Title: "Close Your Eyes (And Count to Fuck)” Artist: Run the Jewels Feat

Title: "Close Your Eyes (And Count to Fuck)” Artist: Run the Jewels feat. Zack De La Rocha Year Released: 2015 Album: Run the Jewels 2 Director: A.G. Rojas Name: Andre´ Sirois Overview: Violence is always stupid and pointless, and no other violence is at the forefront of American consciousness than police violence against black men. This video will use the powerful aggression of the beat/lyrics to help tell the story of a clumsy fight between a black male and a white cop (by clumsy, I mean no punches or kicks, etc). Exploiting this emotion, the video will highlight the futility of violence and leave the audience thinking about the humanity that often gets left out of the story of the senseless act. One thing that will set this apart from other videos is that instead of just syncing the song, I want to keep in some of the production sound from the fighting, falling, and chasing low in the mix. Style: The video for "Close Your Eyes (And Count to Fuck) will be presented in all black and white. There will be no special effects and we will rely mostly on natural lighting; it needs to be real and authentic. The pace of the video will be largely determined by the actors, and thus we will not rely on quick edits to keep the narrative (visually and continuity-wise) moving forward. This aesthetic will help sell the raw emotion of the video. The camera will never judge our actors and I want it to have a very cinema verite´ type of feel during much of the action. With an issue like police violence, people are quick to cast judgment, so I want to try and present the characters as unbiased as possible; in essence, I don't want the camera to privilege either of the characters or present anybody as a hero or villain. The system is the real villain. Story: We open with Davis, the black character, sitting looking out the window. He is panting, heavy at breath. Eventually, the story and the video will end with a similar shot. We cut to the daytime and we see Deputy Clark (the white police officer) hunched over breathing heavily outside in the street. As the beat kicks in we see Deputy Clark spit violently. The camera swings around him to reveal a stare down with Davis who is also winded. Clark yells “don’t move” and we see Davis turn and run. We then cut to a black screen with white text that says: “Close Your Eyes”. The next shot we see is Davis violently hitting the ground. It’s revealed that there is a fight in the street between the two. And it’s like they have been fighting for days, or at least hours (but maybe years or decades). During the first verse we see them stumble and fall over one another like two drunk babies wrestling. But the fight is not funny; the audience shouldn't laugh. Handcuffs and other objects from Deputy Clark fling from his belt. The two engage in a parody of a fight; nothing similar to any of the real violence we’ve witnessed in the media. The two flop to the ground. Slowly get up. They choke and grab, but never punch or kick. Although we think Clark is trying to detain Davis, we conversely see Davis trying to chase Clark down. In reality we know Davis would run, I want his chasing down of the cop to be symbolic of larger social confrontation of police violence. This is not what you see on Cops. Eventually they stop in the street, seemingly exhausted and ready to give up. They lie in the street next to one another. They put one another in weak chokeholds. They hold their heads together. It looks ridiculous and frightening at once. We will use a match cut of a profile of the two men head to head and cut from the daytime to night to truncate the passage of time and show that the battle, the debate, the issue still rages on. The two continue to battle in the street; falling all over one another in their sloppy combat. Eventually Davis and Deputy Clark fight over a can of mace and in the tussle end up spraying one another in the faces (there could be similar gags that we work into the story). The two fall to the ground and writhe in pain from the burning peppermace. We cut away to a master shot showing the two men lying in the middle of the street in burning shock, both flopping on the ground. Davis breaks away, blinded from the mace. We see him run, almost drunkenly, into the apartment (presumably, his apartment). He goes right to the refrigerator and grabs a gallon of milk. He pours the milk all over his face, which creates an amazing contrast between the white milk and his black skin. Deputy Clark finds him in there and Davis actually hands him the milk, which Clark pours over his face. As De La Rocha’s verse kicks in, the two men continue their battle in the kitchen. The fight continues through the hallway where the two throw eachother into the walls breaking family photos. At some point as they head upstairs the two men sit in the hall, apparently gazing at one another and completely fatigued. Are they done? No! As the last chorus comes in, we see both men separately walk into the bedroom. They both sit on opposite sides of the bed and look away from one another. As the song ends, we cut to shots of each man, both physically and emotionally depleted, showing their exhaustion in their faces. Eventually we cut to the first shot in this story, a MS/MCU of Davis looking out the window while he pants. We then see what he’s looking at or thinking about, which is him walking freely through the apartment complex with his hands up to the side like a bird soaring. Our last shot, though, is the reality: a shot from outside the window of the two men on the bed with their heads down. The shot then pulls out on a crane or rig to give a bit of context to the environment, which shows that the fight (the fight representing systemic violence) rages on without either of the actors looking at one another or being physical. We end with the text on the screen: “(And Count to Fuck)”. While the artists are not set to appear in this, I’d like to maybe have Killer Mike, El-P, and Zach walking down the same street at some point, but not intercut into the narrative; either at the beginning or end of the piece. Actors/Wardrobe: This story and video relies entirely on the acting to convey the message here. The talent will have to fully commit to their roles and to the fight. I need them to be raw and aggressive, but when they fight they need to do it like two super-drunk grandpas: falling all over, inability to hurt the other, rolling around, etc. The chasing and fighting will essentially be satire and/or parody, and in order to show the senselessness of violence the fight/chases need to be ridiculous; it needs to feel like a cartoon. These characters are not stereotypes; they are real people. I want that to be evident in this video and so the actors cannot be archetypes. The audience needs to see their complexity and they cannot be one-dimensional. They need to sell that they have been fighting for days, maybe years, in order to address how racially motivated violence is an old issue that has not been assuaged. I want Deputy Clark to have a simple cop’s uniform. The same simplicity will go for Davis: white tee shirt and jeans. Cinematography: There has been trend lately of popular rap music videos being shot in black and white (i.e. Vince Staples and Kendrick Lamar). This video, though, takes cue from two older B&W rap videos: Jay-Z “99 Problems” and some of the scenes in Nas’s “One Love”. From “99 Problems,” we will borrow a similar handheld style and the use of texture and contrast; from “One Love” the honesty and realness of the portrayal of the stories Nas tells. While we’ll take on a cinema verite´ aesthetic, we’ll also use a steadicam for some shots, and, when needed, a crane. For most part, most of the lighting will be natural (except at night time) and we will use, almost excessively, medium shots. The video will be presented in 16:9 widescreen, and we will use mostly normal focal length lenses in order to not distort perspective. Set/Locations: The main locations for this shoot will be simple, nondescript places. Specifically, a street lined with brick buildings and an apartment or condo. I want the street scene to have a very suburban feel, like a row of apartments. I want the inside of the apartment to be simple, like it’s my great aunt’s place. Lyrics/song: The song and lyrics are aggressive as fuck. The beat pounds and the lyrics crack your brain open. I want to really exploit the emotional aggression of the song here, but never literally. The Takeaway: Racial violence by white authority is a major current issue and I want people to leave this video thinking about the complexity of it. Since this type of violence is often sensationalized in the media and we get stereotypical stories (and characters in those stories), this video is a think piece because the characters in this video are provocative and genuine.

Load more