Watch: Mark Pritchard's Otherworldly Sundance Music Video Stars Thom Yorke
'Beautiful People' enlists the Radiohead frontman's vocals and facial holograms for a journey into metaphysical lands.
The new music video from Mark Pritchard's recently released album, Under the Sun, conjures the essence of a kindred spirit: Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin. A disembodied Thom Yorke—an alien from another world—wanders a misty landscape colored with the light of either pre-dawn or the post-apocalypse. The creature, clad in a spacesuit, defies the laws of physics as he hovers over cliffs, peering into the ethereal abyss.
The music video is directed by filmmaker and cinematographer Michał Marczak, whose documentary All These Sleepless Nights won Best Director at Sundance 2016.
The video premiered online at The Guardian after originally screening at Sundance NEXT Fest. According to Pritchard, it was shot in the Izera mountains of Poland. Thom, however, was filmed in his hometown in England with a 3D scanner; VFX artists later replaced the stand-in's head with "an organic-feeling particle simulation of Thom's performance."
"'Beautiful People' is a personal song about loss, hopelessness and chaos, but the message is love and hope," Pritchard told The Guardian. "Thom’s contribution to this collaboration captured perfectly what the piece is about."
