Epic night last night. We started shooting the music video for Partial Abduction (which is I think the keystone song for the Alien story arc of A Cowboy Zombie XMas). It's essentially the origin story for Steve's character(s) and it intersects directly with the Zombie storyline, so it's a pretty crucial thing in the album. Now, of course, this song is built on a dream that Steve had one time, and the lyrics refer to that in Steve's lyrical style, which can be difficult to parse without a few listens. Steve says this isn't intentional, and I believe him. I think it happens because he tends to find something that's really appealing let's say for a specific part and then nothing else will quite do. Then before you know it there is a collection of those meticulously chosen lyrical stepping stones, and they don't necessarily tell the story in the most obvious way possible but if you take the time to enjoy them individually and learn the path... well, I may be stretching a metaphor a bit but I think it makes the point.
And that point is a setup to a larger one: given the more gestural nature of the exposition in Steve's lyrics, we (the listeners) are given a bit more freedom to interpret the precise scenes as they unfold. This, as it turns out, can cause a bit of strife when you go to turn that into a movie, because we each had our own sort of mental movie of the story, but when you commit that to "film" you have to choose quite literally: was it daytime? did A happen before B? was Steve or was Steve not a bunny? For the record (after much debate): Yes, Yes, and Yes. That will sound less crazy when you see the video, which should be done in a few weeks.
So we had to do a bit of work to reconcile this piece with the overall arc of the larger project, without messing with Steve's song, which needs to be able to work on its own outside the context of the album. We determined the following:
-It's daytime. (I think it has to change to night before the end just to make it possible to do some of the shots, but we will discuss)
-It basically starts in the car, with Steve and his friends on a drive
-BUT before we get in the car we get to meet the people in the car. That is accomplished via short static shots of each character over which we'll throw some text. Steve wrote down what he thinks are the names of those people but I don't yet agree. Hijinx may yet ensue.
-Britniy is not in fact a neighbor of Steve's residence, but in fact lives next to a generally-empty second home (mansion) on a lake. She knows Steve from town, though, and they have a tentative friendship.
-When Steve ditches from the car he eventually finds his way to this mansion
-Britniy is watching from her room on the fourth floor when Steve arrives at the house next door and lets himself in
-She sees the house light up and Steve move up to the top floor, from which he is eventually abducted.
-AFTER that, when the non-abducted Steve is dumped in the lake (just made that part up, works perfectly) and the was-abducted Steve is taken aboard the alien ship, she makes her assault on the house (which is the subject of That's What I Brought It For).
In other notes: Jacer may in fact be a special F/X genius. He contributed several great ideas and techniques last night that should not go un-noted. The "Halogen work-light as alien ship flyover" effect, the "car on a moving chunk of cardboard next to an oppositely-moving painting" effect, and the "Oblivion cliff-diving car-jump" effect, to name just three. I hope he can make it whenever we're doing video...
