STG News
Manchester music artist Jake releases new single Drink on GRM Daily. Drink is a trippy, psychedelic music video following Jake’s drunken night out.
From a burning guitar in the forest to a PlayStation-style, Street Fighter game with a screaming NHS doppelganger.
Jake wrote the song about his recent struggles with depression and how he used excessive alcohol as an escape.
Jake, 22, is a British singer and songwriter based in Manchester. Born in London, he toured with Oliver! the musical as a child and was awarded a scholarship at the prestigious Redroofs School of Performing Arts. After studying Music Performance at college, he attended the British Institute of Modern Music in Manchester and was awarded a further scholarship.
Jake continues to explore his musical talents experimenting with guitar, bass, sitar, and a whole host of other instruments. His music brings the heart-felt melodies and structure usually found in 1960’s Rock and Acoustic Folk to the playing grounds of Afro, Trap and Hip Hop just to name a few.
“One day, after a heavy night of drinking, I came to the studio and the beat came on by accident. I had been feeling very depressed for a few weeks leading up to the session, so it was a kind of like an escape for me, where I was able to let out everything that I had been feeling. Drink, at the time, seemed to be my first and only way of easing the pain. The visuals in the video help so much to bring the feelings and emotions I was going through to life, as I was feeling lost and in a whole other world. How I felt at this time really comes across in the texture of this track” Jake.
Drink film was directed, filmed, and edited by 24-year-old Lewis Andrews, founder of Wonderfilm Pictures. Lewis has worked on movies in XM2 Pursuit’s aerial camera department on Mission Impossible 7, Fast and Furious 9, Cinderella and James Bond “No Time to Die”.
“The video is basically one big trip. Dreams don’t usually have any structure or meaning to them and it’s difficult to pinpoint where they start or how one moment transitions to the next. I wanted to try and represent the vivid motion and atmosphere of a dream whilst abstractly interpreting the song meaning. When I was briefed about the song lyrics, Jake told me that he had previously used alcohol to deal with his problems. I started to think of ways to represent a journey through an intoxicated dream that Jake has where he wakes up inside a howling nightmare.
The rest didn’t need to make much sense, I just wanted it to look cool. The vivid storyline portrays Jake’s depression with a series of nightmarish characters acting against him. I knew the film had to have the colour and feel of an 80’s horror thriller like Stranger Things or Blade Runner (1982). I was eager to incorporate different styles, such as the 360-degree camera, the AI Deep Dream effect (thanks to computer graphics wiz morn1415), and the pixelated Street Fighter scene.
I made a visual treatment to base my concept on. I wrote a screen play and detailed call pages to coordinate the shoot over 3-days. The video took about two months to coordinate. The preparation also helped me to keep track of my shot list. I completely designed the bedroom set for the porn cellar scene, including a SFX spider web spinner using a fan blade, a drill and rubber cement. I managed to source an E Type Jaguar by letter dropping messages on cool vintage cars I found around Pimlico, London. Inevitably, I was managing almost everything by myself, there was an element of improvisation on the day.
The post stage of Drink was a ‘fix it in post’ nightmare! I wanted to reach myself new skills such as computer graphics (VFX) to create all of the CG elements in the video. The visual effects shots I had in mind were a superhuman, bullet time throw, a 2D nosebleed element and transitions, the rest I came up with as I went along. When I started Drink, I had no idea how to do visual effects. The video was shot silent with no audio capture, so I had to design the sound from scratch, with the help of a friend, Richard Akam on some of the sounds. The project took me months to complete spread out over a year.
The video was probably the most exciting and fun self produced projects I have ever worked on. This is because I was given full creative freedom from Jakes label, Music Mafia and its founder, Weezy. I am very grateful for everyone who took part to help bring my vision to life. I would like to thank Shona Costello who was extremely courageous and outgoing in her role as the girl in the bed with Jake.
Yousef who let us borrow his E-Type Jaguar for the shoot. Joe Carter who played Jakes stunt double in the superhuman bullet time throw stunt. Morn1415 who for creating the AI Deep Dream imagery. Richard Akam for his creative input with sound design. Jack Gallagher, who’s awesome drone piloting skills helped me pull off one of the craziest shots in the video. Finally, my girlfriend Jessica Patterson who all around supported me through everything and let me turn our flat into a film set” says Lewis Andrews.
Lewis wanted the film to run just like a dream does.
The video is an ode to Stranger Things, with brightly coloured, American-cum-London, 80’s style, grainy visuals which meld into one another as inspired by ASAP Rocky’s L$D music video.
He accomplished the video with some sleepless nights and his love for cinema.