ROUND & ROUND

The band was not going to be in this video. The Warhol idea that Gerard de Thame had for “Fine Time” came to mind and I thought of the director Paula Grief. Paula had done music videos for some big bands and came from the fashion world. She used to work with Mademoiselle in the U.S. and Italian Vogue, so she would know how to get the models. I threw the idea out to her and she liked it. Her idea was to shoot in luscious black and white using Irving Penn's photographs as a reference. And then she would shoot very colorful images on a table top to cut in to the footage of the women.

Paula shot 13 beautiful women, models all of them. There was one in particular, Patty de Silva, who struck us and we decided to shoot her for the entire length of the song. We were glad that we did.

Laura Israel was the editor and was challenged to edit in flashes of the color images having no intentional relation to the beat of the music. Once that was completed with the 13 women, Paula used the exact same edit of the inserts and applied it to the “Patty” version. It worked.

I entered this video with the idea that it addressed the fact that women, especially beautiful women, are used in advertising to sell product. And music videos were essentially adverts to sell records. So our video would be completely women (or one woman) the difference being that each one is presented in a way where they become people and not just objects. Not editing each one and allowing them just be in front of the camera they could become the subject of the lyrics. So we were giving the public what advertisers say they want, but trying to push that envelope and transform it.

Does it work? I don't think as well as I had hoped. But the video still works.

The cutting in of the color imagery puts in a childlike playfulness. And the alternative “Patty” version became our favorite.

I believe footage from the shoot was also used in a television advertising campaign in the UK. I will ask Tony Wilson who will write about the videos as well.