George A. Romero’s 1968 cult horror feature classic Night of the Living Dead provided creative inspiration for Run The Jewels’ “Never Look Back” music video. Consisting of Killer Mike and E1-P, the Run The Jewels hip-hop group had showcased the track on its “RTJ4, album which came out last year. The video of the track premiered at last month’s Adult Swim Festival in Los Angeles.
Directed by John Hillcoat–whose credits include the acclaimed features The Road and The Proposition–the “Never Look Back” music video places Killer Mike and E1-P literally into clips from Night of the Living Dead, alongside members of the original cast. The hip-hop artists find themselves pursued by zombies in an isolated rural town. The hip-hoppers try to find refuge in an old farmhouse but to no avail.
The reimaginging of Night of the Living Dead was sublimely driven by a score–from music/sound house Barking Owl–which now claims the #1 slot in SHOOT’s last quarterly Top Ten Tracks Chart of the year. Shot in grainy black and white and seamlessly meshed with footage from Romero’s original feature, the tongue-firmly-in-cheek music video recreates and taps into scenes from the 1968 motion picture. There are also cameos from Day of the Dead’s Greg Nicotero and The Walking Dead’s Norman Reedus.
Despite his feature filmmaking pedigree, Hillcoat–who directed “Never Look Back” via Blank Films Inc.–is no stranger to shorter-form fare. He made an auspicious commercial debut, for example, with Levi’s “To Work” for Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore., back in 2010. And in 2018 Hillcoat broke new branded content ground with Corazón, a 48-minute film about organ donation for Montefiore hospital. Corazón received major acclaim, including winning the Cannes Lions Health & Wellness Grand Prix along with an Entertainment Gold Lion in 2018.
Sound challenges
The Barking Owl ensemble that scored “Never Look Back” included composer Jacob Plasse, sound designer and mixer Stuart St. Vincent Welch, assistant sound designer Mikayla Petersen, producer Ashley Benton and creative director Kelly Bayett.
Bayett shared, “The biggest challenges in this piece was to keep the feeling of the original [Night of the Living Dead] score, sound design and mix, so you feel as if these characters are in the scenes. They didn’t have the licenses to the music, so we had to create pieces that felt original to the time period and genre. We also had to be mindful of sound design that worked within the original audio soundscape. Stuart, our newest ‘owl,’ created sound design that fit perfectly within the piece, and he mixed the piece to replicate how everything was mixed at the time. If the quality of the sound was not on point, it would not be believable that our hero characters were embedded in the film. Oh, and we only had a few days to accomplish all of this. Luckily, we have collaborated with Hillcoat many times and we have an incredibly fluid way of working.”
DP Shawn Peters lensed “Never Look Back” which was edited by Zaldy Lopez of Exile, with Urs Furrer of Glassworks serving as visual effects supervisor. Colorist was Scott Harris, also at Glassworks.
Click here to see the 4th Quarter Top Ten Tracks Music Chart.
