A short film by Deco Dawson set to Metric‘s Help I’m Alive
Emily Haines of Metric on the video:
So check it out. Before Christmas we did a tour across Canada in conjunction with a kids’ charity and made a limited edition 7 inch vinyl single of Help I’m Alive to be sold only at our December shows. The world being what it is, the song got leaked onto the internet from the pressing plant and took on a life of its own. Suddenly, we were getting calls from radio stations all over the world, from Australia to Ireland, saying they were playing the hell out of Help, I’m Alive. This totally caught us off guard. We never could have guessed that this song would be a radio contender! It’s success proved our theory that programmers and listeners are more open minded than anyone gives them credit for! Meanwhile, we were all set to release “Gimme Sympathy” as our logical first single but “Help I’m Alive” continued to amaze & confuse us by climbing all the way up to the top of the charts. The song became Metric’s first #1 hit and we thanked the mysterious universe.
What came next only makes sense in such a scenario. When I was working with Winnipeg cult-filmmaker Guy Maddin on visual projections for my Soft Skeleton tour, I met Maddin’s editor and co-cinematographer Deco Dawson. Guy Maddin is known as the Canadian David Lynch and I love Deco’s editing of Heart of the World. Deco has since become one of the country’s foremost experimental film makers and a friend of the band. He edited our live concert DVD Live at Metropolis and we brought him along to oversee the live filming of Fantasies on our December tour. Last week, as we were scrambling to keep up with the unexpected radio momentum, we got a call from Deco saying he has a surprise for us: He had taken the concert footage of Help I’m Alive and turned it into something that looks like Yo Gabba Gabba on acid. Jimmy held a late night test screening of Deco’s creation at Giant Studio to rave reviews and now we have decided to share it with the online world.
This is not a music video. This is a short film in an imaginary landscape and the soundtrack is Help I’m Alive.
love always,
xo emily
EXTRA CREDIT: Download The Twelves Remix of Help I’m Alive over at RCRD LBL!