Thao & The Get Down Stay Down - Pure Cinema

What this video is

Released May 11, 2020, during the height of California's COVID-19 Stay At Home order, 'Pure Cinema' exemplifies the pandemic-era remote music video genre that emerged in spring 2020. The video is a direct artifact of lockdown culture, with each band member filmed separately in their own home. It arrived alongside the band's fifth studio album Temple, their first self-produced record, which found frontwoman Thao…

Why it matters

Represents a landmark moment in indie rock's adaptation to pandemic production constraints, directly paralleling contemporaries in the 'Zoom video' wave of spring 2020. As a self-produced album cycle, Temple and its videos signal a broader 2010s–2020s indie trend toward artist-controlled…

The director

Justin Mitchell is a filmmaker and Los Angeles native who works across music video, documentary, and commercial formats. He has directed music videos for Phoebe Bridgers (Motion Sickness, 2017) and has worked with artists including Death Cab For Cutie, The…