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'Farscape' Meets 'Fast and Furious' in Carpenter Brut's New Music Video

Whether you're into burning incense or burning rubber, the high octane Seth Ickerman-directed "Turbo Killer" is for you.
Screencap from "Turbo Killer." Images courtesy the artists

Part-Guardians of the Galaxy, part-Furious 7, and lit with a color scheme directly out of Tim Burton's Batman Returns, Carpenter Brut's new Seth Ickerman-directed video for "Turbo Killer" is a shot to the technofuturist's heart. Arcane spaceships and crystal technology indistinguishable from magic cross wires with good old-fashioned combustion engine car chases and creepy, voyeuristic villains while Carpenter Brut's 80s revival soundrack booms in the background.

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Seth Ickerman, the pseudonym of French directing duo Raphaël Hernandez and Savitri Joly-Gonfard, specializes in transporting 80s aesthetics into modern stories. In early February, they dropped a proof of concept for their Blade Runner-meets-Bullit feature film debut. Carpenter Brut's stated love for the "post-hippie/pre-AIDS culture" from which electronic and metal music grew fits perfectly into the sci-fi universe Seth Ickerman envisioned for the track. "Carpenter Brut likes our work, so he gave us carte blanche for this unusual project," they tell The Creators Project. "We wanted to mix some very modern techniques with some older, hand-made ones to create this 80's feel."

Influenced by the characters in Carpenter Brut's EP artwork, done by illustrator Fortifem, Seth Ickerman digitized a cemetary using photogrammetry for the setting, while the cars are a mix of 1/18 scale models and CGI. "We like the organic feel of the real models and the freedom the VFX give us afterwards," they say.

Their over-the-top 80s aesthetic lends itself to the emotion-driven narratives Seth Ickerman is drawn to. "The video has a deliberately abstract storyline. We decided to follow our instinct and go for something more visceral than cerebral," they say. Over the course of a six-month production period, they split the directorial duties between writing and VFX, though they note the two are intertwined. Between honing their process on projects like "Turbo Killer" and working their feature, the duo has a lot planned for the next few years. "["Turbo Killer"] seems to be telling an incomplete story, as if it was extracted from a longer plot," Seth Ickerman says. "We will see if we add more in the future…"

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Watch "Turbo Killer," and check out some of the video's most brutal moments, below.

See more of Seth Ickerman's work on their website. Listen to Carpenter Brut here.

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