The cuckoo clock has died of shock and the windows feel no pane / The air's as still as the throttle of a funeral train.
Hey! How's it going? Pretty good? Can't complain? So let's embrace our social distancing.
It's a weird world out there, friends. We're all at least six feet apart to slow the spread of Covid-19, our pitiless unseen enemy. Yet the irony of coming together by staying away from each other is not lost on anyone.
We have time on our hands, and it looks as though isolation is going to be a recurring theme in our lives. We're encouraging video artisans to incorporate and process their own feelings of isolation, loneliness, dread, claustrophobia, determination, and triumph into new Unofficial Music Videos. We want to make this a thing.
Then again, maybe it already is.
Just to refresh your memory, TikiKiti is a tiny collective of movie nerds, filmmakers, writers, and artistic types who want nothing more than to see your Unofficial Music Videos. On a semi-monthly basis we show the five best, and present the Barclay Trophy to the top vote-getter.
It may not be February anymore, but these five featurettes have us looking back fondly to a time when we could still gather in person.
1. Producer: Edinburgh Filmmaking Society
Artist: Pink Floyd
Song: "Great Gig in the Sky"
Category: Narrative
Astral trip or acid trip? One way to grapple with loneliness and isolation is to allow the mind to shift gears and hopefully find a safe place beyond these four walls.
3. Producer: Issy Johnston
Artist: Glass Animals
Song: "Mama's Gun"
Category: Narrative
Here's hard evidence that we're at our most becoming when we're becoming something else. Another thing we can do by ourselves? Evolve. Grow. Caterpillar meet butterfly.
4. Producer: Archie Whiting
Artist: FKA Twigs
Song: "Give Up"
Category: Narrative
Sometimes we need reminders of our priorities. Sometimes they take the form of a dancing woman in white. Whether or not we surrender to these invitations depends on how safe we want to play it.
5. Producer: Jack Forest
Artist: Jack Stauber
Song: "John & Nancy"
Category: Narrative
These days, paranoia is part of your survival kit. Surely we must have broken the rules. Are those men in black following me?
Another quick spin around the world in the Age of Isolation. Scotland, Shanghai, Australia. We're going global from the supposed safety of our own homes. And we're doing it together.
Footnote: We're still counting the votes for Best Video of 2019, but we'll have a winner any day now. Stick around!
