This week we’re harking back to an old classic for our Video of the Week in honour of Coldplays “The Scientist” 10 year anniversary this year. Directed by the amazing Jamie Thraves, who we’ve had the pleasure of meeting once upon a time, this video sets out as one of his most iconic pieces in his career, and in Coldplay’s too.

“The Scientist” employs the distinctive reverse narrative approach to storytelling, popularized by the likes of Spike Jonze, and tells the beautiful story of a romance-turned car crash as we walk backwards through the life of singer Chris Martin as he unveils his previous actions to the point we find him at the start of the story. The video opens with him lying on a mattress singing along to the song and suddenly delves into the concept as he fly’s backwards from the mattress and begins walking backwards down the street – still singing along. The trickery here isn’t anything particularly clever but simply Chris Martin having spent a month learning how to sing the song backwards. As the story continues we are delivered to the most iconic moment as we watch a crashed car begin to roll back up a hill and the glass and debry reassemble into a couples afternoon outing as they argue whilst driving down a country lane. The entire video has a solemn and morbid end note but one that is quite astonishing both technically in it’s making and in it’s storytelling. I don’t think I’ve ever been quite so gripped into a video since first seeing this and think it deserves a much belated round of applause from us here as OTE. We hope you feel the same!