Arctic Monkeys Embrace Vintage Visuals For Latest Track ‘Body Paint’

Arctic Monkeys and RadicalMedia have launched the music video for ‘Body Paint’, a new track from the band’s forthcoming album ‘The Car’. Filmed in London and Missouri, the film was directed by RadicalMedia’s Brook Linder.

Overlaid with a grainy aesthetic, the video features vintage-inspired visuals that transport the viewer back in time. A surreal experience, viewers are treated to a broad scope of shots, from elements of the filmmaking process and the band performing, to crop circles, sun beds, and humorous title cards.

Blending a mix of approaches, RadicalMedia director Brook Linder wanted to explore the concept of a music video: what it’s supposed to be, what it can be, what it can’t be, and what it’s meant to symbolise. The end result is a delicate balancing act between depicting the performance itself and the process of creating a piece of symbolism.

Drawing inspiration from the works of Gordon Willis and ‘70s filmmaking, Brook and DOP Frank Mobilio built up the video’s vintage aesthetic, from its grainy quality to the imagery of old film kit. The pair opted for a simplicity in their approach, keeping the elements dark and graphic, and choosing compositions carefully. Key for Brook was broadening the scope of the video - featuring tens of scenes that are worlds apart from each other (yet all executed with the same graphic approach) it’s really a dozen films in one.

Brook Linder comments: “We really did ramp up a full film production to distil this song into a video, and that involves a lot of moving parts. RadicalMedia knew this was a massive undertaking and they pulled it off. Creative director Ben Chappell, DOP Frank Mobilio, Alex Turner and myself have been making music videos for a long time, and we all have strong opinions on what works and what doesn’t - in some ways that conversation is the film. There is a reason that the reel falls off the buildup table, there’s a certain failure being visualised. Luckily in our case, our paths aligned organically, and we were after the same thing.”

He adds: “We had a small unit and a big shot list, and it was all led by Nikki Simmons - a brilliant production designer. She looked at the asks and didn’t blink - in a day she found a crop-duster willing to do a flyover, a field to make a crop circle, a helicopter for our aerial unit - all of it. She’s a crusher with excellent taste, and I can’t wait to see what she does next.”