Director Ollie Evans took a high brow meets street culture approach when directing Zomby's video for "With Love," which divides four tracks ("Ascension," "Sunshine Iin November," "Overdose" and "Memories") into different scenes in the video. Set in a warehouse-style church, the cycle of life and death is played out by a cast of strikingly beauty characters. As if capturing a live photo shoot, small details are king with the blink in particularly seemingly caught on purpose. Storylines slink away with deft details, becoming the key player in the video. We talked to Ollie about the video, the influence of the fashion industry, and keeping the project close to his heart.
Luke: Did you hope that people would be able to follow a specific narrative with this video, or did you anticipate people forming their own opinions of the narrative?
Ollie: I wanted to make a video about the human condition and cyclical nature of existence. I'd like to think that whilst the narrative itself is purposely ambiguous there is something in there everyone can relate to.
Luke: With Zomby's new album release approaching this is an incredibly important project for him, in what ways did Zomby contribute to the video?
Ollie: Zomby's presence was ethereal. Whilst not being directly involved in the production of the video, it was important to pay respect to what he had created musically by going to lengths we did with the detailing and the references so the aesthetics matched sonically and visually.
Luke: The cast members in this video are distinctly good-looking, and the lighting at times is incredibly photo shoot like were there any outside influences, such as the fashion industry, for this video?
Ollie: High fashion photography and imagery were integral to the concept, as were Renaissance art and British street culture. I didn't want there to be anything in the video that could be construed as middling or compromised. Everybody and everything had to be sharp and purposeful, no one is there for the sake of it.
Luke: Location and clothing really seem to reflect London, was this a goal of yours and did you source locally?
Ollie: I'm from Birmingham originally and grew up listening and raving to Jungle and Garage, then moved to London age 18 and followed the sound into Grime and Dubstep. Subsequently it was through attending the club around six years ago that led me to discover Zomby's music as part of that evolution of sound. It is very personal music to me, and as such I wanted to keep this project close to my heart. In very literal terms, the location was 30 second walk from my house and I supplied the vintage Stone Island jackets that are seen throughout the video via my company Too Hot International.
If you liked what you read, head over to Luke's blog, Word Is Cheap, for more thoughts on his favourite music videos.
