Rash of Robberies Title
This is an introduction to provide insight into some of the thoughts behind the making of this video. If there is an outpouring of interest for more of these observations we can wrap up parts two, three and four. Thanks for watching.
Below freezing. Pitch black. Literally pitch black. Post ice storm. After midnight. Friendships at the playful cliff's edge. This is our first test of lighting the dogs on fire in these temperatures. Unfortunately the dogs had iced over and the flames would not stick. Tensions ensued.
This video captures the process of moving the dog forward nine inches. On this particular day it was below freezing. The field had three feet of snow on it and the further the dog got out the longer we had to run. By the midpoint of the field we were shooting at a rate of two hours for each one second of final footage. The day resulted in great raw footage and lack of sensation in our footages (feet).
Earliest test runs of a cardboard dog in three stages of running. This was the very first stages of calculating how we would make the larger wooden dogs run. The dog would eventually be in 11 separate stages and be filmed at 23 dogs a second. In retrospect, this dog is terribly prancy.
By this time in the day we had literally lost feeling to our hands and feet. In the video Sam is heard commenting in the front with a neighbor as Michael and James struggle with the dog far from earshot. Michael and James are lighting the dog on fire, while holding it in their arms and slowly walking the duration of the field. Do not try this at home. And do not try this in fields.
The song Rash of Robberies is such a powerful narrative that we felt it was appropriate to not include images of the band throughout the video. At the conclusion of the song we see Chad, the lead singer continuing the legacy of the flame. Here he is setting fire to the Dispatch van.
Michael is kneeling in the snow behind a dog. He has a white sheet over his body. He is holding a can of Thrust, an extremely flammable starter fluid, and with turning it into a primitive flamethrower. The sound of fire is so loud he can barely hear Sam. We did this for you.
Never shoot on a Sunday morning in New England. And never shoot in front of a church on a Sunday morning in New England.