Sugar (2011) Online

Told via text messages time stamped in the banner down the middle of the screen, Sugar is a music video which sees a relationship finally coming to a total end as one former partner is heading out of the city for good while the other just wants to see them one more time. Past arguments and hurts are touched on in the texts while at the meantime life rushes on as depicted by the time-lapsed footage of traffic in cities.

This film is a simple affair and it is done to accompany a Phaseone track, but I'm not sure it works as a music video particularly well simply because it engages much more effectively as a story told in text. The messages are simple and short but the viewer can understand a lot behind them in terms of past hurt, lingering hurt and also events. This is well done and I liked the pacing of the delivery, with the pauses between some messages adding something to their meaning. It is not an amazing story but it is well done and I liked how much I understood with so little.

The footage of traffic supports the music but it is hard to watch it since you will be focused on the text messages. This means we get a blurring effect of things moving quickly while at the same time following the messages; it is an effect that works well and I liked what it did. I would have preferred that it didn't fade to black so often but had either edited straight to the next sequence or been one long movement, because the fade always drew my eye in a way the rest did not. It is a simple short but I actually liked it for its simple observations with the texts and the merge with the fast pace of the music and the footage.