On film · film · 2007
Scotch Mist
For New Year's Eve 2007 Radiohead made a film of themselves playing every song on In Rainbows, mostly in their studio, wearing cameras on their heads.
2007
the studio with the cameras on
By the end of 2007 In Rainbows had been out as a download since October, and the CD was due in the shops on 31 December. Thom Yorke announced on Dead Air Space, the band's blog, that they would mark it with a pre-recording of some songs and other bits on New Year's Eve. The film is Scotch Mist, directed by Adam Buxton and Garth Jennings, who had worked with the band on Thumbs Down, their webcast from the studio in November.
The studio was already wired for it. Nigel Godrich had bought old television cameras from the 1980s on eBay during the sessions and put about 18 of them round the room, with a small control room of his own. Buxton made five helmet cameras for the band, like the one he had built for his comedy night. There is no audience. Kitty Empire, writing in The Observer, noticed Yorke getting hairier from song to song, which gives away that the songs were filmed at different times rather than in one night.
2007
the film
All ten songs of In Rainbows are in it, in an order of their own, opening on “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi”. “Faust Arp” leaves the studio, in one of the films first shown on Thumbs Down: Jonny Greenwood and Yorke play it on a windy hill at dusk, which Buxton's blog places at Wittenham Clumps, near Didcot power station. Between the songs a voice reads poems, the little pictograms that heralded In Rainbows come and go, and the five run from a fireworks display that spells GOOD NIGHT.
It closes on a new film for “Nude”, shot at 1,000 frames a second in bursts of seven seconds, each of the band thrashing about at full speed, then slowed to a drift. Buxton said of it later that a song as lovely as “Nude” would make anything look moving in slow motion.
We didn't have to go through three weeks of video commissioning and receiving dodgy scripts set on abandoned skyscrapers in downtown L.A. or something.
Colin Greenwood · Pitchfork, March 2008
2007–2026
on air, and in the archive
Scotch Mist went out at midnight on New Year's Eve on radiohead.tv, and in America on Current TV, the cable channel Al Gore had started. YouTube put it on its home page on 2 January, and MTV2 was to show it again on 13 January. Empire thought it had less of the mischief of Thumbs Down, but called it a fine night in.
It is on the band's YouTube channel, and in 2026 the BFI National Archive took it in, one of more than 400 online videos it chose to keep.
the film
Scotch Mist· Radioheadwatch on youtube →
sources11
- Radiohead, “Radiohead - Scotch Mist”, YouTube, 1 January 2008, youtube.com (made for New Year's Eve, every song on In Rainbows, the directors)
- Kitty Empire, “Ahead of the game again”, The Observer, 6 January 2008, theguardian.com (the broadcasts, filmed at different times, “Faust Arp” from Thumbs Down, Wittenham Clumps near Didcot, the poems, the pictograms, the fireworks, the verdict)
- Simon Vozick-Levinson, “Nigel Godrich shares favourite clip from Radiohead's 2007 'Scotch Mist' webcast”, Rolling Stone, 11 December 2020, au.rollingstone.com (the cameras from eBay, the control room)
- CDM, “Adam Buxton blogs low budget awesomeness from Radiohead's Scotch Mist webcast”, 17 January 2008, cdm.link (the five helmet cameras, modelled on his own)
- BFI Replay, “Scotch Mist”, replay.bfi.org.uk (52 minutes, the “Nude” film in Buxton's words)
- Jordan Potter, “Watch the breathtaking Radiohead NYE sessions of 2007”, Far Out, 10 May 2023, faroutmagazine.co.uk (the running order)
- NME, “Radiohead New Year's Eve show posted online”, 2 January 2008, nme.com (MTV2 to show it again on 13 January)
- Michele K-Tel, “Celebrate '08 with Radiohead”, YouTube Official Blog, 2 January 2008, blog.youtube (the home page)
- SPIN, “Radiohead to broadcast taped gig on NYE”, 28 December 2007, spinmagazine.com (Current TV, Yorke's post)
- Ryan Dombal, interview with Radiohead, Pitchfork, 27 March 2008, pitchfork.com (Colin Greenwood's quote)
- This site's stories of November and December 2007 and June 2026 (Thumbs Down, the broadcast, the BFI)