CAVSOC

A return

The comeback single for the South London Grime MC, Litch Is Back was released via GRM Daily after a decade-long hiatus. Unlike the rest of the grime scene, Litch didn’t take himself too seriously, and we knew we could have some real fun mixing his street style and trademark humour to create a boastful and quirky video for Litch Is Back.

An injection of humour

We wanted to address the overwhelming energy of the song and it’s distinctly old-school grime vibe, and did this through a dynamic performance piece that sees Mr Litch rapping to camera while walking around his neighbourhood handing out cassette tapes of his new single. Each bystander who accepts the tape morphs into a clone of Mr Litch and continues the performance.

The ‘wtf’ factor of the mutating clones serves as a loud and defiant declaration of Litch’s return - he’s not just back but he’s taking over, and with the ease of someone whose casual conquest is merely as a byproduct of going out to the shops for a snack.

Perfect timing

The concept was a simple one. The execution, not so much. First we had to mark out which points in the song would fit best for each glitch-morph. Next, we plotted a route around Litch’s neighbourhood, identified the exact locations we wanted for each glitch-morph, and then worked out the timings in between to determine the distance Litch would need to cover between these key points.

Script supervisor Georgina Morgan was invaluable in making sure these timings lined up, and meticulous log notes throughout made the post-production a much smoother process.

Family connection

Despite our best laid plans, a number of drop-outs on the shoot day meant we had to call on some favours. Litch’s father, cousin and the director’s sister stepped in at the last minute to feature in the video.

'Fix it in post'

In the absence of big-budget camera tracking rigs, we used static, fixed-angle shots to film the glitch-morph scenes, and meticulously masked two identical shots together in post-production to create the illusion of two Mr Litch’s on screen at once. This was no mean feat, as our editor had to compensate for cloud movement between takes that subtly changed the lighting conditions.

Starring: Mr Litch, Tom Camfield, Kai Jones, Mollie Madden, Romaine Dixon, Derek Litchmore, Kaya

Director: Joseph Madden

Producer: Rory Yeung

Director of Photography: Jack Ayers

Script Supervisor: Georgina Morgan

Runners: Mollie Madden and Freya Espie