Warren Fu turned Laufey's 'Madwoman' into a Fellini-tinged Hollywood musical (interview)

Made for Laufey's single Madwoman; Fu, known for visuals with Daft Punk, Dua Lipa and The Weeknd, wanted stylised glamour with humour and self-awareness underneath.

A heartbreak video staged as a candy-coloured mid-century musical fantasy where jealousy and obsession play out like an old Hollywood dream that cracks as the sun fades.

Fu says he and his creative assistant shaped each cast member's quirks and gags, then storyboarded choreography by filming office staff on an iPhone and cutting a moving animatic with editor Jeff Bloom, so the cast watched the pacing before a single shoot day. Choreographer Molly Long elevated the framework with Bob Fosse-flavoured moves; DP Andrew Truong and production designer Evaline Huang built Fellini's 8½-style frames where foreground and background action happen simultaneously. With no rehearsal days, the production shot 70 pre-planned shots in one day, per Fu.

No viewership figures in the source; the 70-shots-in-one-day figure is self-reported in the interview. Curation Hour featured the video in June 2026.

In a Curation Hour interview published 17 June 2026, director Warren Fu walks through Madwoman, his video for Laufey's single: a lush, theatrical, slightly unhinged fantasy in which jealousy, obsession and insecurity play out like scenes from an old Hollywood dream. The cast — Alysa Liu, Lola Tung, Megan Skiendiel and Hudson Williams — moves through it like characters in an elaborate fantasy sequence, and Fu says the tone everyone signed up for was 'a stylized nod to classic Hollywood musicals with a cheeky wink to the camera.'

Fu says Fellini's 8½ inspired the visual grammar: frames where foreground and background action occur simultaneously, so a music video's limited narrative time does more storytelling work. He built choreography by blocking formations with office staff on his iPhone, cut the footage into a moving animatic with editor Jeff Bloom, and handed it to choreographer Molly Long — both Fosse fans — who turned it into quirky, unorthodox movement.

Because every shot was dialled in to be used exactly as planned, the production, which had no rehearsal days, shot 70 shots in one day, per Fu, and the edit mostly executed a rhythm already built. The candy-coloured mid-century 'perfect wonderland' from production designer Evaline Huang is designed to feel so perfect it is unreal; as the sunshine fades, the facade falls apart and Laufey sees the world as it is.

Old-Hollywood pastiche with self-aware humour gives a breakup song a visual world instead of a stage-performance clip.

The office-staff animatic method is transferable craft: it converts planning time into on-set capacity when schedule and budget are tight.

Curation Hour, an independent film-culture publication, documents the process in the director's own words with full credits.

Pre-visualising every shot with a scrappy office animatic buys ambition on set: even with no rehearsal time, 70 scripted shots can still land on rhythm.

Nothing reported beyond the June 2026 feature. Fu notes he is increasingly drawn to directing actors and building environments where they shine; no streaming or commercial results for the video appear in the source.