Metal Hammer have a very interesting interview with director of Metallica’s new video All Nightmare Long Robert Schober. Some very interesting details are revealed.
“The video is an immersive piece of entertainment meant to give the fans more than just a typical video that they might enjoy, but only watch once. The video was rolled out with a blog New Kremlionology that gives viewers an education on the Cold War, on espionage and the arms race, and an introduction to propaganda and animation of the era. The Tuguska Event, cryptozoology, balloon bombs, disinformation…these are all things that fans can go take to Wikipedia or wherever on the web to research and then they can come back to the story with a more enriched experience. I wanted to keep people entertained for hours or even days.”
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Whose initial idea was it?
The initial idea was mine; I think it was just one of dozens of treatments submitted to the band, and to my surprise, that was the one that jumped out at them. The idea of creating a story about uncovering a long lost film or films and then building a reality around that is what appealed to them immediately.
How did you get from the seed of the idea to the finished plot in its entirety?
The video’s plot is a bit different than the initial pitch. It was going to be entirely animated and revolve around an alternate history of WWI with steampunk airships and an alien virus that produced hybrids from wrecked war machines and corpses. But we decided that since TDTNC vid had already dealt with a war theme we should distance it a bit and go with a more sci-fi horror slant. Metallica also wanted to see some live documentary footage worked in, and i’m glad we did because I think that the ending is much more frightening for it. Also, with the song clocking in at 8 minutes, it deserved to have an epic story that spanned several decades and employed different visual styles…
How much creative freedom did you have from the band?
Tons. And not just from Metallica, but from Devin Sarno, the commissioner at WBR, Jeff Watson and the marketing dept, and Marc Reiter and all of the band’s management. I was able to create an entire viral campaign with a blog about the cold war and propaganda films (written by Mr Destructo author Jeb Lund), produce fake news stories, and even had Kirk do a vlog on youtube about ‘finding’ these films when they were touring in Russia. That to me was exciting; being able to work with a band that i have such respect for and to have their trust and blessing to really just go nuts.
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What was the band’s first reaction?
Very positive- emails from James and Kirk were passed along to me that expressed excitement about it; the way it looked, how it was unique and different from the tried and true formula of most videos. Everyone was into it at the start and Metallica, the label and management were very pleased with the final piece. It was very nerve-wracking to be a huge fan of the biggest band in the world and to want to impress them…so i was relieved to have their approval.
How much parallel is there between the lyrical content and the video?
I think there is a lot. James was inspired by Hounds of Tindalos which is a terrifying piece by Frank Belknap Long about these things, often portrayed as wolves, but possibly something more bat or wraith-like that emerge from a cloud of smoke and that can follow you through time and even into your sleep. In the video, rather than literally transcribing the story, I tried to create parallels to it in my narrative. For example, the ‘hound’ in this version is the organism that suddenly appears in Siberia after the Tunguska Event. The organism also propagates itself in a cloud of spores, much like the hounds materialize in a cloud of smoke. I think the video is very loyal to the meaning of the song. The path to mutually-assured destruction in the Cold War was very much a game of hunting one another down without mercy, and our zombies and firebombings of the US at the end of the video certainly evokes imagery of crawling from the wreckage, immolation, and crypts.
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