The Band Explains: Gold Key - 'Mechanical World'
Gold Key recently released the video for their track 'Mechanical World', we had a chat with guitarist Laurent Barnard and director of the video Russel Cleave about how it was created.
Where was the video filmed?
Laurent: Our friend Russel Cleave (Rusty) shot the whole video in the film studios of Plymouth College of Art. He's worked with us before on videos for 'Mess', 'Sneaker' and 'Kerosene’.
How does the video compliment the song?
Laurent: When we approached Rusty we sent him the lyrics and a brief explanation of how the song reflects our dependency on technology. The video itself is about a man whose trying to play God and working to create a synthetic human. Technological advancements have come so far in the last 20 years this video represents peak progress. If anything the video takes the lyrical ideas and pushes them even further.
Rusty: For me the song has three dynamics the main big riff where the imagery either has a lot of edits or a lot of movement in the shot ie the twitching machinery. Then a drop down into the verses for the more emotive shots with the frustration of a many working on something he cares about. And finally there is the middle 8 and the chorus that has a dream like quality so the shots were drawn out to compliment the music
Are there any behind the scenes stories?
Rusty: The video had quite a quick turn around just a week in fact so casting was difficult. Tip Cullen (the scientist character) was available which was great but the synthetic was a bit tricky at short notice, not everybody is super stoked on wearing a spandex all in one haha. Lucky Annie one of the camera operators jumped in and it worked out better than I imagined .
What is the message of the video trying to convey? Tell us about the ideas used?
Rusty: The over all message of the video is that it doesn’t matter how many technical devices you own it will never be the same as physical contact . The man starts to fall into a fantasy of actually making a bond with the synthetic human he is working on until something goes wrong and she shuts down, breaking him out of the fantasy straight back into reality
Laurent: I definitely feel like I'm becoming part of the machine. I'm addicted to all my electronic devices, I probably have more in common with the syhthetic human in 'Mechanical World' than the real human scientist. Are we all slaves to the machine? Hopefully not but I ask myself that question all the time.