Dave Bullivant directs a portrait of strength and vulnerability for the return of Jon Hopkins - featuring aerial rope artist Bryony Louise Fowler. The rousing promo for Ritual features Fowler's extraordinary, gravity-defying performance, moving gymnastically around a hanging rope metres above the ground, shot in a hypnotic and trance-like way, mainly at super-high frame rates. Intercutting close-ups and expansive wide shots, the macro and micro elements of the performance are put under the lens of DoP Adam Scarth, building in energy in parallel to the thrillingly atmospheric track through the edit by Thomas Grove Carter. "Jon's music is always very visceral and moving," notes Bullivant. "He came to me with this amazing track and an Instagram link to Bryony and her amazing work. What followed was an exercise in creative trust."Bryony is the most incredible performer. The strength and endurance that she has to be able to do what she does is incredible. She really captured the emotion of the music and portrayed it in the most wonderful way. There is no post production here, she really did it all for real - although there are some crash mats framed out of a few of the shots."I could talk at length about each department being completely amazing on this, from Adam's lighting and camera work, to Tom's amazing edit, and Jodie's beautiful grade. Not to mention Ayomidi pulling it all together in about three days. The whole team were amazing. Very very proud of this film."

Craig Bingham directs an evocative for James Blunt, reflecting on the process of getting older - which also features some gripping motorcycle action. In the video for Beside You, Bingham explores the idea of past selves, and how each version of our character has helped build the person we are today. The concept centres on stunt driving and thrilling motorbike sequences to encapsulate the theme of youth and ageing, together with some heartfelt performance setups from the artist."This film embraces an element of surrealism," explains Bingham. "James finds himself in a rough-and-ready flat-track arena where he encounters versions of himself that have made him the person he is."Those versions of himself are always with him, driving him forwards - Beside You."

Directing duo Tearjerker - Hope Elliott Kemp and Ronan Corrigan - reunite with indie rock band The Academic for a cinematic tribute to the heist film genre. Set inside a bookies, the promo for new single Pushing Up Daisies stars the band as dejected gamblers, completely oblivious to a robbery going on around them.The second in a planned trilogy of videos for album Sitting Pretty, the video was shot at an abandoned electricity board in Bethnal Green, with an ambitious and very well-executed set build from scratch by production designer Ben Clark. In a big step up in scale for the directors, the video features thrilling action scenes, brilliant stunt work and a rather creepy set of costumes, and perfectly blends the offbeat conceptual elements of their previous collaborations with the group.“One of our favourite challenges is figuring out how we can fit the artists into the worlds we create," say TEARJERKER. "Bookies are grim places where dreams go to die, so we loved the idea of juxtaposing the high octane heist with the soul-destroyed punters whose lives revolve around the bet.“A lot of artists are nervous about doing anything other than a traditional performance video, but The Academic have never said ‘no’ to our weirdest ideas. At this point we’ve shot the band stuck inside washing machines, vending machines, a freezer, an abandoned water park and possibly the hardest challenge yet, on Zoom."For Sitting Pretty we wanted to push everything further and create a full cinematic world around the album."