Parisian studio Akatre on their music video for Grand Yellow

Founded by Valentin Abad, Julien Dhivert and Sébastien Riveron in 2007, Parisian multidisciplinary studio Akatre has impressed us over the years with a conveyer belt of stand-out typography and graphic design. The studio’s latest offering is a mystical music video for band Grand Yellow’s track On My Way.

“Grand Yellow contacted us because they liked our work for the University Theater of Nantes (TU-Nantes), Benjamin Clementine, AaRON and Yalta Club,” the trio explain. “The band is discreet but wanted to appear in the video clip. Nicolas and Clemence wanted us to experiment with something new. Fortunately, they completely trusted us.”

On the idea behind their trippy video — which leads the viewer through different dimensions in an increasingly disorientating vision —Akatre told us: “When we listened to the music, we immediately thought about universes as far as the eye could see, which could be illusions. Paintings that only hold from one point of view.”

The process behind the video was about as complicated as it looks. “We thought that we would make real wooden modular sets, but very quickly, the budget question made it impossible,” Valentin, Julien and Sébastien explain. “We imagined we could do it in miniature too, but the insertion of the characters required too much post-production. And then, our desire to direct again a project in 3D became obvious. It was thanks to the relationship between our former producer Céline Lopez and the post-production St-Louis that this project was born. It is a human story with a very small, but motivated team, that our universe came to life. We imagined about a hundred paintings. Everything could not be realised but we finished the piece having succeeded, we think, not too tired and to always heighten the surprise.

“From the moment we left on 3D, we realised a photographic capture that allowed us to reproduce Nicolas and Clemence in 3D volume,” the trio continue. “We wanted to pose them in these surrealist landscapes, in order to make them cross each other without ever being able to meet.”

Next up from the permanently busy studio is a video project for Miu Miu, Hermes “and our black and white poetic video clip Somewhere from our artistic soundtrack Blck Rck.”