Award-winning director Phillip Stucker sets his whimsical characters and animation to the mesmerizing beat of Scott West’s “Keep It Clean,” which features Gabe Nelson from the California band “Cake” playing the hypnotic bass line. The film opens in a haunted witches glade and takes us through the life and times of a rock and roller (the hero), as he contemplates his life, love, and mortality.

Stucker uses symbolism throughout his film as he juxtaposes life with death, illusion with reality, and his central theme of cleansing, as the hero does his laundry, takes a shower, and puts on a new face. But Stucker’s most powerful metaphor for “Keeping It Clean” is the angels sweeping away the ephemeral beauty of the hero’s life and the preciousness of his love to him.

The film closes with the angels and all memories of the hero’s life going into the boiling cauldron of the three witches, as percussionist Scott Rich continues the purifying beat on his drums and the witches chant, “Keep my, keep my, keep it clean.”

”Keep It Clean” combines Stucker’s playful Halloween-like characters (invisible black cats, witches in the forest, a dancing skeleton and skeleton orchestra), spiritual messages, and colorful backgrounds, with the song’s dark transitory themes of death and oblivion.

”Keep It Clean” is Stucker’s follow-up to his Shiny Toy Guns animated video, “Don’t Cry Out,” which swept all three film festivals in which it was entered, when Stucker was sixteen.

Director: Phillip Stucker

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