Music Video
A music video for "Down in It", filmed on location in the Warehouse District of Chicago by directors Eric Zimmerman and Benjamin Stokes, was released in September 1989. It includes several somewhat elaborate effects, such as a television set falling down forwards and backwards, light writing and flashing, and follows the plot of Trent Reznor making his way to the top of a building, while two then-current members of the Nine Inch Nails live band follow him.
The climax of the original version of the Eric Zimmerman/Benjamin Stokes co-directed "Down in It" music video ended with the implication that Reznor's corn starch-covered character had fallen off a building and died in the street. MTV censored this scene, editing it from all airings. This footage attracted the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), who received the video cassette from a person who saw the footage.
To film the ending of the video, Zimmerman and Stokes had used a video camera tied to a balloon, so ropes were attached to prevent it from escaping the Chicago-based Warehouse District building, the location where it was filmed. Minutes after they started filming using this technique, the ropes snapped and the balloons (and the camera) rose high into the atmosphere and — after traveling over 200 miles — landed on a farmer's field in Michigan (where it was found by the person who showed the footage to the FBI). The music video generated controversy, and spawned an investigation to determine if it portrayed a person committing suicide. The FBI classified the tape they received as a snuff film, and identified the person appearing at the ending to be Reznor. The investigation ended when Reznor's manager demonstrated that Reznor was not dead and that the music video had nothing to do with any crime or satanism.
This story was covered by the news magazine show Hard Copy on their March 5, 1991 episode.
Read more about this topic: Down In It
Famous quotes containing the words music and/or video:
“Who that has heard a strain of music feared then lest he should speak extravagantly any more forever?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“These people figured video was the Lord’s preferred means of communicating, the screen itself a kind of perpetually burning bush. “He’s in the de-tails,” Sublett had said once. “You gotta watch for Him close.””
—William Gibson (b. 1948)