By Spandan Sahu.

The day was Sunday the 3rd of November. The premier of Ayaan Bhagats labour of love for Julian Casablancas was unleashed upon the common folk to witness in all its glory.

All quips aside, I would like to take a moment to laud Ayaan’s hard work in making this music video, and will attempt, and fail to encapsulate how amazing this creation is.

Without further ado:

Hard to Explain is a song by the Strokes from their hit album “Is This It,” a band whose lead singer Julian Casablancas Ayaan adores. Starring Will and Anna as the main characters in the story of opposites (although it could be argued this theme for house art was adopted post-release), much of the video is a brilliantly acted story. Will represents the shy, quiet person in the relationship, while Anna is a more open, carefree character – and Ayaan laboriously took each frame of the video and printed it, reassembling the scene on paper as a series of images. The colors used in the video scenes are also noteworthy, as the black-and-white, grainy nature of all videos resembled Kodak 400TX film – giving quite a nostalgic feel to these clips of darts, carefree dancing, and tug of war with a stick.

Moreover, a strong theme of politics is established, with shots of Donald Trump and Joe Biden debating, as well as Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer, with Easter eggs littered throughout, such as the £107,104.50 worth of gifts accepted by the current PM of the UK. Boris Johnson also makes a surprise appearance, and with the previously mentioned B&W colour grading combined with the bright pen drawings overlaying the sharp contrast, this video tells a story, one that is significantly more impactful than the one made by the Strokes themselves.

Thank you Ayaan, it was a pleasure to feature in this film -I found it quite hard to explain.