Video Pick: St Vincent ‘Actor Out of Work’

Posted on 06. Jun, 2009 by refe in VIDEOS

Actor is the sophomore album of 26 year old Annie Clark. Clark began her career touring with the eclectic Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens, and has now recorded two solo albums under the name St. Vincent. Clark built her arrangements differently this time around -- in Garageband, actually -- and the result is something of a departure from the guitar rock of her first album, Marry Me. The track ‘Actor out of Work’ is an exception, with every bit of its two minutes and thirty-seconds propelled forward by fuzzed out guitars and driving toms.

The video itself is clever, featuring a group of actors crying on cue during an audition. In an interview with Spinner Clark admitted that she was hesitant to film such a literal take on the song, but that she was sold on the idea by directors Ian Kibbey and Corey Creasey -- better known collectively as Terri Timely. “There is something so darkly comic and eerily unnerving about the act of crying on cue. It feels like such a lie -- a betrayal in a sense -- to see someone burst into hysterics in one moment, and then, as if it had never happened, stand up, smile and go back to checking their text messages. Sometimes I had to restrain myself from laughing out of discomfort, and sometimes I had to restrain myself from crying -- it’s as contagious as yawning.”