 "I think something a lot of people do that I do, and have done, is that you're with somebody new and you just make up who they are. All these wonderful things that might not have any bearing on reality. It's kind of like building a person. " I found this on a music video webpage and I believe it is on the official Rasputina page. As far as I know, it's a description of the music video for the song: THE IDEA: A haunting anxiety dream where our heroines must fulfill impossible tasks. The anxiety emanates from failed relationships and disappointments. THE LOOK: Early photography meets Fantasia, meets Hansel and Gretel, meets Edward Gorey, but still its own original beast. Pale, washed-out colors, similar to a child's watercolor paint set. Ramped speeds so the women move with puppet-like, spidery gestures. Angles are unusual, yet beautifully composed. We can experiment with layering an image over itself so that the visuals are blurry and ethereal. THE VIDEO: OPEN on water trickling down buckled, crooked staircase. We follow water up steps to MELORA, who can't stop her continuous tears. Her face is expressionless. Here, the water is internal, tears flow down her face, her clothes are soaked. She collects the tears in the little vials, and jam jars, and tea cups. Her tears have taken over -- they are spontaneous and disparate form her true emotions. Runaway tears. Maybe the jam jars are labeled for the days of the week or even the months of the year, to show how long she has been crying. Her internal world mirrors the external world of their flooding, broken down little house. In a sense, they are causing the rain. I see her sitting on steps...candles on walls, teacups on random steps, water trickles and drops down. PS -- the tears could come from a doll or a painting of a sad woman if Melora doesn't want it to be herself. OR: OPEN TIGHT on Melora. She is trying to stop leaks coming into attic. She surrounds herself with tea cups to catch the drips. Pinhole beams of light stream in, as if someone drilled a million holes in the roof and rainwater is coming in. She plugs holes with ??? and places tea cups everywhere, mismatched and dainty, to stop the leaks and to sop the flood of rain coming in. CUT TO: BAND SCENARIO 1: Rasputina plays on a tiny wooden stage in the woods at night. Stars are overhead. They are being cranked to play, as if they are part of an antique toy that plays music as you turn the handle. We see a man turning a crank with cogs and wheels at the back of the stage. The band plays according to the speed of the crank. When the handle is not being turned, the band members slump like rag dolls. They are still human. This non-stop playing would be their "impossible task," connecting the band scenario to the vignettes. A circle dolly would make for a beautiful visual, especially if we shoot through branches of trees. There is a "Red Shoes" feeling -- they cannot stop playing even if they wanted to. Some kind of spell. I think the crank man is a villain; he enjoys the control. But eventually he grows weary, his arms get tired. The more weary he grows, the more control Rasputina gains, ultimately winning their freedom. I believe that this is enough of an epiphany -- this is the catalyst to break them free and start the parade. The man is just a symbol -- he can be very abstract; masked, barely seen, etc. He can even be just a pair of masculine hands. He represents the self-torture chamber. And breaking free of him symbolizes when you've had enough. This goes with the whole idea of making someone up in your head and falling in love with the fictitious character. Fantasy people are much harder to get over. Especially when you have a big imagination. The parade bit is the celebration of being over it all. CUT TO: A dark basement on a slant. There is a worn, knobby wooden ladder leading up to a tiny window. A beam of moonlight barely lights the room. Agnieszka is up to her waist in water and carries a tiny bucket up the ladder and dumps it out the window. Tight on the bucket: It has a hole in it. Gith on her ancient heeled slipper, shaky on the rungs of the ladder. Lighting is dark with a splash of moonlight on Agnieszka. CUT TO: (If we must cut back, this can be lost.) BAND SCENARIO 2: The trial. Melora singing while Agnieszka and Julia are playing. She states her case to the seated jury of animals and children. A child takes down her words on a primitive stenographic/Dictaphone-like machine. If this were some weird, abstract trial, two children could bring in the evidence like props in a child's play. The headboard. The ex-lover or an effigy of him. A dress she may have worn (from the clothesline). A cup of her tears. Her broken heart on a plate. Maybe small girls dressed as boys in top hats and masks could bring out the evidence that is labeled and numbered. CUT TO: A clothesline that goes on to infinity. Pointy black stockings and hats and other strange garments are being hun on the line by Julia. It is raining. There are tons of rickety old clothes baskets full of clothes that need to be hung. Julia's lips are blue and mascara runs down her face. CUT TO: BAND SCENARIO 3: The parade. Crusading through woods with pull toys of band and taxidermied squirrels, and goats, and cats, and fireflies everywhere. There is a sense of an urgent mission. An abandoned freedom. Rasputina reaches the house. The sun is out. The rain has stopped. End with the three women and their cellos looking up at house, shot from behind. CUT TO: A beam of light on the staircase. An empty clothes basket in the sun. The basement floor with one droplet of water on its surface. The music has stopped. The spell has been broken. They can rest. NOTES: We can pull back by cutting the trial, Band Scenario 2. I love the images, but the story can be told with the battle for control between the villain and the women. The house in the woods can be a backdrop or a model in the storybook/school play vein, the same way the planets and stars will be fake. I watched the films and loved the fairy scenes in Midsummer. Loved the sparkles on the set. |