Thierry Albert's new promo is Tense

Having recently moved from the creative to the production side of advertising, signing to Iconoclast, former creative director Thierry Albert has directed, under the moniker Albert Albert, this new promo for electro artist Thom Draft.

The promo plays out, and was entirely shot, on a phone and features a teenage girl called L. who we first see being bullied at her school but who soon explodes into fury and sadness, causing her middle finger to ignite, live on social media. L. becomes a sensation, for a time, before things eventually come full circle.

"The first time I heard Tense, I fell in love with the grittiness of the track and immediately thought of L. , a teenager whose life is all about tension, pain and misery," said Albert. "From the very start, this music video was written and thought through for a generation who breathe, live and die on their phone. Everything happens from the POV of a phone, everything was shot entirely on phones, and the music promo has to be watched on a phone. No big fancy camera, no film crew, no cheating. You are living what L. is living. And it’s tense."

Of the challenges posed by the shoot, Albert explains that the biggest was having to think carefully about who's filming what on their phone, "so that it feels super-immersive, and is either from the heroine's point of view, one of her bullies, or from other characters who use their phones to publish the action on social and online publications like Konbini. Shooting everything on phones led to tons of footage (for example, in the gymnasium scene I had eight to 10 teenagers filming on their phones), which translated to a pretty insane job in the editing room with the legendary Jon Echeveste."