The spooky house seen in
the video is none other than the infamous Hillview Spooky Mansion
(it's actually called the Hillview Haunted House but I prefer
to call it "spooky", because "haunted"
would imply that there really are restless spirits there… and after
watching that Japanese horror flick Ju-On I'd rather not admit
to myself that I walked into a haunted house).
During the shooting of Tragic
Vendetta at the Spooky Mansion we bumped into the infamous Hungry
Ghost Dog twice! For more information about the spooky history of
this den of evil, check out thisprevious
update.
We were so spooked out at
that place, that once during a take late in the day we heard someone
or something playing with my skateboard outside.
As soon as I said "Cut" everyone was like: "Did
you hear that? Was that you?" and I was like: "That
was not one of us and I swear that was the sound of someone rolling
around on my fucking skateboard!" and Ced was like: "It's
the ghost of the fucking Indonesian Businessman!"
So we freaked out and started arming ourselves with tripods or whatever
we could grab and we were ready to take down anything or anyone that
walked up the stairs. It turned out to be Cheok visiting us.
The house is surrounded
with concertina wire (as in razor-wire), not barbed. Only government/military/protected
places have that… so what gives? Maybe we stumbled across a secret
military base… like if we pushed a secret brick in a wall the floor
will open up to reveal a nuke silo or something.
The concept of the video
is based loosely on Justin Timberlake's "Cry me a river"
video. Although there are a few very similar sequences including
this one below, I must stress that it was only LOOSELY based on the
concept of that video.
Ced
watches Jas walk across the screen as the camera tracks along. As
she walks past the column, he turns around and watches her from
the other side.
Justin
watches the Britney lookalike walk across the screen as the camera
tracks along. As she walks past the wall, he turns around and watches
her from the other side.
A sequence that we always
wanted to include was this bit involving a mirror. So we took a mirror
from Ced's place there, but it wasn't tall enough and in the end I had
to use my skateboard as a mirror stand. Skateboards can do anything!
I absolutely REFUSED to
shoot at that place at night. You know, because it was poorly lit and
the footage would be grainy. Not because I was scared or anything…
On the last day of shooting
at the spooky house, we were fucking around making flame trails with
flammable fluid. Some mishap occurred and we accidentally burnt a
roadie to death. Since then we've heard rumors of a blackened
ghost being spotted at the house rolling around on the ground trying
desperately to put himself out. (Okay, that didn't happen. But we
did find out just how hard it is to make flame trails and shit.)
I damaged my camera while
foolishly zooming down the steep-assed hill that leads up to the house.
I turned a corner at a really high speed, and hit a speed bump that
sent me flying into the air, with my camera in my backpack.
My busted
up LCD.
Even after making this video,
I still can't tell the difference between a bass guitar and a guitar-guitar.
The actress in the video
is actually Ced's ex, so casting her was pretty appropriate.
The stage scene was shot
at this club that Ced's anonymous friend is the sound-guy for. We visited
it to scope the location out one night, and it turned out to be such
a seedy place with all these fat tourist rice-junkies and sleazy
local businessmen, and enough ricey ho's to go around. The stage
looked great though, so we ended up paying the guy to sneak us in after-hours.
This would be the first time we've ever paid for a location.
That sound guy also woke
up late on the day, and that delayed our schedule by a good 2 hours.
He then refused to cut any money off the steep $250 he was charging
us. And to top it off, we had to use Ced's Discman to play the Tragic
single through the sound system. Like don't they have a CD player there
or something?
The same sound guy then
tried to charge Ced $250 for shitty footage from club cameras when the
band played there in a gig a few months later. What a rip-off!
I used my skateboard as
a dolly at that club, and after skating up and down on the dance floor
for a while, I found that my wheels have gotten all gross and sticky
with beer and bits of hair stuck on them. It was sooo incredibly gross.
In the video, Tjinn's face
is rarely seen because well… his corpse paint makeup made him look
more like Ronald McDonald than a psychotic Black Metal demon.
Cab drivers never really
asked much questions when Cedric would walk into a cab all painted up
with corpse paint.
If you look really closely,
you can just make out Frankie's 3 Sperms graphic hidden
somewhere in the video. I also hid one of my sister's designs in there,
but that one will remain a secret between the two of us.
The music box prop in the
video took a long time to track down. Ced and I went to all these antique
places and girly stores like Hallmark to look for a music box with a
dancing ballerina, but there were none. In the end, we were just about
to give up when as a last ditch effort we went to this cheap souvenir
store in Lucky Plaza selling Merlion lighters and T-shirts with Sentosa
designs on them. I didn't even bother going in so imagine my surprise
when Ced came running out with a music box!
