MUSIC VIDEO IS AT THE END OF THE BLOG (so if you don’t want to read any of my rambling BS…just go ahead and scroll to the bottom)

This is a music video I directed and edited in September 2009. The video is for the song “Zombies!” by the Boston band The Longwalls. Coming into this project I had never heard The Longwalls before and was expecting the song “Zombies!” to either be a thrash punk song, or some sort of noise rock/ grind core tune. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was neither, but rather it was a toe-tapping folk rock tune with a clunking spaghetti western influenced baseline. I could immediately picture zombies dragging their feet to the thumping beat.

After a few meetings and emails back and forth with the signer of the band, Alan, we threw together a story line that was influenced by zombie flicks such as Day of the Comet, Evil Dead, Night of the Living and Dead, and Dawn of the Dead. Although there is a nonlinear story structure to the music video (basically the story was cut up thrown in a blender and then tossed onto a timeline) the linear story would have to go as follows:

The band is waiting to perform to a eager crowd at a military base. In this world of the music video there has been an outbreak of “The Zombie Virus” so the safest place you could hold a concert would be a military base. Alan, the lead singer and rhythm guitarist, and Brandon, lead guitar/ backup vox, are warming up while Curt, drums, and Dan, bass, are fooling around trying to get a closer look at a glowing orb that has been enclosed in a glass case on the other end of the military lab. This glass orb is infact what has been spreading the Zombie Virus. As the two band members wrestle against each other to get close to the glass case they accidentally  trigger the orb to emit the zombie airborne virus. Just then a military officer enters the lab to escort them to the stage. As they leave, two military scientists enter to lab only to see that their contained experiment has gotten out of control.  They give each other looks of panic. The band is escorted to the stage and begins to perform, but half way through the first song military scientists turned zombies rip into the crowd and begin turning audience members into zombies. The band notices the chaos in the crowd and quickly run off the stage with their instruments. They run from the base and take refuge in an abandoned house. The band mates board the windows closed and block the doorways from the approaching zombies. Yet as the day wears on, the zombies over take the house and the band decides to make a run for it. They all barely make it out the door before they are over taken by zombies. As the moon rises the band mates take full zombie transformation but continue to play their instruments (an instinctive characteristic that was carried through their transformation).

I believe every filmmaker dreams of the day they could work on a zombie flick. The fun part about making a zombie movie is that everything goes. You don’t have to question yourself about anything. Should I have a zombie puke up green slime? Yes. Should a drum stick be shoved through a zombies eye? Yes. Should a zombie get their face smashed in by a guitar? hmm…why the fuck not? There is something so primal about making a zombie short. You could ask someone, “Would it be okay to smash in your best friends head or stab grandmother in the eye?” They would probably say no (and if not you might want to stay away from that person). Then you could rephrase the question, “Would it be okay to smash in your best friends head or stab your grandmother in the eye if they were puking up blood and slime, and trying to eat your brains?” Suddenly what seemed horribly inhumane becomes simple zombie survival.

Anyway enjoy the music video and I’d like to extend a quick thanks Josh Bethoney and Rich Kearney (producers), Bob Almond (executive producer), Sean English (director of photography), everyone from Rock Media, and of courses The Longwalls for writing this song.

This post is tagged "music video", "The longwalls", "Zombies"