This Is My Rifle: Now With Revolutionary Kidnapping Visuals! Posted by Jason James on 03/06/13 | Filed under Videos, This Is My Rifle, Opinion

Whenever I write songs I almost always have a series of pictures in my mind that I'm trying to describe. Very rarely do I let the words, pattern or flow dictate the direction of a song. When I hear a piece of music I listen for an emotion and I wait for that emotion to either stir my imagination or draw up a memory from a past experience. For me, albums are like a screenplay or a collection of short films and I never release single songs not tied to a specific project because of this. Creatively my mind won't allow it. Every song is a stroke in a painting or a scene in a film and if I record a song that doesn't turn out the way I had hoped, I find a replacement. Nothing proceeds until that hole is filled.

So when Rodney sent me the beat that would become "This Is My Rifle" the images immediately began to appear; masks, guns, men dressed in black fighting back against corruption and taking the law into their own hands. I saw vigilantes on a kamikaze mission, angry with what our governments, media and wall street had done to society, and willing to go to extremes to correct it. The beat was sparse but full, dense and aggressive, open and sharp- the perfect space for a massacre.

I'll always remember the collective, "You're fucking kidding me, right?" expression on the faces of my creative partners as I explained my idea for the video. As an air of anxiety swept through the room, I read a text from Rodney that said, "Gotta do it mane". I then looked up at the few people I trust enough to work with and actually get shit done and could see them fumbling around with the concept. Nobody wanted to tell me it couldn't be done but nobody wanted to go along with it either. We weren’t working on a Jay-Z budget, so basically that meant we'd be running around in masks and waving pistols in a residential area with no permits while terrifying upper middle class families. Long story short, we would literally be target practice for a SWAT team. "It's not impossible, but we're gonna have to scale this down a bit", my best friend Ben finally responded after what felt like an hour of silence. "I mean, yeah. This is gonna take a lot of planning and will have to be broken down to the millisecond. If police show up we're fucked and we're all going to jail. Do you have any other ideas? Anything that's a little more safe?".

I could've just come up with a different idea. Maybe something where I was on top of a Maybach with a rifle and some girl with huge boobs gyrating against me while I rapped the lyrics at the camera, but fuck that shit. I hate Rap videos and, even more so, I hate compromising my artistic vision. Although I agreed that what I wanted to do probably wasn't the most logical concept for a $1500 video, my OCD wouldn't let it be done any other way. So after exploring another, and equally impossible idea for a different song altogether, I beat Ben into submission and the "This Is My Rifle" video came to fruition.

I really have to hand it to Ben; he did an excellent job on this video. In the months leading up to shoot day he storyboarded and timed the scenes meticulously. He arranged the shots, organized our actors and made this project his temporarily permanent gig. Every day for 8 weeks he painstakingly worked to make this video happen and no matter how erratic and crazy my ideas became, he took it with a grain of salt and did his best to incorporate them into the final product. He directed, produced and edited this video and I truly believe that all credit should go to him.

On shoot day virtually everything that we could imagine going wrong, did. And since so many things did go horribly wrong, I’m gonna break it down for you in point form in the order that we shot the scenes:

SCENE 1- SUBURBAN FOOT CHASE

-Clouds form overhead, it begins to rain.

-Dom (actor in suit being chased and kidnapped) is an hour and a half late. He was stuck in traffic but shows up eating McDonald’s breakfast. Apparently there is a McDonald’s located on the highway. In traffic.

-Rob (actor in suit being kidnapped at the hotel) has to leave to go to another acting job in 3 hours. The other acting job is paying him in dollars, not in pats on the back. We are 5 hours from reaching the hotel.

-Cops arrive. I lie and say we’re shooting a student film. Cops are young and surprisingly cool. They say the neighborhood thinks we’re terrorists. I laugh. They Laugh. They leave.

-I lock Ben’s keys in the trunk of his car. Tow truck is called to open the trunk. More time is lost.

SCENE 2- ALLEYWAY

-Rob is thrown into van a little too violently. He says he’s not injured but I can tell that he is. Rob is not being paid. FUCK.

-I slam Jason’s (Guy Fawkes mask) hand in the sliding door of the minivan. Jason’s hand is mangled. He takes a minute to cool down. I apologize profusely.

SCENE 3- EXECUTION IN THE MOUNTAINS

-Rob’s car breaks down on the highway. Rob has to be at the other acting gig and can no longer do the hotel scene. Tow truck arrives, we consider calling it a wrap and cutting our losses.

-Raph, a friend who came along to help out behind the scenes, has now been unanimously elected to take Rob’s place. Raph is Black, Rob is White. Thankfully Rob had a black hood over his head in the alleyway scene. We all collectively breathe a sigh of relief. Rob gives Raph his suit, goes back to the city in gym clothes and tow truck. Rob still not being paid.

-We arrive at the mountain. Sun is going down. We have to shoot this scene immediately.

-There’s something oddly gay about ripping a hood off of Dom’s head and staring him in the eyes. We can’t help but laugh uncomfortably every time I do it. Sun goes down, we have to go to the hotel.

SCENE 4- HOTEL

-Chaman (Guy Fawkes mask) is supposed to burst through hotel door but door is closed and locked. Chaman runs into door, door does not open. Chaman has injured his head and his shoulder.

-Chaman is supposed to pretend to pistol whip Raph and accidentally does it for real. Raph freaks out and punches air, walls, doors, etc., while blindfolded. Ralph is injured.

-Kim (actress playing the prostitute) wraps and unknowingly leaves with all of my cash. She calls to let me know that she can’t find it in her car but is coming back to help me look for it. I run around in circles for an hour. We find the money.

VIDEO WRAPPED

All in all, considering the odds that were stacked against us, this video has far exceeded my expectations and everybody involved did a fucking incredible job. I’m beyond grateful for all of the actors and friends who came together to make my crazy idea happen and despite the multiple speed bumps, kept grinding until we got it done. It took us 16 hours to complete, and weeks of editing and color treatments, but in the end it was totally worth it.

So without further ado, I am proud to present to you, “This Is My Rifle”. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.



(Jason James is an artist, freelance columnist and writer for RefinedHype.com. You can read/download his free eBook, "This Is My Rifle" and listen/download his most recent album, "Pyramids in Stereo". You can also contact him here and here.)

See Also:  This Is My Rifle: Dorner, Russian Meteors & Living Life Outside The Numbers