Director Alexander Sharp serves up sexy, slithery vampire with a steely, black-and-white grindhouse aesthetic in the video for Josh Jones & Trevor Kidd’s “Salvation” – available now.
Laser-sharp closeups of a pick strumming a guitar string, a drumstick hitting a cymbal, and the beater hitting the bass drum highlight the slowed-down sensuality of the song’s intro, while overexposed film negatives flash over longer shots of the band performing. The result is a dark, gothic vibe that matches the stalking, crawling, gasping progression of “Salvation” – “Are you hungry for it?”
I feel the rush of the chemicals kicking in
I feel the touch of your talons on my skin
I feel you play me like a violin
I feel you take us where we’ve never been
The background suddenly switches to blood red overlaid with grainy lines and static, and Sharp gives us those gorgeous closeups again – of the instruments, of mouth on microphone, on long hair swinging with the pounding of the drums. Then, the background switches again to a cool blue over a soaring, exploratory interlude, while a woman in bondage lingerie slinks on the floor through the lens of an overturned lamp. “Salvation” pounds again, and Sharp switches back to black-and-white, and then to grainy blood-red again, before the video ends abruptly with a shot of the singer’s roaring mouth rimmed with vampire teeth.
“The video for ‘Salvation’ was designed to equally entertain and aggressively anesthetize: an outrageous, grindhouse, rock ‘n’ roll music video that would keep reinventing itself,” Sharp said. “I designed it so that it would mutate visually at every verse, chorus, and bridge at such a feverishly bizarre pace, while excreting a kind of perverted effervescence.”
Alexander Sharp was born in 1994 in Vancouver. When he was 15 years old, he directed his first dramatic short film Thank You, which was recognized by Vision Quest, a rehabilitation program for addicts that screens the film as part of the process of recovery. His first independent short film Ziggy’s Will screened at Festival de Cannes, Manchester International Film Festival, HollyShorts, Santa Monica International Film Festival, and Gig Harbor Film Festival in 2018.
Sharp’s debut feature-length film Wired Shut was released on Amazon Prime in 2021 across North America and the UK from 101 Films. He continues to write and direct films, music videos, and commercials.
