This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
And Finally Artist News
Charli XCX says music video car fire was environmentally friendly
By Andy Malt | Published on Monday 14 October 2019
Charli XCX has assured fans that she did not pump the atmosphere full of toxic fumes for the benefit of a music video. Online commenters had expressed concern about a car lit on fire in the recent promo vid for her track ‘White Mercedes’.
The video features a white Mercedes suspended from a crane. Early in the video, Charli XCX is seen sitting in it. Later, it is set on fire, with thick flames and heavy black smoke pouring off it. It’s all fine though, it’s just a bit of movie magic.
“Just so everyone is aware, the black smoke and heavy fire is made by a special effect liquid they use for cinema”, she wrote on Twitter. “The car itself was completely emptied of its oil and toxic liquids. Even the white paint we put on the car was organic and made for easy removal”.
So, there you go, that’s all fine then. Non-toxic liquids are indeed used to start controlled fires on camera. Although setting a car on fire is still never going to be all that environmentally friendly, no matter how much organic paint you use. And draining it of flammable fluids first is likely more about keeping such a fire under control, than primarily an ecological concern.
Still, who among us hasn’t set a car on fire for our art once or twice in our lives? I think the best thing we can do now is watch this car burning, so that it wasn’t all a terrible waste of time.
