SBTRKT || Wildfire MV

SBTRKT’s Wildfire music video, a feverish drug-induced visual trip, explores themes of substance use, love and sex and the horrors that come from the amalgamation of this trio.

Looking at the budget of this music video production, one would assume that it was made from quite a cheap budget. With only one location of a bedroom – perhaps another room used to experiment with the water effects – as well as naturalistic lighting from windows and lamps, these aspects could definitely have come free. Props include the SBTRKT trade mark mask, fans, blow dryers, water, maybe milk and for the darker looking liquids: water with black food dye or diluted black paint. Just like the location and lighting, all of these could have been found around people’s houses, costing the production team practically nothing. The prop that they probably needed to spend some money on was dry ice that was hooked up to the water tap to create the final scene effect.

To get an idea of the other works the director, Sam Piling, has done, I found another music video he did for SBTRKT called “Hold On”. It was a big contrast to “Wildfire” as “Hold On” has a more realistic, natural appearance and presents a more understandable storyline. “Wildfire”, on the other hand, has very surreal imagery and its storyline is portrayed through allusions and interpretive imagery and symbols. “Wildfire” implements a lot of tight framing and close ups which create those surreal shapes, further complemented with the unnatural movement of water floating upwards. Hence, whilst “Hold On” takes on a more naturalistic and realist approach, Wildfire is more abstract and experimental in its art style.

As SBTRKT’s music is seen to cross the border of Dubstep music, I was reminded of a lot of Skrillex music videos and how the visuals and editing support the mood and tempo of the music. “Wildfire” has a very feverish, uneasy tone, which I believe the visuals Sam Piling implemented strongly reflects and emphasises this atmosphere. As mentioned in our reading “Telling Not Telling” by Varnallis, there is no obvious narrative, and the storyline is presented more as a chance for various interpretation by different audiences. Furthermore, there are allusions to Japanese and Korean horror legends, such as the female character’s resemblance to the Grudge, or Samara from the Ring, and people have seen connections of “Wildfire”’s visuals to the Korean superstition known as “Fan Death”. In this urban legend, people say that if you sleep in a room with closed doors and windows with the ceiling fan on, it will suck the air out of you and suffocate you to death. SBTRKT has expressed that he was pleased with this dark turn of visuals as he “sees the darker side of music” and was glad Sam Piling was able to reflect this from his music and lyrics of drugs, sex and the ideas of addiction and its crippling effect on life.

After showing this video to my group mates, we were definitely inspired to play around with water effects and what shapes we can create out of it. Furthermore, we aim to utilise the contrast of happy and dark visuals so that we can create more depth and layers to the meaning of our music videos the way Piling has done to SBTRKT’s Wildfire music video.