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Alexis Taylor 'House Of The Truth' by Simon Owens

Alexis Taylor 'House Of The Truth' by Simon Owens

David Knight - 19th Aug 2021

Simon Owens toys with the X and Y axes in his new video for Alexis Taylor, with the Hot Chip frontman apparently scaling walls with the biggest rope you have ever seen.

Echoing the myth of Sisyphus, and employing a technique possibly last seen in the Batman TV series back in the 1960s - namely, tilting the camera 90 degrees - Alexis 'pulls' himself up different vertical structures and through spaces using a giant, thickly braided ship’s mooring rope.

He also travels through intensely colourful doors travelling from external to internal locations and back again.

As with their previous collaborations, such as Oh Baby, Simon Owens uses irreverent, perception-challenging methods to present Taylor's serious ruminations on life in the House Of The Truth. 

It's that unfeasibly large rope that really gets you...

SIMON OWENS:

This rope pulled a ship out of the River Mersey!

"As perfect as it might sound genuinely came from listening to the track. I felt the melodrama of the song, a struggle, a constant struggle, with Alexis pulling himself somewhere, and then realsing 'somewhere' was nowhere.

The Sisyphus part was some post-rationalization. After telling Alexis the idea he compared it to Sisyphus, natch. Then the ['60s TV] Batman did come up in preproduction, from my art department, and with more post-rationalization, I have since been describing the video as 'My Sisyphean Batman'.

"I found the rope, 200m long, in Northampton. This rope pulled a ship out of the River Mersey! After a week of persuading, the owner agreed to cut 10 meters for me — He actually gave me 20 meters, with which I used only 3.5 meters.

"I felt pity for the man with a van who brought it from Northampton to London. It's ridiculously heavy -, 3.5 meters needed four people just to hold it."

Watch 'Alexis Taylor 'House Of The Truth' by Simon Owens' here

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David Knight - 19th Aug 2021

Tags

  • Director's notes
  • Alternative
  • Rope
  • Sisyphus

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Credits

Production/Creative

Director
Producer

Camera

Director of Photography
Ben Magahy
Focus Puller
Jay Notley
2nd AC
Cristian Ionut Necula

Lighting/Grip

Gaffer
Bruce Magahy

Art

Art Director
Sian Murphy

Editorial

Editor

Grading

Colourist
Jack McGinity
Colour grade company

VFX

VFX
Daydreamer Vfx
Post production company
Daydreamervfx

Commission

Commissioner
Verdigris Management

Other credits

Second AC And DIT

Spark

Howard Morton

Grip

Sid Jones

Art Department Assistant

Rafe Mullarkey

Van Hire And Driver

Howard Morton

Runners

Jack Baker, Matthew Gowenlock, Felicity Chalaby, Sonni Mason

Assistance

Jerome Danvers, Noah Taylor, Jim Simpson

Hat

John Booth

Clothes

Bernhard Willhelm

Additional Cast

Kenichi Iwasa And Sian Murphy

Additional Editing

Jim Wright

Camera And Grip Equipment

Focus 24

Rig

Feral Equipment

Lighting

Pixi Pixel

Insurance

Somesuch

Huge Thank-you For The Support Of Ben Mitchell From Focus 24.

David Knight - 19th Aug 2021

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