Elliott Power Traverses Cultures and Ideals for Miink Video ‘Paper Doll’

Love Song-rostered talent Elliott Power has directed the just-released music video for Paper Doll, the first release off of Miink’s highly anticipated second album Notice Me, after the success of the debut Small Clan in 2018.     

Paper Doll is part of a larger theme found on the album. Each song addresses a piece of a broader statement about the Atlantic slave trade and its effects on the cultures that were uprooted. The cultures and ideals of the enslaved blended on the long trans-Atlantic trips, creating new cultural practices, religions, and philosophies. Paper Doll specifically looks at the themes of death and rebirth within this wider concept. 

Miink explains that he wanted to use this song and video to illuminate the fact that colonizers used Christianity to curtail enslaved people from committing suicide on the long boat ride across the Atlantic. The concept of heaven and hell was pushed on them, and their belief in rebirth after death was dismissed. Many enslaved people were forced to practice their true beliefs in secret. Paper Doll reflects this forced secrecy through a world shown entirely in the blackness of night, with a voyage through an underworld, with a faint light of rebirth at the end.

The genesis of Miink’s creative collaboration with Elliott was during a trip Miink made to visit him in Mexico City. After listening to Miink’s new album, Elliott was inspired by what he heard and suggested that they shoot a video while both there in Mexico City. They ended up shooting in a small town an hour outside of the city on a very ambitious 12-hour night shoot. Produced by The Lift Mexico, all departments worked incredibly hard to achieve an stunning end result. 

Incorporating Mexican culture and history into the music video, along with local artists and designers, Miink and Elliott were able to create something different from other popular videos right now. The experience ends up feeling as though the viewer exists in a painting depicting a legend or myth from the past - capturing the beauty of brushstrokes even while illustrating nightmarish scenes.

“I’d been saying to Miink for years that I wanted to make a music video with a slow cinema approach, emphasizing long takes, rarely cutting, to create more of a tableau vivant,” says Elliott. “Miink’s music works perfectly for this approach as it’s cinematically rich, with texture and layers.”

Friends since they were growing up together as part of the rich heritage found in west London, they share very similar tastes and influences. “Working with such a close friend is like a dream for me because we can communicate without even speaking if we need to,” says Miink. “It makes the whole process a lot smoother. We can put complete trust in each other to achieve the vision we set out to and we have confidence that it will be great work.”