UNKLE: The Runaway

"The Runaway" is the latest visual candy to come from UNKLE, the electronic music group set up by deejay, remixer and Mo' Wax record label boss James Lavelle in 1998. Directed by Lavelle's longtime associates Warren du Preez and Nick Thornton Jones, the film is an extension of the moody artwork the photographic duo created for the group’s recent album Where Did the Night Fall, and the sensuous promo (starring Liberty Ross covered in silver body paint) they shot for lead single “Follow Me Down.” “Between takes on ‘Follow Me Down’ we thought it would be interesting to see what performance we could work towards with this other track, 'The Runaway'. We really gravitated to it,” Thornton Jones says. The resulting video, Du Preez adds, “was done with raw inertia, off the cuff. We shot it as cutaway material, but because it was so beautiful it became a second film.” Its star, Shannon Tillery, a model and trained dancer, teamed up with British choreographer Russell Maliphant to create improvised movements that play with light, diffusion and shadow against a mysteriously shifting, semi-opaque surface. “It was one of those things where we all got involved and pushed and pulled,” says Du Preez. He and Thornton Jones have also collaborated with Björk and Alexander McQueen and shot for magazines including Big, Muse and Numero. Learn more about their psychedelic, highly crafted work here. 

Directors: Warren du Preez and Nick Thornton Jones
D.O.P: Dan Landin
Produced by: Mikey Lavelle and Lindsey Thurlow
Choreography: Russell Maliphant
Costume design: Zowie Broach and Brian Kirkby
Editor: William Judge
Model: Shannon Tillery @ Union Models with thanks to Rachel
Make-up: Alex Box @ D&V
Hair: Raphael Salley @ Streeters