Biscuit Filmworks director Ben Strebel returns to music videos with his latest for Skrillex, Starrah & Four Tet’s new track “Butterflies.”
Displaying Strebel’s attention to detail and heightened narrative sensibility, the video also presents a moving and deeply heartfelt portrait of the hopes, anxieties, and aspirations of a generation of youth whose relationships have been stymied and whose opportunities have been curtailed by the COVID-19 lockdowns of the past year.
The video features intricate and emotional choreography by Holly Blakey, intimate and compelling cinematography by Ben Todd, and visual effects from the team at Electric Theatre Collective.
Strebel spent weeks working with his cast, carrying out interviews with each member about their personal experiences over the past year, which eventually formed the emotional and narrative basis of the film. One actor told him, “I feel like we haven’t grown older because we haven’t had a chance to live for a year,” a sentiment that resonates throughout the video.
Far from dwelling on these lost opportunities and deep-seated anxieties, the film is all about living, self-expression, and hope in defiance of those feelings. Freedom.
Of working with Skrillex, Strebel highlighted the trust and freedom he was provided, as well as remarking upon the importance of the collaborative nature of their relationship. “He is a truly great artist to work with,” Strebel said.
The film’s co-visual effects supervisor, ETC’s Tobin Brett, explained how they achieved the film’s stand-out ghost effects: “Creating the ghosts for the main choreography section of the video was the biggest challenge for this project. We made use of reference footage shot at rehearsals and on set to match the behavior of the fabric. The VFX team were able to quickly iterate low resolution cloth simulations whenever we updated the animation and layout to help us get a feel for how the shot would work. Once we were all happy with the composition of the shot and overall movement, we upped the simulation resolution and added any secondary movements to lift the shot. On set the VFX department captured all the information we needed to realistically recreate the lighting environment to sit the ghosts into the location.”
