INNOCENCE LYRICS

I once had no fears  None at all    
And then when
I had some

To my surprise
I grew to like both
Scared or brave
Without them

The thrill of fear
Thought I'd never admit it
The thrill of fear
Now greatly enjoyed with courage

When I once was
Untouchable
Innocence roared
Still amazes

When I once was Innocent
It's still here
But in different places

Neurosis
Only Attaches
Itself to Fertile
Ground Where it can flourish

The thrill of fear
Thought I'd never admit it The thrill of fear Now greatly enjoyed with courage

Click on the arrow above to play the video

This is a short music video I prepared for a Bjork "Send us your video" competition for a song on her 2008 album, "Volta".

The film, per the lyrics, illustrates fears as common archetypes: bugs, heights, open spaces, closed spaces, predator and prey, sharp things-- as well as a method of overcoming fears, i.e. self-reflection (crystal ball). The video culminates with our girl in a silver suit of armor, as a metaphor for  self-reflection and self-knowledge as a shield against fears which return as archers, whose attempts are thwarted by an empowered "Innocent".

There were about 15 people total involved in the production of this video, but primarily 14 year old, my next door neighbor Sade Moore as the main subject, as well as her mother and grandmother and many of my best friends.

We shot about five hours of raw material over a 7 day period, each day about 6-14 hours each. It should be noted that we had planned a full month for shooting, when suddenly Bjork announced that the deadline had been moved up three weeks, leaving us with one week to do the entire project!

The project was done on a shoestring budget of nearly $0, however utilizing my Panasonic DVX100 camera at 24fps (like film), and edited on Sony Vegas 7 on my hand built PC. I will add that appearances can be deceiving-- in the last portion-- the outfit for the mountain climber guy archer alone cost me $450, and you see him for all of one second. We returned much of the "purchased" props to the store when this was feasible-- including the mountain climbing rope, pickaxe, and other similar items which I had little use for. Hey, what do you think this is, Zeotrope Studios?

Many key items, such as the funnel hat was found at local garage sales, including the butterfly wings. Sade and her friend made her silver reflective suit themselves, using reflective window Mylar from Home Depot, and glued it on to her clothes. It was quite hot.

The forest scene took a full day to shoot, and employed the largest number of people at one time, about 12 that day. We drove to a local nature reserve that resembled Sherwood Forest for our take on the fearless William Tell legend.

The glass crystal ball was loaned by my next door neighbor, and provided the "self-reflection" motif. The lighting effects on the sphere were actually done with a LED bicycle light borrowed from Sade's next door neighbor at the last second, and held by her grandmother crouching at Sade's feet.

Much of the ideas of the film literally leapt into our lap, as if by magic-- and the film, inspired by the lyrics and my knowledge of fear and brain function, virtually wrote itself.

What's up with all the stuff in the last part with the electronics test equipment warehouse? In interviews, Bjork herself refers to the "electrical energy" in Volta album (voltage-- get it?)

The video reference here is in regards to electrical energy inside the body and brain-- The Bjork character is holding the HUGE vacuum tube, personifying electric energy in the body/brain, complete with high tension towers in her hair.

Fear- the topic of the song-- is the movement of electrical energy within the brain, specifically from the amygdala backwards into increased electro-chemical energy flow into the r-complex (core "reptile brain", as coined by Dr. Paul McLean. See my page FEAR

The bubbles up on the mountain make the best story of the film--- we were driving up a road, around 11,000 feet elevation at the time, (on the highest paved road on the planet), and a convertible in front of us had bubbles flying out of their car. We pulled them over, and asked if we could buy the soap bubble wand and jar from them to use in our film-- and voila. Total cosmic connection when we needed it, as the bubbles mirrored the glass sphere and pendant in the rest of the film.

Yes, that is an actual two foot long vacuum tube in the attic of Fistell's Electronics in Denver, which was crammed full of probably the largest collection of electronic test equipment in the world. Sade's mom is wearing my homemade Bjork mask, taken directly from an image on one of her Podcasts for Volta. I have never seen a radio vacuum tube so huge, and probably never will again.

All of our locations were roughly within a 60 mile radius of Denver, Colorado-- from 11,000-12,000 feet up near the top of Mt. Evans (14,000+ feet at the top), to the flat plains of the Colorado prairie east of Buckley Air Force Base. The woman with the butterfly net was someone we had only met the day before at the neighborhood coffee shop, who instantly agreed to be in our film when she heard what we were doing. She did the scene the next day, then disappeared- like a butterfly perhaps-- and we never saw nor heard from her again.

Sade was actually buried  up to her chest in the garden in my backyard for the scene "Neurosis grows in fertile ground..."  after we dug a pit for her to get in. She did not like the bugs crawling all over her whatsoever, and it took some doing to get her to stay put for about 20 minutes to do the shot. The giant ant was a temporary wood sculpture at the Botanic Gardens in Denver, and is about 20 feet long and 10 feet high.

The film was a virtual miracle of cosmic planning and Brain Radar, for which we have only one explanation--- click click click forward of collective amygdali.

We shot up until the day before the video deadline, and I did all of the editing in one session on the last day of the competition, from 11AM until 11PM. Yes, it was submitted within the deadline. Still can't believe I did it in one sitting with only hours to go, absolutely insane, but I don't believe I could have done a better job had I a week to do it in.

I, for one, enjoy animation very much, including computer animation, but where I believe our video actually ILLUSTRATES the story and lyrics, I have been hard pressed to find any of the finalists did this at all in Bjork's Innocence Video competition, except in the most abstract sense. Dare I say, with the exception of the appearance of the Volta sculpture image in many of the videos (which reminds me of a big blob of bubble gum), one could have put the various entries to any piece of music and they would have made as much sense in interpretation. We made a concerted effort to actually illustrate the song and theme of the lyrics.
 

Live action has SOUL and HEART and touches you in a way that I rarely see in animation, and it is nearly always absent in computer animation.

I appreciate the efforts of anyone doing something creative, including all of the other participants in this competition. Regarding the contest however, I am not sure of their criteria and method for selecting the finalists- but alas, this is the nature of competitions (chaos pretending to be good judgment), and in my opinion, competitions as a rule have little to do with quality or art, so we do not feel as though the contest outcome reflects at all on our work and its value. We were not even included as finalists for the competition-- but ultimately this, even, will be to our benefit. Frontal lobes it....and understand.

Parts of the video go fast-- a few parts linger on a shot-- I like this-- please consider why I may have had a couple of shots that go for more than a few seconds-- pay attention, try to understand what I am saying... Life is not all bam bam bam bam .....it has contemplative sections in it, and so does my film.

Someone said the silhouette of the jaguar was like a scene from the Exorcist-- quite possible, but this came as a surprise to me, as I've not seen that scene.

We are all very very proud of our short film, and I am especially proud of everyone's contribution and efforts, especially Sade Moore, who worked extremely hard for this film, displayed amazing dedication and focus on this project, and she is deserving of the highest congratulations. The film is beautiful because of her foremost. She will not go un-noticed by those people who recognize true talent and beauty.

Anyway, all art appreciation is subjective anyway-- you like what we did, you don't-- hey doesn't matter. Nobody liked Van Gogh for a hundred years.

I'll repost soon after I've put my own music to the film... and we have many more shots and I will do an extended version soon. Enjoy.
 

PRODUCTION STILLS ARE SHOWN BELOW>>>>>>>>>

Whole Universe Brain DVD Here

Back to The Library From Another Dimension
Back to The AMAAAAZZZZING Brain Music Adventure

PRODUCTION STILLS FROM  MT. EVANS

11,000 Feet Elevation

Driving down, in complete fog, 15 foot visibility, and a 1000 foot vertical drop 5 feet off the road, I could not pass by this 20 foot high wall of snow, a virtual glacier, without filming. This is April (Sade's mom) running with the Prey Mask. Sade was in the car, suffering from exhaustion and altitude sickness, so April did the role here, almost in complete darkness. The car headlights provided the illumination. Elevation here was somewhere near 12,000 feet.

The sun had set moments ago, but we still had lots of cloud cover (behind the still camera here), and it made a great close up of the mask. This is at Summit Lake, way above tree line. The road behind in the distance goes up to 14.000 feet, the highest paved road anywhere. Note: The clouds are BELOW us, and what we had to drive through to get back down (photo above)--- I knew the road well, but Julia, April, and Sade figured they were going to die.

Sade literally standing at the edge of a cliff.

We didn't use this shot in the short, but may in our extended version. In the film version, it looks like she has actually fallen onto a rock and is laying down, rather than obviously standing vertically here.

Our very first shot of the production, and turned out to be the first shot of the film. Typically I edit in the order in which we shoot anyway. We discovered that Sade chose a shirt to wear that perfectly blended in with the sky and clouds. I forgot my $650 Bogen/Manfrotti tripod at home, and ended up buying a last-ditch $29 totally cheap amateur wobbly tripod at Office Max on the way to the mountains-- amazingly it worked.

More close ups. We found that the scenery looked very much like Iceland.

It's clear in this still that we are VERY high up in the mountains.

Rocky Mountain Sheep cross the road on our way up.

Sade wearing the silver hat that will play a big part in the last scene. We were all rather freezing by now, and had spent all day up above tree line. There was snow, then fog, then a total white out,  then sunshine-- all changing from one minute to the next. Made for a perfect day of shooting!

Back to The AMAZING Brain Adventure

When I once was Fearless
Innocence roared Still amazes

Untouchable
Innocence
It's still here
But in different places

Fear is a powerful drug
Overcome it and You think that you can do Anything!

Should I
Save myself
For later Or generously give?

Fear of Losing
Energy Is draining

It locks up your chest Shuts down the heart
Miserly And stingy Let's open up : Share!

When I once was Fearless
Innocence roared Still amazes

Untouchable
Innocence
It's still here
But in different places...