The world has imploded, and from its ruins, a new generation rises. For the track 'Don't Talk About Me', filmmaker and photographer Nadia Marquard Otzen collaborates with art pop band Fame Hunter and AI artist Sally Trier on a dystopian music video shot on 16mm. Filmed against a large LED backdrop projecting AI-generated worlds, the film oscillates between past and future, collapse and rebirth. The film premiered at Copenhagen Contemporary as part of an installation inspired by the track.
We spoke with Nadia and Sally about creating the film, including the constraints of working across analogue and AI technology.
Tell us about the genesis of the project and working with Fame Hunter?
NADIA: The first time I saw Fame Hunter play live was at an art opening at Arken in Copenhagen. They blew me away. It was fast, dystopian, futuristic, unapologetic, not angry, not aggressive, but forceful, like breaking down barriers.
Right after the show, I wrote them to ask if we should collab on a project. So we picked the song, and it began. The track has a driven, fast-paced energy and when Siggy (Fame Hunter) and I met up for the first meeting, we both had motorcycles in our heads. So that’s where we started.
What was your process in creating the visual world of the film?
NADIA: We looked at videos like Madonna’s ‘Don’t Tell Me’ and quickly decided on an approach that involved a large screen as a backdrop. The band’s identity is full of contrasts: futuristic, yet nostalgic, strong, yet vulnerable, boy vs girl, girl vs boy. I wanted to explore those idiosyncrasies by creating impossible, surreal backgrounds, while shooting on 16mm to meld them all together, creating a look that felt timeless and textured.
AI quickly became the tool I wanted to work with, using it as much as a comment on current changes in the world, as well as a way of making these impossible, unreal backgrounds.
And I was curious to experiment with how the very digital look of AI worked when played on a large LED screen, and then, in real time, was recorded on 16mm film.
How did you and Sally work together to build the visuals?
NADIA: I had created a script based on the track, so we had the whole piece laid out. Based on that, it was the same process as doing a regular film when collaborating with DOPs and set designers - finding references and deciding on a style, only this time it was an AI artist, the brilliant Sally Trier. What was interesting was that even when shooting a regular film, there are a lot of unknowns, and with AI, there are even more. You can’t get exactly what you want; it takes many prompts to get close, and in the process, it offers you solutions you might not have considered yourself. You have to embrace this accidental way of working.
SALLY: My starting point was always Nadia’s vision. She had a very clear idea of the world she wanted to build, the tone, the feeling, the atmosphere. But there’s always a difference between what is imagined and what the technology is actually capable of producing. So from the beginning, the work became about navigating that gap.
From a technical perspective, what did you have to consider during the design process?
SALLY: It’s a process of testing and adjusting, because you rarely get exactly what you imagine on the first try, so you move gradually closer through iterations. And at the same time, it’s important to stay open to what appears unexpectedly because the system often introduces details, textures or atmospheres you wouldn’t have planned, so part of the work is recognising when those accidents serve the piece and when they distract from it.
Technically, I had to think about colour, mood and visual motifs. AI has a tendency to lean toward something very polished and cinematic by default. So I had to actively pull it in another direction. Reduce the gloss and roughen the texture, otherwise it quickly slips into that generic AI-aesthetic, which didn’t align with the tone we were after.
At the same time, the visuals had to work on a large LED-screen. That added another layer of consideration - perspective, angles, resolution, and how the image holds up at scale. That was slightly contradictory to the gritty aesthetic we were after, so balancing those two became part of the challenge.
Fame Hunter
Don't Talk About Me