Warren Fu directs a rage-fuelled frenzy of flashing light and colour for The 1975

You know your eyeballs are going to get a good slapping when a film opens with an epilepsy warning... and the promo for The 1975’s new track People doesn’t disappoint. 

A frenetic Matt Healy channels Marilyn Manson as he vigorously entreats us to wake up and face the general fucked-upness of the world today.   

The band performs inside a cube of screens that rapidly fire out images, footage and such lyrics as, “I know it's pointless and you don't have any money, but we're all just gonna try our fucking best. My generation wanna fuck Barack Obama, living in a sauna with legal marijuana.” Quite so. 

“People is a snapshot of the current state of our world,” explains Fu, “social media addiction, misinformation, consumption, environmental waste, binge-watching, surveillance capitalism, apathy vs activism, all trapped in a box of relentless media.”

“The elements fell into place to create the perfect storm," he goes on, "Ben Ditto, [the band’s creative director], was responsible for the vile and subversive graphics that give the lyrics context. Matty Healy is one of those rare, once-in-a-generation performers that can pull off this Molotov cocktail of rage and cheeky swagger. My job was to make sure the camera, the movement and pacing all matched that explosive urgency. It felt like a return to the raw aggression of 70s and 90s rock, but with modern technology.”

The film may reference the doom du jour but it still packs a rather joyous punch of shouty colour.