desymbol: Pets navigate long distance romance in Groove Armada video

The new music video for Groove Armada’s track Lover 4 Now reimagines a cat and dog romance for current times, where life and love are increasingly experienced through virtual means.

Director, designer and artist Fons Scheidon worked on the project from a makeshift studio in the corner of his bedroom, and while the world seemed to be crumbling around him, he chose to take a “joyous approach” to visualising dating in the age of coronavirus by telling the story through the eyes of an animal.

The video opens with a shot panning an empty city, set to a soundscape recorded by Scheidon from his rooftop in New York, before giving a glimpse into the homes of a cat and a dog who have seemingly been left to their own devices.

Scheidon’s scratchy, hand-drawn style is full of character, and perfectly captures the disconcertingly independent nature of cats in feline protagonist, Cosmo, and the clumsy, lovable charm of dogs as seen in love interest Mio, who even has a heart-shaped nose.

“I love observing animals observe the world, so the video comes from a fascination with how animals learn and interact with their environment,” Scheidon says. “With the cats in my life I’ve often felt that if I were to disappear, they would probably eventually figure out how to get food delivered using my credit card.”

During the storyboarding process, Scheidon became drawn to the idea of using multiple camera angles, resulting in a series of interesting frames that tap into the ubiquity of recording devices in everyday life. “It just made sense with the presence of technology in these homes: security, pet and nanny cams, in addition to tablets and computers,” he explains. “I liked the thought of all these camera streams continuing without purpose until the battery runs out.”

As the story progresses, Cosmo the cat appears to dabble with online dating to see whether there are in fact plenty more fish in the sea. However, it draws to a close with a split screen perspective of the two animals racing towards one another, before they join together in a sequence that’s satisfying from both a framing and narrative point of view.