"I’ve been lucky enough to work with Hurts a few times in the last few years, both directing video work for them as well as doing string arrangements and bits of music production as a composer on a couple of their tracks. So when they asked if I’d be up for directing a new video for them I jumped at the chance, the added bonus being it was a track I had also worked on musically - helping produce and orchestrate the cinematic, epic finale to the song.

"The concept for the video came from the band themselves. They are always striving for ambitious and interesting ideas, and they wanted this to be extremely cinematic, emotional, feel expansive and be both beautiful and harrowing at the same time - all reflecting the feel and themes of the song.

"The challenges we faced on this video were mainly around the logistics that come with setting a guy on fire. We needed a big enough indoor space to do a full body burn as well as maintaining a safe distance whilst getting the cinematic footage we needed. We shot in Stage 2 at Elstree Studios, which is a huge space and they were extremely accommodating and helpful.

"As it turns out, having a guy set on fire is, understandably, extremely expensive so we only had two takes to get this right and for each take we’d have about 15-20 seconds from ignition before we’d have to put him out.

Our stuntman Dean Forster and the stunt-co-ordination team did an incredible job.

"I had no idea, but with full body burns the stunt performer can’t breathe from being behind a full silicone mask. So has to hold their breath for as long as possible during the take... on top of burning alive! Our stuntman Dean Forster and the stunt-co-ordination team were true professionals and did an incredible job under that pressure, and really they live for this work, so they were extremely excited for this video.

"Another challenge was the flag. We had no trouble rigging this beast up but weren’t really sure how we were going to release it to fall for the final shot and be able to reset if we needed to go again. It ended up being the Assistant Producer, James, and the 1st AD, Joe, who ended up spending the best part of an hour stringing this thing up with fishing line and cord and then basically having to cut the two or three lines simultaneously to let the flag fall. It was a real DIY solution and we had no idea what it would look like or if it would work - but when the flag fell for the take, it was absolutely perfect.

"There was also the factor of post-production and utilising a few visual effects. We shot the band, the flag dropping, and the stunt performer on fire as separate elements for safety and then comped them together for the wide shots, whilst trying to match the lighting for them to blend seamlessly together. So for a relatively simple concept there was this huge amount of complexity behind achieving it.

"Of course, the shoot had to be compliant with COVID-19 guidelines too. But in the space we were in and the professionalism of Blindeye Films and the crew across the board, it was super easy to meet those requirements. For a lot of the crew it was their first proper shoot back after a long few months without work so it was really nice to get started again with a project as cool as this."