Arctic Monkeys - Scummy Man, Trailer Video

Scummy Man
Trailer

Scummy Man is a new short film inspired by the Arctic Monkeys' song "When The Sun Goes Down" and written & directed by Paul Fraser (Dead Man's Shoes), Scummy Man brings an unorthodox outlet for the band to explore different artistic mediums. Domino Records commissioned Warp Films to produce the Summy Man short films. Mark Herbert (Warp Films) approached Paul Fraser to write a script inspired by the song and then in consultation with the band, the band's management and Domino they collectively agreed to make the film and then use footage from the film for the video for "When the Sun Goes Down." It is shot on super 16mm by award winning Director of Photography Danny Cohen (My Wrongs, Dead Mans Shoes, This Is England, Creep).

The bars fill up with lairy boozers anticipating drunken frolics in nightclubs, whilst on the edge of town in leafy suburbia Mum and Dad settle down to their Chinese takeaways and American Idol phone-in votes. Meanwhile, couples stroll arm in arm to see the latest Hollywood shit flick, with plans hatched to see the family for Yorkshire puddings at three the next day. . .

And the mind wanders to those who slip between the cracks of the surface in the City at night - the underclass, or those who don't walk beneath the neon lights of the high street shopfronts. These are the people who lurk in the dark shadows over the river going out of town. It's a world where girls roam the streets, out of sight and out of mind of the moral majority. Scummy Man!! A window into that world.

I'm watching now and I'm stuck to the wall in horror. Maybe my mind is too attuned to wanting to believe this doesn't exist in the place where I live. But it does, and here it is in full-frontal widescreen grimness; the irony being that this world seems a million miles away, yet it's on the doorstep, these are the characters with which you and I share our Cities.

All of this begs the question of why and how these characters come to interact. How does our street girl come to allow herself to be bought and sold like a commodity or used car? What draws the punter to the street like a moth to a flame? How does the scummy man keep his hand on the leaver, controlling his girls like dogs on a leash, making promises, and keeping her scared and the like...? And much like the coin there's a flip side to the grim picture. Just Another Day. A glimmer of hope and a chance to step out of the shadows and back into the light. And the cars that cruise the streets might not be all you might think. All things being about perception, this underworld can be seen in a different light depending on how each person comes to experience it. Each person has a story to tell, and this is theirs...