After sharing the track itself earlier this month, Melbourne indie-pop artist San Joseph has dropped a film clip for his latest single, ‘Everything In The Room’.
In the clip, directed by ROME, Joseph makes his way through the halls of an empty, seemingly abandoned house, all of its furniture draped in plastic and coated in dust, as he pensively sings and strums along to the song with an acoustic guitar.
Contrasting the sober, melancholic scene are clips of Joseph running towards and dancing in front of an ocean, as well as glitched-out snippets of the singer-songwriter, clad in a pastel green jumpsuit, jamming out in a rocky desert landscape.
Watch the film clip for ‘Everything In The Room’ below:
Much like the actual song, the clip for ‘Everything In The Room’ marks a drastic departure from that of Joseph’s debut single, ‘Blink Twice’. He noted in a press release that this was his intention, saying it “was a really contrasting process” to make the video.
“Rather than feeding off the energy of a charismatic cast,” he continued, “I had to connect with the song emotionally in a sterile environment, which was something I hadn’t really done before. In saying that, the set design by the crew was so inspiring that it made the performance feel natural and even cathartic at times.”
ROME also commented on his concept for the clip, saying that as its director, he wanted to embody the song’s own themes of isolation and claustrophobia, centring Joseph’s personal experiences.
“I used my vision of the song to create a canvas through which Joey could tell his story,” he said, “and express his emotions physically via his performance. I made each shot to serve as an emotive and aesthetically accurate vehicle for that message.”
Joseph also noted that when ROME came to him with an outline for the clip, he “was really interested in his idea of marrying the real and surreal”.
He continued: “[ROME’s] vision for the video allowed me to express an array of emotions in the performance that mirrored the complexity of feelings the song spans. Balancing the claustrophobic nature of the ‘room’ with an expansiveness that went beyond lyrics was really important to me, and I think we achieved that.”
As with ‘Blink Twice’, the new single was made in tandem with collaborator Dylan Nash (Gretta Ray, Dean Lewis, Angus & Julia Stone), with Joseph saying that Nash “took the reins in creatively expressing the song without losing that organic feel”.