Near the end of his life, Heath Ledger seemed to be transitioning away from acting and inching closer to directing.
He dropped out of a few acting gigs (most notably, Terrence Malick’s “Tree of Life” — he was replaced by Brad Pitt) and then he started getting his feet wet with music videos, intending to lens a Modest Mouse video (that was finished posthumously by friends) and turning the camera on himself for a self-made music video for Nick Drake’s “Black Eyed Dog” (Ledger also discussed the possibilities of directing a biopic about the depressed and delicate folk singer who committed suicide in 1974). He also directed Ben Harper’s video for “Morning Yearning.” An avid chess fan, Ledger was also hoping to direct an adaptation of the Walter Tevis novel “The Queen’s Gambit,” which featured the female role of a young chess prodigy that had been offered to Ellen Page.
But apparently his last directorial effort was filming the video for his boyhood friend, rapper NFA’s (No Fixed Abode) “Cause An Effect,” who discussed the making of the video in a YouTube clip (via Movieline).
“We shot it in Sydney and Heath was living in Bronte at the time. He gave me a call as he often did, at crazy hours and he called and was like, ‘N’Fa, I’ve got this idea for a video. Let’s try to do something on the shoestring budget that we [have].’ He was very good at directing and giving you a definite point. So basically, the day before, we went and found a few different ideas and clothing and a massive sheet, a black curtain. We got in touch with two amazing make-up artists and on the day, we shot it so that we just had a couple of lights, three colors: red, black, white, and the backdrop and the single camera and we shot it all in the garage. The idea was to keep it very artistic.”
Here’s the clip, plus parts of the Nick Drake video.