Sad Night Dynamite's Club Pop Banger Unpacks Overconsumption

BAFTA-nominated director Balázs Simon crafts an animated music video for Sad Night Dynamite's latest release, 'Wake Up, Pass Out'. The single is a pitch-black, darkly comic club-pop banger that unpicks the toxic bind between generational ennui and modern-day hysteria, with an outrageous music video to match.

Sad Night Dynamite introduce 'Wake Up, Pass Out' as a song about "being stuck in a cycle: We are beings of habit, time is relentless, and this can feel claustrophobic. Although there are fleeting messages of desperation throughout, the lyrics are erratic, as if you're inside someone's mind whilst it's racing. The chorus is deliberately shallow and provocative, playing the antagonist." 

Balázs drew inspiration from themes of overconsumption and a lack of self-control. In today's world, many of us are familiar with the experience of not knowing when to stop, often passing out with a phone still in hand. Social media obsession has a way of taking over our lives, turning us into our own monsters: "That's where the idea for the video came from; I love the sardonic honesty in Josh and Archie's music", Balázs explains.

"Instead of staying in the present and watching the guys perform on stage, we're lured into the arse end of a nightclub to watch their distorted, monstrous versions, which have only one goal: to grab our attention and consume us."

It was an ambitious project with countless techniques involved, from the live-action shoot to 3D scanning the band, motion-capturing their performances, detailed prosthetics, a CGI monster, and photoscanning the streets of London to form the basis of the digital world.

The CGI creature was designed from the ground up and brought to life in Unreal Engine by a mixture of rigging and shot-sculpting, coupled with additional simulations of cloth, hair, organic tissue, and saliva. Each of these were carefully coordinated with the live action prosthetics and styling to create a consistent world. This was a dynamic process as the CG team reacted in real time to the work of the prosthetics team and vice versa, requiring the monster to be finalised prior to the live action shoot.   

3D scans of the band members' heads and facial performances were made to map onto the monster. For the live-action portion, they were also strapped into a fully custom-made prosthetic suit complete with tentacles. 

For maximum flexibility, the background and surrounding environments were recreated digitally from scans of the live-action set and photos of the streets of London at night. 

"I couldn’t be more thankful for the phenomenal folks involved. We had an incredible team of producers and designers at Blinkink, a superb live-action crew, and my producer Rowan, whose commitment to doing handstands in dubiously cleaned nightclub bathrooms was particularly admirable. There were so many puzzle pieces to fit together: CGI magic by massively talented Hungarian friends, sound design by Aaron Bentley, and a masterful grade by Alex Gregory. But most of all, this list would not be complete without mentioning Cátia Abreu, with whom we had a blast figuring out all the creative challenges and who quite literally took over directing while I got busy getting lost in the morass of VFX techniques." said Balázs Simon.