The spot is largely focused on an eerily life-like animatronic head which is placed on a window ledge of a retro bus shot at night. The head’s glazed yet animated eyes peer at passers by on other buses as well as out on the streets doing various activities, all set to the melancholic soundtrack of the band’s single.

The Mill’s VFX team worked to subtly enhance the sense of emotion offered from the head, paying particular attention to the movements and appearance of the eyes.

Lead 2D Artist Stefan Susemihl explains, ‘Working on the Radiohead promo was a huge collaborative environment, largely created by the Director, Michal Marzak. It was a really organic process, where all creative parts; band, Director, DOP and The Mill had the opportunity to express their own point of view.In terms on the VFX, we had the opportunity to delve into experimental methodologies that involved a degree of improvisation, thinking of ways to work creatively outside traditional pipelines and workflows.

The result is something we can all be really proud of.’ 

Mill Colourist Oisin O’Driscoll explains, ‘The brief for the grade was to keep the colour natural with good colour separation.We achieved this by cooling the overall image which was shot under sodium lights in Poland. This had a degree of difficulty to it as sodium lights give a small spectrum of colours to work with.

This look was then paired with soft mid tones and milky blacks to make the video have a sense of realism and to keep an analogue style.

A few different tones were tried to see what worked best for the robot, we eventually decided on a more yellow tone on the skin as it made the head look best in the environment.’