#directors notes

The music video centres on an antihero who falls from the sky and respawns in search of his soulmate. How did you approach the creation of this key character, his narrative, and the development of his visual language through movement to make him seem so otherworldly?

Sam Spruell and I chatted about his character prior to the shoot and decided that we wanted to create an ambiguous antihero. Alien-like. Obsessed but emotionally layered enough to be human. At the same time, we decided that everything is happening inside his mind. We are witnessing the video from his point of view. What is real and what is not? I wanted to leave room for the viewer’s interpretation. I love films that challenge the viewer instead of explaining everything perfectly. I don’t think it matters what’s real and what’s not. At the end, you have to be emotionally connected to our hero. A lost obsessive soul who feels like he’s living in a simulation. I think we managed. Being thrown to the earth is how he might emotionally experience his life. Stuck in a constant loop until he finds his light and happiness.

I was really captivated by Sam Spruell’s performance—his presence and the quality of his movement. What made you choose him for this role? How did you collaborate with him to bring out that specific energy and quirkiness in the character?

Sam and I had worked together before on a commercial and got along. I knew casting had to be really strong to make a concept like this work. I was looking for UK actors. My EP Saskia Kok suggested to shoot Sam a message. I didn’t expect him to say yes to this low budget music video, but he loved the idea. He liked the dance choreography and the fact that I wanted to create a quirky character. It was something he hadn’t done before—he usually plays the bad guy—so he wanted to explore this offbeat character. He killed the performance in my opinion.

I was also struck by the originality and vibrancy with which movement was integrated into the narrative—it immediately made me think of a mating dance in the first encounter between Sam and Erza Sejdiu. Why did you develop a coherent dance concept and specific repeated movements as a visual language in In Search of Yang? How did you bring this concept to life through movement with choreographer Mès Lesne?

I had some calls with choreographer Mes Lesne and expressed my desire for a primal mating dance. In my head, I was like what happens if two oddballs on the same spectrum find each other. How would they connect? What would be their visual language? How would they move? How would they approach each other if they don’t abide by the social code? I wanted the dance to be clunky, imperfect, but genuine. We rehearsed the dance a day before the shoot and on the shoot day itself, we let the camera roll to get some moments. That really worked well.

Oh my God! Baby I’m so sorry I just saw this!! It got buried!! 

Um... well, I’ll talk about my Yuta oneshot, “Fated to You!” 

I really didn’t expect that one to end up the way it did. I’m honestly not even 100% sure where I was heading with it when I first started. All I knew was I was itching to write some Yuta and well, I hadn’t written any supernatural elements really. Plus, Yuta as a kitsune is GOLD!

Anyway, I had to do my research on Kitsune lure because a Kitsune isn’t something one would typically see like a werewolf or a vampire. Which is kinda how it morphed into what it did. You see, I started out with the forest scene fully intending for Yuta to “save” the reader from something or the reader to be scared of fox Yuta. It wasn’t until I was getting close that I was like “why are readers always the ones getting injured.” And so Yuta appeared as a small pup bleeding. 

Now, with this, I also wanted to make it kinda ambiguous, because Yuta wouldn’t have died just from a wound. He would have gotten weak and been an easy target had anyone actually wanted to kill him, but his wound would have eventually healed. However, the reader nor the audience knew that. So I’m really hoping that came across well there. 

Secondly, after the reader took Yuta home, I had plans for the reader to slowly find out what Yuta was by offhanded comments and Yuta turning into a human. But I thought about it. If a random (hot af) boy randomly showed up in my house and the fox I’d rescued no where to be seen, I’d check myself into a mental hospital. So I scraped that idea and, with more research came Yuta’s ability to manipulate minds. Thus transferring himself and reader back into Yuta’s mind to witness his past, present, and future. 

Now, his parents death, that had been planned, but it was a bit of a stretch because Kitsune’s are well-liked in Japanese lore. So, with the idea that humans had turned on Kitsune’s came the premise of the entire rest of the fic. I just kept playing that card. 

All in all, I was very satisfied at the ending. It wasn’t what I had planned, but I enjoyed writing it!

I had pleasure to be interviewed by Directors Notes about "But she's nice..". This interview is very insightful!

His hair? Wack.

His face? Wack.

Phoenix Wright? Wack.