My Favourite Music Video: Julia Pott on Radiohead's video for Just

Date
28 April 2014

Fantastic choice today from famed animator and Pick Me Up Select Julia Pott. Julia’s cute but informed work is known and enjoyed by many, particularly because it’s usually pretty hilarious, cute and touching all at once. Here she is telling us about why Jamie Thraves’ video for Radiohead’s Just is the best music video ever made. After you’ve checked this out, have a read of a great interview with Julia we did a few years back, it’s a real insight into her career as an animator.

Julia Pott: Radiohead – Just. Directed by Jamie Thraves.

Radiohead was the first band that made me realise there was music out there other than the Spice Girls. From then on, many Sundays of my adolescence were spent staring at MTV. Just quickly became my favourite music video, and unlike so many things from my teenage years, it is still something I find completely brilliant.

I am most drawn to music videos that have a compelling yet beautifully simple narrative, heightening the emotions you are already drawing from the song. To me, Just is the epitomy of Jamie Thraves’ innate ability to do this. Not only are his films quietly gripping, at their core the emotions he draws upon are those melancholy heart-wrenching ones that I prize above all others in narrative film. Aesthetically his work follows a similar line – sparse and simple with nothing to distract from the story. When special effects are used they are seamless, melting into the visuals and only brought on to reinforce the narrative, not distract from it.

Jamie also directed Coldplay’s The Scientist which draws on this same structure – a hypnotic slow build to a final reveal that gives even more weight to the events leading up to it. Jamie’s video for The Scientist almost scooped the top spot but Radiohead had to win out over Coldplay. Sorry Coldplay.

On a side note, my other two contenders were chosen by Becky and Joe – definitely worth checking out.

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Julia Pott: Radiohead – Just. Directed by Jamie Thraves.

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Julia Pott: Radiohead – Just. Directed by Jamie Thraves.

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Julia Pott: Radiohead – Just. Directed by Jamie Thraves.

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Julia Pott: Radiohead – Just. Directed by Jamie Thraves.

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Julia Pott: Radiohead – Just. Directed by Jamie Thraves.

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About the Author

Liv Siddall

Liv joined It’s Nice That as an intern in 2011 and worked across online, print and events, and was latterly Features Editor before leaving in May 2015.

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