Ray Tintori is a 24-year-old director from New York. This is his first video, for his buddies MGMT's new single "Time to Pretend".

Dazed Digital: What are MGMT like to work with?
Ray Tintori: The first day of the shoot, they found a piece of greenscreen fabric and fashioned loincloths for themselves... we then covered them in fake blood and they were just dancing around like maniacs. A guy from Columbia came into the studio, took one look at them and froze - Andrew's pubic hair was hanging out and Ben had fake money stuck all over his body.

DD: What gave you the idea for this treatment?
RT: We wanted to portray a sort of post-apocalyptic utopia where the world had caved in on itself but the kids were all right and too resilient to give up hope. Also, Andrew wanted to kill a bunch of monsters.

DD: How closely should a video relate to the theme of the song?
RT: If you did a literal translation of the lyrics into images, I think you would end up with something that looked more like a rap video from the late 90s – dudes with yellow goggles riding orange Kawasakis, and hanging out with trashy ladies, flaunting their money. That's not what MGMT is about and that's not what the song is about. I wanted people to understand that the song was satirical as soon as they saw the video. That said, we didn't want to make something snarky or cynical. We're all at a point in our lives where were still genuinely excited to be alive, even though it's fairly obvious that it's all going to end in tears… that's what the song's about for me.

DD: Have you ever wanted to ride a giant kitten on a far-off planet?
RT: That kitten lives in the apartment I share with my cinematographer, Rob Leitzell, and my girlfriend. His name is Jon Voight – I probably spend at least a third of my waking hours staring into his big beautiful eyes. We have two other kittens as well. One of them is white, so we keep using food colouring to make him look like he's been tie-dyed. We had to put Jon Voight in the video because his stride is just so regal.

DD: Will the apocalypse be soundtracked by indie rock?
RT: I think the apocalypse would be better if Tom Waits wrote the music.

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