Since introducing Emile Rafael on the YDA site last year, he has been signed to Caviar and is evolving into a music video director with a distinct voice. We catch up with Emile to see what difference a year can make

It’s been quite an amazing past year for you, what with promos for Katy B, one for Purple Ferdinand coming up and now this stunning film Penetrate for Stubborn Heart. How has your filmic language and style evolved and what are the key lessons you’ve learnt from your recent film making?

Since getting to know the amazing people that run Caviar London – I have mostly been reminded just how important ideas themselves are. It sounds obvious, but you can get so caught up thinking about how you’re going to do something that sometimes you forget to focus on what it is you’re actually trying to do. So the idea needs to be the catalyst for everything else that happens and something we get back to every time, so I try hard not to forget the essence of it.

I guess another area where I feel I have developed is in confidence, both in terms of coming up with concepts for my videos, worrying less about what will make for a “cool” video, and in terms of filming those concepts. I feel I have a growing self-assurance now that enables me to embrace a situation on set and modify things as and when I feel they are not working, rather than sticking strictly to the plan and the storyboard when my instincts tell me something’s not quite right.

Did you write the narrative for Stubborn Heart’s track Penetrate? What was behind your symbolic use of the ink drops and moths?

For the Stubborn Heart video, I drew from the photography of Todd Hido, the storyline developing from his images. I have loved Hido’s work for ages and was waiting for just the right project where I could reference him. Hido has recently started exploring the subject of lone women in derelict interiors, lit beautifully by street lighting from outside or a spotlight thrown onto them.

What I found most interesting about the photographs was how my mind started coming up with story lines for why the women might be there. I wanted to explore that same feeling in the video, in which as the viewer you are on the edge of knowing what it’s all about, but you have to let your imagination fill in the gaps and construct a narrative. It’s a slightly risky approach and some viewers might find it frustrating, but some of my favourite directors do just that.

As for the moths, they were associated with these women as lost souls, but again I wanted the narrative to be deliberately ambiguous, for me it’s a story of salvation, where’s others can see it in a quite sinister way.

The ink was in reference to the artwork on Stubborn Heart’s album, and the associations with moth colours, as well as blood.

The location feels very outskirts American and emphasizes the feeling of isolation – when did you find it and what is the story behind this site?

I actually produced a video that was shot in one of the houses, but back then it was still a fully inhabited and thriving estate. Having written the treatment I knew I wanted it to have a very American feel about it and so I biked over to the area again one afternoon, since it’s actually only about 10 minutes away from where I live in South East London. It was like another world, I didn’t know it was now half-abandoned and I could hardly believe how it had changed.

It’s actually the last remaining post-war pre-fab 1940’s estate of its kind surviving in London. They were built as temporary houses to cover the housing shortage after the bombings, but obviously lasted much longer than intended. The estate is about to be demolished and they are phasing the residents out of it, which is quite sad as many of them love living there.

It took us forever to get permission to shoot. Whilst waiting for an answer we had been researching other locations that might be remotely similar, and yet really there just wasn’t anything like it. It meant we had to be really persistent and patient and smile a lot and hope we could bring them around, which luckily we did! Having secured the location we tried hard to make everything else consistently American looking.