I truly believe “Skeletor’s Dick” will go down as one of the most talked about videos in LRR history. But don’t take my word for it. Before i get into what actually went into shooting this video of videos here is Geoffs initial response to the almost 7 full pages of responses on the forums.
Is this possibly one of the most controversial LRR videos yet? If ever we released a DVD single of the video, I would imagine that the cover would contain a quote along the lines of “Redefines low-brow…”
For all of those offended, the original purpose of the song was to combine Dio with Linkin Park and to spoof old 80s cartoons. We felt that going over the top was justified as the subject matter was just too ridiculous not too. I’ll add that the concept of the video came waaaay after the actual writing and subsequent recording of the song (possibly a one year difference in itself. The song was toned down and edited severly from a rambling first draft.)
I can see how the song (especially in light of the video concept) could be seen as a homophobic rant on seeing your mate’s penis. However, I believe it was Graham who nailed it when he said something to the effect of Skeletor’s dick being so terrifying in-and-of-itself that it is akin to gazing into the Ark of the Covenant. Basically, don’t do it. The song was written about 3 or maybe 4 years ago, and in hindsight, my slightly older (maybe not wiser) self can see how the “rape” line could be in bad taste. If I could do anything differently I would probably at least change that line or reword it differently. Besides that, I stand by our lyrics. Take a gander at any hardcore death-metal lyrics and tell me if they don’t already sound like spoofs already. Not too mention, our lyrics are almost Disney-esque compared to say, someone like “Cannibal Corpse”. And for the record, I have nothing against their lyrics either. Vile stuff to be sure and it doesn’t exactly earn it’s share of space on my ipod either, but I certainly respect their art.
What I can’t understand is the outspoken hate for the video. Granted, it’s understandable that this song/video is not for everyone, but do people really need to go out of their way to talk about how mediocre it is? If you don’t like the song, cool…I can dig it. But Graham obviously put his heart and soul into the shooting and editing of this video. I’m glad that a few people have pointed out the quality of the actual video, despite their distaste for the song, so cheers to you guys. It was meant as simple infectuous fun, and for me that really shines through in the video.
All I can say is that it was a blast writing the song with Pat ages ago, and making the video was an experience that I’ll never forget. “Watch it GROOOOOOW!”
Geoff
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Anyways, lets talk about what actually went into shooting this video. We met up at Bills place for the shoots of Pat and Geoff at the beginning and the shoots of Pat and Skeletor in the house (ie, The bathroom, the Kitchen, and Pat freaking out while he was sleeping.) Most of that went pretty straight forward. I don’t recall who it was that suggested Morgan try to eat everything through the masks eye hole, but whoever it was, good call. That is what we in the business call “COMIC GENIUS”.
After securing all the footage we needed for that part of the video we were able to pile into 2 cars and make our way down to the underground orbiting moonbase (or whatever the hell we call that place) to acquire the needed costumes and give Pat and Geoff and chance to pretty themselves up for the music video portion of the shoot.
After grabbing the costumes and the makeup/hair wax we proceed to the top of Mt. Doug. It was about 10:30 at this point and i didn’t even know one could drive up to the very top, so that was a interesting drive for me. Once we reached the top the rain had died down a bit and the fog wasn’t to much of an issue, in fact it might have made the dream scene (the one scene we were shooting up there) look even more awesome than it could have. We were up there for about 30 minutes and then hightailed it outta there. One interesting note is that those scenes were lite entirely with the high beams of my car and Pats car.
The final portion of the video was the music video aspect of the whole thing. This was a very important part and we wanted it to look as good as we could have possibly made it. So while we were at the moon station we picked up the dolly in hopes that we could get some wicked looking shots. Wether or not the shoots were wicked is yet to be seen by really anyone but Graham because they were all left on the cutting room floor. BASTARD, made us drag that bitch all the way to UVIC and set it up and he didn’t use even 1 second of footage from it. Now, once we all saw how awesome the video turned out we were Ok with the no dolly shots. So we chilled up at the underground lot of UVIC for an hour blasting the song over and over again from my car doing it over and over again. It was pretty epic.
So that’s Skeletors Dick, if it wasn’t your cup of tea then that is to bad. This is something that the crew has been looking forward to doing for years. And personally i am so happy that we waited as long as we did. 2 years ago we could have never done this song justice but I feel that we made something we are all extremely proud of. Here are some pictures from the filming. Enjoy.
