Christophe Thockler plays with fire for
Victoria+Jean music video

Music: director Christophe Thockler used “10 litres of gasoline” to create this fiery stop-motion music video for avant-pop duo Victoria+Jean. 

Thockler combined video and stop-motion footage to make the music video, in which Victoria+Jean perform their track Why Won’t You via a series of burning photographs.

“A few years ago, I directed a stop-motion video with ice melting,” Thockler told Dezeen. “Since then I’ve always wanted to create something only using fire, mixing video and stop motion.”

“This piece of music was a perfect playground for me to play with rhythm, fast-paced stop-motion sequences and of course symbolism,” he said.

Thockler set light to hundreds of photographs, which he shot over 8,000 times as they smouldered and charred to create the stop-motion elements of the video.

He combined these segments with video footage of burning matches, candles and rolls of camera film.

“It’s made with 400 burning printed photos and 10 litres of gasoline,” he claimed. “Shooting this video was quite an artistic challenge, but a very playful one.”

Despite the difficulties of working with fire, Thockler said he was glad he took on the challenge.

“When Victoria+Jean asked me to choose a track to work with, I was immediately blown away by the powerful energy of Why Won’t You,” he explained. “I wanted to do something I had never done before.”

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