Jamie Thraves is gaining a reputation as one of the UK's most promising young directors for his widely admired short films Hackney Downs, The Takeout and Scratch, but has rarely been given the opportunity to show what he can do in promos.
Finally he has got his chance and the result demonstrates both his admirable film-making skill and something of the ‘uncommercial’ stance that has prevented him breaking into the industry before.
His promo for Radiohead's Just is stylistically similar to his acclaimed shorts: a deadpan comedy which features an enervated central character who becomes the focus of a banal blackly funny drama on a London street - he falls to the ground, a man stops to ask him what's wrong, a crowd gathers, etc. - while the band perform the song in a flat somewhere adjacent to the ‘action’. It's all built around one conceit: the use, or not, of subtitles for the drama while we listen to the track.
It's an elaborately staged joke where the punchline is basically directed against the limitations of the music video medium itself.
And the way it's put together makes it one of the best videos of the year so far.
With the band shot at Bow Studios and the drama shot in the City of London on a quiet Sunday, Alex Melman's photography is seamless and also captures the dusty glow of the memorable long hot summer of 1995.

PRODUCTION: Oil Factory; director: Jamie Thraves; producer: Niki Amos; production manager: John Madsen; 1st AD: Micky Murray; 2nd AD: Kevin Westley; BP: Alex Metman; focus puller Federico Alfonzo; clapper loader: Tony Hanes; Steadicam op: John Ward; grips: Mark Ellis, Dickie Haw; continuity: Claudia Dunlop; art director: Roger Swanborough; art asst: Justine McCormack; construction manager: Danny Montague; gaffer: Gary Davis; rigger: Kenny Ingram; sound Michel Austin; wardrobe: Rosie Hackett; makeup: Debbie Bunn
POST: telecine: Tariq at VIR; off-line editor: Tony Kearns at Image Makers; on-line: Blue Post
COMMISSIONER: Dilly Gent at Parlophone.