The Pretty Reckless “Just Tonight”

Director: Meiert Avis

Location: Kingsbridge Armory, New York

Concept
Things have an unfathomable way of evolving in the music video concept development process. The video went though three interesting concepts. The first came straight from the lyrics:

Here we are and I can’t think from all the pills I ate / Start the car and take me home

Here we are and you’re too drunk to hear a word I say / Start the car and take me home

My concept was Taylor singing the lyrics in a slow motion tumbling car crash. Glass exploding all around in as she drifts slowly through the windshield. Blood everywhere. Listen to the song and you will see it in your mind.

Edgy and socially responsible. Art saves lives by stimulating discussion and awareness. Artists should also be free to be artists.

Link to first treatment

Of course, 16 year olds don’t drink and take drugs and certainly don’t do both and then drive. Not that the song is partly about the dangers of doing just that.

About 5,000 young people under 21 die every year as a result of underage drinking, nearly half of them in auto accidents.

‘We’ll circle back to that idea”. This is a long way of saying come back again with a concept that is a little more commercial.

The next concept was a great idea of Taylor’s involving an imagined heroin overdose in a bathroom in NY. Taylor can be relied follow her rock and roll soul. She is not faking it. I thought the dark magical realist narrative and the interplay of two parallel actions was pretty new in a video, and wrote it up.

Link to second treatment

This idea also wasn’t popular with the label. It is however popular with Armie Hammer, who is willing to fly in from Los Angeles to play opposite Taylor. Hammer wasn’t enough to get the support we need. This could have been a good video, and maybe saved a life or two.

Eventually this is also rejected by the label. It now implies the use of drugs and alcohol, though not by Taylor. Seriously? Is Tipper Gore back in town? I can’t get my head around it all at this point, the song is what it is.

Finally, time runs out. The band are on tour, something has to be shot in four days time, in NY, otherwise the UK single release will get lost. We talk about fairy tales. I write up a totally vague performance driven treatment that everyone can sign off on so we can get on a plane before the clock has totally run out.

Link to third treatment

Lesson Learned?

There are fashionable youth orientated social issues that one can address in music video, but this is not one. Either underage Americans don’t take drugs or drink, or, if they do, there is no available procedure to clear the legal hurdles involved in making a video about it. Even one that clearly points out the dire consequences.

The Location:
We are off to New York with not enough money and only two days to find locations and set the whole fairy tale up. You wonder why most videos are shot in a derelict warehouse, or a sound stage? It’s the law of sixes. The stress of this job is hard to understand if you haven’t experienced it. Come with me for a moment if you have the stomach.

I get off the red eye in NY in a state of sour, exhausted panic. A migraine from not smoking has set in and the coffee shop is closed. Load up the cameras and bags, we now have one day to find and clear a location. Oh, and right now we have nowhere to stay.

We meet up with the excellent location scout, Jason McCauley, and off we go. Piled into a passenger van without coffee, we are looking for something with a Gothic feeling. Shouldn’t be too hard in NY right?

First stop, a Gun Battery called Fort Totten. It sits on the river near Bayside, Queens.

Giant granite slabs, some good tunnels and gothic arches, but totally exposed to the elements. No electricity drop or human facilities of any kind. As is usual with Reckless, there’s also a storm coming in.

A music video crew had recently shot JZ’s ”Run This Town” there, partied hard all night, and left a mess of broken bottles and burning trash, rightly pissing off the park management as a result. They are not happy to see us at all.

Any video with Rihanna in it is good with me, but the Park can barely be maintained on the shrinking National Parks’ budget. Fort Totten is military history and it needs preservation if history is not to be repeated. That may seem old fashioned. Maybe sweep up out of respect for a burial site of the Matinecock Indians.

We spend some time that we don’t have talking with the parks’ people, as the Fort is the only place we have right now. Even though there’s no way we can afford the logistics without a fat hip hop budget.

After an hour my producer, Jeremy Alter, manages to reassure Parks that we are professionals. They agree to consider it. One day is not enough time to get the paperwork done so we leave for the next location. Still no coffee and no location. My stomach is in knots.

Back in the van and off to The Church of the Intercession in Harlem. Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue was the architect of this gem of a Gothic Revival chapel. Probably a mason, but in his case its understandable. He designed some of my favorite buildings in the USA.

We walk around. It’s certainly Gothic. Very beautiful in all its details. I love gargoyles. It seems like a possibility despite the crypt being a bit small for a performance with a techno crane. The grip access is brutal.

However, it soon becomes evident that there is going to be a serious hurdle. A Church representative with a proprietorial attitude will be looking over our shoulder all night. Taylor’s persona and the themes of the video may become an issue. Give Taylor an altar in a crypt and who knows what might happen. She was raised catholic, but wears an ‘I F**k For Satan” T Shirt. Kids these days. I don’t see this as a religious or anti-religious video, so probably not a good match. My intuition says run away. We can’t afford it anyway.

Rule 38. Never shoot a video in a church, they have too strong a look, and inevitably it dominates the whole. You will either make a Christian video or a satanist video and either way it will be a bad video.

Coffee in Harlem? Apparently not. On to the next location. It’s now one o’clock, I am freaking out inside, and wondering if we can delay the shoot. They do have coffee in the Bronx, but it is bitter and doesn’t sit well on an empty stomach. I haven’t eaten since yesterday.

Kingsbridge Armory

Lewis Pilcher was the architect of this vast building. A giant hall. Five covered acres in total , endless spaces on many levels, some deep underground, all empty and mostly derelict. Most of it has been underwater for years.

Asbestos? Music video heaven. This place is incredible. It even has a stone spiral staircase leading to fairy tale towers on the roof. Well, it looks good, if you kind of squint your eyes a bit.

A video like this is going to be 90% improvisation in the space. More performance art than story telling. Working with atmosphere and mystery, not hitting defined story beats. There is no printed map to these territories. They are the map. Taylor’s songs often have no obvious narrative dialogue to follow either.

Derelict spaces are an inviting blank canvas. Here for the first time, I understand that Taylor’s fairytale has bloody edges: sex, beauty, and danger. I can see how to play with the various fairy tale themes and make them work with this intoxicated car wreck of a song, in this space.

And its practical, given that there is a winter storm coming in to NYC. The band can even drive right onto the set. In fact we could drive motorhome and everything onto the set and save on parking!

When you want something badly the gods wake up to fuck with you. It’s 2pm and I still don’t have a location locked. Everyone we need to talk to is out to lunch. A couple of problems soon reveal themselves. The Armoury property is very political. It is immensely valuable development ready real estate. It is bang in the middle of a very well organized and politically sophisticated community in the Bronx. A protracted NY turf war is in full swing. Irish in its complexity, with local urban untertones. Wars are not good news for film permits. A bureaucratic war is the worst possible news.

We have no leg to stand on. Everyone knows you should allow about five working days to get a permit in NY, post 9/11. On top of that this location is a special case, with its own authority. We now have 37 hours till the load in. Various offices are called, including the incredible staff at NYCFilm Office and we track down the relevant office to issue the crucial permit: NY City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC).

NYCEDC is a large corporation. We are a gnat. Their response is predictable, and quite proper: “Send in your application and we will get back to you in five days.” There are so many issues for them to check out. “Just who are you, what are you shooting and and do you have sufficient liability insurance?” Could take five days to sort out, especially since we are from out of town.

”No, we are sorry, but nothing that can be done at this late notice.” So we pile into the van and head to NYCED’s offices to beg face to face as a last resort. There’s a storm blowing in as usual and so Fort Totten looks like it will be a washout.

NYCED were not initially excited to see us in person. Five smelly homeless people, nodding off on your couch, who can’t take no for an answer. Ultimately they were very kind and hospitable. After grilling us for an hour to make sure we were insured, responsible experienced, professionals on a mission from God, they warmed up to the idea. Then Jeremy tells them how small our budget is and they crack up. We clearly share a sense of the absurd with these guys, and they agree a pathetic fee, just to get us out of their hair.

NYCED, thank you most sincerely for helping us.

Now we just have to make sure we have a crew and find somewhere to sleep.

The shoot itself was a dream, and very dream like. We were chasing the shortest night of the year. Dawn came too early, and woke us all up.