'All That You Wish We Were' Behind the Scenes Photo Series. All photos by Benn Wood

Behind the Themes 'All That you Wish We Were'

'All That You Wish We Were' by Boy Plus Girl

video director: Dan Brophy

2009 In the interest of offering a perspective on the ‘making of’ a music video, I thought I would talk you through the ‘themes behind the scenes’ of the video I most recently directed for Boy Plus Girl’s ‘All That You Wish We Were’. The song is dark, brooding, sexy and ends with a banging climax. This juxtaposition of the sex and violence, plus the lo-fi performance style of the band was my first springboard into coming up with a concept. As this is one of the band’s first videos, I thought it was a good idea to set the tone by making visual associations between them and certain moments in pop art. The film opens on a post-modern asymmetrical statue. This dominant form subconsciously evokes male genitalis. Fluorescent lights (a reference to the 1960s light-sculptor Dan Flavin) come alive, illuminating the concrete cell. A dominatrix cracks a whip: the ‘ceremony’ can now commence. An act of sadomasochism about to be played out in front of us. The cell illuminates with horizontal (prison) bars of light, suggesting ‘entrapment’ while also introducing us to the band. As the boys begin to play, the vision of them is fed to us through the screen of a video camera. This ‘frame within a frame’ denotes voyeurism (an idea commonly explored in the fashion editorial work of photographers Steven Klein and Terry Richardson.) The three dominatrixes (whose makeup references the girls of Robert Palmer’s “Simply Irrestistible” video and whose clothes evoke 70s/80s icon Grace Jones) watch the performance. Somewhat unenthused, they have seen this ritual played out before, but this time something remarkable happens: they cannot resist the allure of the track, swaying their shoulders and eventually touching themselves feverishly. As the three oppressors’ enthusiasm mounts, we notice they are not only filming the boys, they have also positioned cameras around themselves so that they can watch their own image beamed back to them in a display of masturbatory hedonism. The themes of ‘voyeurism / exhibitionism’ and ‘dominance / submission’ continue: as the boys grow in their oppression the girls get more and more excited, simultaneously aroused by the imagery of both themselves and their captives. By the second verse, the fetishist element of the game is revealed: binoculars, gas masks, biting into raw broccoli, table-top mirrors on which a dominatrix is transfixed by narcissism - as if she’s getting high on her own reflection. The accumulated illusion is a tongue-in-rouged-cheek reference to the trends of (Facebook) voyeurism, vanity, drug use and low-carb mania rampant in society today. This, like all good black-comedy (and sci-fi) takes a nucleus of truth and ramps up the volume to the point of ridiculousness and humour. As the climax builds with the growing intensity of clapping, the dancers are introduced. Their skeletal face make-up (inspired by the short film work of 70s fashion photographer Guy Bourdin) are hyper-stylised versions of the grim reaper. The song’s musical climax is mirrored by a simulated climax of the girls on the black plastic plinth. At the point in which the energy cannot increase anymore the phallic monolith statue literally starts to ooze a translucent viscous fluid, which creeps across the floor, signalling a ‘little death’ and the end not only of the song, but for the band.