Clowater boxes clever with paradoxical folk song promo

Wanting to express internal conflict via contrasting audio and visuals, Clowater adeptly accentuates the sweet, melancholy strains of Lapell’s song Down By The Water, by setting it against a punchy action scene. 

Produced by his own company, Radke Films in Canada, the film’s process began with the director playing the song over classic action scenes from films including Mission Impossible, Die Hard, The French Connection and more. He found in many cases that the music would completely transform the emotional tone conveyed by the characters in those scenes. 

Eventually he settled on paying homage to Raging Bull and created a concept based on a fighter who doesn’t want to be a fighter. Lapell then took two weeks of boxing lessons and they spent a day rehearsing and choreographing fight scenes. 

Wanting to flip the sport’s stereotype, Lapell was really insistent on all of the fight crews being female. The only reason there are any men in it at all was due to the fact that the ref owned the gym and the director couldn't find a female referee in time.