Tower Walls Become a Dancefloor in EMPRS' Single 'The Void'

My Accomplice has launches a gravity-defying music video for EMPRS’ debut single ‘The Void’ directed by Louis-Jack. 

The film was shot at the peculiar National Lift Tower in Northampton. A tall, thin shaft that was once used to test elevators. It was stumbling across the location that inspired the idea of the music video: to film someone dancing on the side of the building, shot in such a way that the walls become the floor. 

My Accomplice suspended the dancer, Emma Belabed, on ropes inside and outside of the tower and shot with the camera parallel to the walls, to create this gravity-defying illusion. Emma floats and bounces around inside the claustrophobic internal concrete walls. Eventually we see her leap on the outside of the building, fighting for freedom, but is ultimately pulled back to the ground with a gravitational force at odds with planet earth.

Emma had never performed off the ground before. With the guidance of the aerial consultant and wall runner, Joe Garcia, she learnt how to move in a harness on the wall in the weeks leading up to the shoot. As you can imagine, this is an incredibly physically demanding process with lots of pain involved. Choreographer Magnus Westwell was then able to work with Emma and Joe to bring his spectacular, twisted style of improvised dance to the vertical plane in an unpresented way.

Although the team were very pleased with how rehearsals went inside the controlled environment of the circus school, shooting inside and outside the 400ft tower added a whole new level of complexity. Emma had to contend with a 400ft long rope and being buffeted by winds. As nothing like this had even been done before, the team all held its breath and crossed our fingers, and with the brilliant work of the entire team My Accomplice managed to bring this crazy idea to life. 

Camera buffs out there might also be interested to know that My Accomplice shot with the camera in a portrait orientation with wide anamorphic lenses mounted in landscape – the DOP Jim Petersen’s ingenious idea. Doing this meant the team could use all the lovely anamorphic characteristics but with more vertical headroom in the frame. Allowing us to get full length shots of Emma whilst being close to her and minimising the negative space in the final picture. The unique (nearly) 1:1 aspect ratio of the video is exactly what was recorded on the cameral; there’s no cropping whatsoever. 

“It’s so painful! But I love it.” – Dancer, Emma Belabed

Director Louis-Jack said, "I’m a rock climber who has made a number of films exploring the limits of gravity: from underwater ballet to bouldering on impossible rock faces. When stumbling across the location my first thought, as with any building or structure, was I wonder if you could climb that? It was this impulse that inspired the idea of suspending someone on it.

"I love films with a simple, compelling illusion like Jamiroquai’s Virtual Insanity and the spinning room in Euphoria. I was certain from the outset that the video should never reveal how the illusion was created, I wanted to keep people questioning their sense of reality from start to finish."