Bonobo Shares Behind The Scenes Video
'Migration' LP is out now.
As accolades continue to roll in for Bonobo‘s Migration album, the lauded musician has shared a special behind the scenes peek at the making of the video for “No Reason” featuring Nick Murphy.
Director Oscar Hudson explains the process of how he and his team turned the idea of exploring themes of isolation into the surreal series of shrinking rooms depicted in the music video. The video was filmed entirely in real life, in-camera with no post work or VFX. As Hudson takes viewers through the set design, subtle details and connections to the lyrics become apparent and viewers see the attention to detail paid in creating the clip.
Oscar Hudson had the following to say about making the video:
”It was a real honor to make a video for an artist like Bonobo whose music I’ve been a fan of for years. ”No Reason” is such an evocative and atmospheric track and it was clear from the start that our video would need to reflect this potency. Simon/Bonobo had said that part of the inspiration behind this new album came from his relationship to landscape and place while on tour and the sense of alienation that comes with being rootless for long periods of time. So taking my lead from this I set out to make a film that through an inventive physical concept tried to link environment directly to psychology. While researching these themes further I learned about the Japanese phenomenon of the Hikikomori—young Japanese people who become so overwhelmed by the pressures of life that they retreat to their bedrooms and do not leave for years at a time. This seemed like a such a fascinating intersection of physical and psychological spaces and the idea of building a series of rooms that gradually and claustrophobically shrink down around its occupant soon followed.
“As with much of my work, we achieved the film using only in-camera physical effects. We had to design an entirely new way of moving our miniature camera to get it to fit through the tiny doorways and travel smoothly for such a long distance. We also had 18 rooms all at different scales, so we had to duplicate and shrink every single prop that features in the set… which is obviously was a ton of work! Doing this film with CGI would have been a thousand times easier, but for me, it’s physicality and imperfections are what make it different, and I hope better. The technical challenge of pulling this film off the way we did it was immense and huge credit goes to Production Designer Luke Moran-Morris & D.P. Ruben Woodin-Dechamps who absolutely smashed it at every step.
The full video is streamable in full below.