The new Kasabian video "Me Plus One" is a fine illustration of how music videos — or any creative medium — can work on a couple levels, depending on the audience. "Me Plus One" appeals to sophisticated types with thought-provoking images, unusual juxtapositions and allusions to other works of art including, most prominently, Salvador Dali's appropriately titled "Human Skull Consisting Of Seven Naked Women's Bodies." Cretins like me, however, merely snicker like Beavis as we get to see some naked chicks on screen.
Anyway.
Director Scott Lyon was kind enough to share the thought process behind the video and some details on the shoot.
Scott Lyon: "The idea came from the mood that is set with the music rather than anything particularly to do with the lyrics.
My first thoughts were to do something that had a black magic feel, but it seemed a bit alien to who the band are and I didn't want them to be playing characters.
This led to the idea of doing it as a subconscious thing, but it needed to come from somewhere. The obvious thing was that it should happen after a show when they are all hyped up and full of adrenaline in their dressing room and getting hammered.
The use of the Dali skull reference was as a device to get us into the next scene. A way of introducing the girls in the room that fit the situation.
From here the images followed what was going on with the music. As the eastern sounding section came in there needed to be a change in what we were seeing, so it felt right to introduce colour and have something dramatic going on with the girls. I wanted this to have the feel of a religious mural, like the Michelangelo painting on the Sistine Chapel.
The location was somewhere I wanted to shoot at for a while. It's a Masonic Temple that was discovered when an old hotel got renovated in London about five years ago. The door to the temple was sealed up behind a wall. It was undiscovered for about a hundred years and is in pristine condition."
Kasabian "Me Plus One" (RCA)
Scott Lyon, director | Zeno Campbell, producer | Factory Films UK (Oil Factory in US), production co | Dan Landin, DP | Tom Linsay, editor
