Grande’s video director Max Landis hits back at SAFIA

Update 2pm:Brisbane rock band Aerials have highlighted similarities between their music video forPatient Parades (Nov 2012)and SAFIA's video forListen To Soul, Listen To Blues (Jul 2013)on Facebook. Read their post below:

So after all that Ariana Grande vs Safia gossip yesterday, it was brought to our attention that our music video for 'Patient Parades' back in 2012 was also thoroughly enjoyed bySAFIA, but maybe a little too much!! What do you think? Don't worry boys, we still love you!

Update 11am: SAFIA has made an official statement on Facebook.

Hey guys, its been a really weird 72 hours and things have escalated very quickly regarding the Ariana Grande video situation. Firstly, we want to thank all of our fans and friends for caring enough about our work and pointing the similarities out to us. We love that you are as passionate as we are about originality and creativity. That being said, while we do find an uncanny similarity in certain parts of the two clips, there’s no way of ever proving whether Ariana’s clipwas influenced by ‘You Are The One’ and it genuinely may have just been a coincidence.

We're not after Ariana, Max or their label either we were simply voicing our concerns in what is sometimes a common occurrence in the music industry.

We feel it’s important to stand up for our work which we spend so much of our lives devoted to, but we’re ready to move on from this. This is not how we want our name to reach the masses, if you hear about us we want it to be because of our music and not because of a 'scandal'.

Much love
SAFIA xx

The storyline of an earthling dealing with the planet’s impending doom from a meteor is no new concept. But Canberra’s SAFIA claim there a number of similarities between the video for You Are the One from last September to the one accompanying Ariana Grande’s new single One Last Time, which debuted on the weekend.

SAFIA video’s director, Jimmy Ennett of Crux Media agrees it’s obvious in the early scene in the car and the final setting as she hugs a man, as well as the colour grading and shot composition. He told triple j this was despite the fact that the budget for the Grande video was bigger. "Our budget would have been about three times less than her make-up budget,” he quipped.

The annoyance is that too many big budget productions from acts on major labels are dipping into low budget creative efforts by local indie acts. The SAFIA video notched up 100,000 views in the past five months. Grande’s visual had two million views in 24 hours.

SAFIA fumed on Facebook, "[It] wouldn't be the first time uncreative talentless fucks from big labels and/or big film firms steal ideas from small independent creatives who are trying really hard to make something different for a change."

SAFIA made their displeasure known to Grande’s video director Max Landis via Twitter. Landis retorted: "Coincidences are coincidences. Tropes are tropes. But those in glass houses shouldn't throw meteors."

Last month, after the video shoot wrapped up, Landis took to social media to say “Actual tremendous respect and admiration for @arianagrande right now. Rare to see such bravery/innovation from modern popstars.”

Last April, a similar row erupted when Australian film company Oh Yeah Wow charged that many special effects used in the one-take clip for Melbourne electro act Clubfoot’s Everything You Wanted found their way onto One Direction’s You And I.

Two months later, another debate ignited over resemblances between clips for Coldplay’s A Sky Full Of Stars (filmed in Newtown, Sydney) and Sydney band Sticky Fingers’ Australia Street from 2013.