A dynamic duo who in the eight years we’ve been covering them have consistently pushed their filmmaking into new realms, Karni&Saul (aka Sulkybunny) return to Directors Notes with a fantasy dance music video created for Gili Portal’s track The problems aren’t us. Keen to hear from the pair again, we invited them to share how they brought together dance, animation and nature for this silent rave to the gods of creativity.

When we heard Gili Portal’s song and the words….it made us feel like we should touch on something poetic about the fragility and strength of human existence, and about the power of dance and healing. We imagined a dance in nature. And then sculptures that were like creatures, animal hybrids, poetic monsters of creativity and life. We were inspired by shrines, Miyazaki animation….dance by Pina Bausch and Gaga.

We wanted the dancers to be individuals, the casting to feel human and real. We imagined the dance to be a personal interpretation of movement, nothing heavily choreographed, rather a building of small personal narratives. About letting go to movement and the body.

As well as the costumes that we wanted to be beautiful fragile and vintage maybe even Victorian inspired….together with imprints of survival and a journey. So we flicked mud on them to make it more emotional and intense.

It made us feel like we should touch on something poetic about the fragility and strength of human existence.

We prefer to leave the narrative a little open and loose so everyone can find themselves in the story, that’s what it’s all about. The power of song, dance and art. The poeticness of being human. The mix of strong versus weak….we can’t be without one or the other.

The dancers were filmed in the UK in nature by Bristol…Karni was DoP. Saul on animation. The sculptures were made in CGI Maya after being designed and sculpted in ZBrush by Saul.

We loved the free and trusting creative process with Gili. And the emotional creating of this film…we all collaborated and the dancers brought their personality and choreography with them. It was like going on a little journey together where there are no rules.

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