ellie's lyrics and positive mindset. With scenarios that have resonance to a hot summer in the city and excellent real people casting it's a version of the band's home district of Seven Sisters, North East London (as mentioned in the song) that cleverly treads a line between fantasy and realism.

And its further evidence of Ellie Rowsell's assurance as a frontwoman - again reflecting the quiet self-confidence that exists in the song.  

FIONA JANE BURGESS: “It’s always such a pleasure to work with a band who know what they want and are incredibly collaborative to work with. From the moment I heard the track, I knew it was a special song and the video had to be equally mesmerising and captivating and epic. The lyrics are so visual too, so it was really about how to bring those lyrics to life and interpret the world of the song.

"When I first listened to the song, I imagined travelling somewhere on a train or a bus, watching the world unfold from my window seat. That’s the feeling that inspired this idea - the feeling of sitting back and travelling past scenes on a summer’s day, only this time it was on a sofa :)

"This shoot was ambitious in scale but the idea was to make it look effortless. I wanted the sofa moving out of the living room set to look seamless, as well as the characters and scenes to feel like they were capturing the big and small celebratory moments, from the life-changing euphoria of getting married or the adrenaline rush you get from watching the footy with friends, to kids performing a TikTok dance routine or eating an ice cream.

"The band also had lots of ideas about the scenes and if you look closely there’s lots of easter eggs in there which point to different lyrics in the songs off their album which is fun - it’s a bit like Where’s Wally!

"I always wanted to do everything in-camera and not on a green screen, so we shot on various residential and commercial streets in North London and built a real-size living room in the middle of the street and had a 200ft track with the sofa rigged onto it.

"We shot everything in one day on 16mm with 65 extras plus the band and sofa scenes and very temperamental weather which kept changing throughout the day, which the camera crew did a very good job at embracing!

"It was a brilliant shoot and process overall and I couldn’t be prouder or happier to have played a part in helping to bring this song to life.”