One of the first things that I thought of was, instead of the
rah rah rah ah ah, going
vo vo votes ah ah
So hidden under the tables, then monster clap to get out infront of the tables.
And then the clap up, and then the...
When we did "Too Late to Apologize," a video
that talked about the American revolution,
we used the pop song "It's Too Late to Apologize" by One Republic and Timbaland.
They wanted another project just like that. Women's suffrage was one of their topics
that we were presented with as an option.
And so, I thought, who better than Lady GaGa? (song playing in background)
She's almost the result of women's lib. We've come that far and away.
So that we can do and be whatever we want to.
Even if it is outrageous. (song playing in background)
I have worn a straight jacket,
talked to a mirror, and danced infront of the White House.
That's right! I did spit at someone.
I've had very private, kind of intimate moments
and then I've had
crazy, out there moments.
I've crawled out from under a table.
(song playing in background)
There are around 42 different looks.
There are 22 actors, the average is about 2 per, but for instance, Alice Paul, she has 8 different looks.
What's the toughest part about doing a parody of a Lady GaGa video?
The toughest part for this is getting the
high-fashion
feel that Lady GaGa has
and setting it back into a different time period. Because you have to go back and see
what was really fashionable then, but it still has to relate to a modern audience,
and look attractive, if a bit extreme at times. So that's probably been the hardest part, balancing - the fine line
between fashion and tacky.
(song playing in background)
From a cinematographer standpoint
as far as the look of the video
you have to have your own opinions on what you're going to be doing original
and what you're gonna be parodying. So, you need to make sure that what you are
parodying in the video is something that's accurate to it, and then what
you're doing original is not going to be confusing to the viewer.
So, we could get all creative with all the shots, but then you're diverting from the
whole idea of the video.
It's a little bit hard, but the exciting part about it is that you can give a
nod to whatever somebody else is doing as far as their work
and just start critiquing things a little bit
and see how it can evolve into something else. (song playing in background)
It's really about the feeling of the song. This song is so rebellious and so about empowerment,
you know,
and it's a completely different kind of empowerment than we're talking about,
but it has that same emotion and inspires the same mood. So, once we have that
it becomes too easy to translate it into
the events of the day, the people of the day. Because, that was their emotion that
was their mood. (song playing in background)
We wanted to give a broad, general picture of the fight for women's suffrage
and that was really challenging because
women's suffrage is one of those issues that was a hundred years making.
Some of the first documented words for women's suffrage are from Abigail Adams,
the wife of future president John Adams, when when he was working
on a Declaration of Independence and and a Bill of Rights. She said in a letter to him:
remember the ladies. I got to look at all the speeches and
essays written by Elizabeth Katie Standton and Susan B. Anthony,
Ida B Wells and Frederick Douglass. They worked for women's sufferage
even though they themselves were repressed.
So it's really hard to jam all this in the music video.
So we ended up focusing on Alice Paul.
Alice was very
determined to get women's rights
to be everybody's priority. She never stopped lobbying for women's rights
until the day she died, basically.
I knew that she had been in prison. I didn't know that she had been placed in an insane asylum and
I didn't know to what length she really was oppressed before gaining franchise
and and that worked so well with the Lady Ga Ga video.
Even though Alice Paul isn't going to
light a bed on fire with a man in it, it's that kind of passion,
that kind of ferocity
is what she lived for. (song playing in the background)
We start with the National Women's Party
and we open on the tables
just like the Lady GaGa pods
to sort of giving this feeling of this other worldly place that existed,
which was the National Women's Party. Because it was sort of a
freak thing for women to go out and have meetings.
If you were in favor of suffrage, if you
were willing to go out of your house, away from your husband,
away from your children and say: I want the right to have a voice in in the public office,
you were considered a freak.
(acting directions)
So, it correlates. Those monstrous movements
go along with their actions.
We show them standing with their banners at the White House,
which was unheard of, it was extremely disrespectful to stand that the
President's frontgate.
They never spoke,
they were completely silent
and it was really hard because they were ridiculed openly.
They were taunted and jeered at on the streets.
(clapping)
And then, we move away from the Sentinels and we go to the Senators.
This is a very broad, general depiction of what was happening.
And so, you're going to pass across the aisle.
We just want to give a representation of
men who were pro-suffrage and men who were anti-suffrage.
We represent that with red roses and yellow roses, which we took from the Tennessee house representatives.
We're going to do a few voting shots.
So it's just going to be like one after the other
Aye, Aye, Aye, Nay, Nay, Nay
Then it gets to Harry.
He knows he should vote Nay, because he is in this coalition of Nay voters,
but what you guys don't know is that
that in his pocket, in his inside pocket
he has a letter from his mother
that says: please vote for suffrage.
So he looks at you guys, you know he's a red rose guy.
He looks over at you guys. And you're just totally bummed, deflated.
And then he looks back to his mother's letter.
And he looks up, and at that point,
he votes aye.
You guys are furious.
No!
(song playing in background)
So the anti-suffragette scene is part of the original concept we had for the video.
We had wanted to incorporate a lot of political cartoons of the day because
the political cartoons were so rich. That was the only one survive from the
original video concept was the anti-suffragette.
It's just so beautiful with the scoundrels in the background with their cigars.
That sort of innocent person in the front dolled up to be this person that she's not.
She's singing on behalf of them. (song playing)
There's a face-off between the women and men.
We have Alice Paul and we have
the mother character who represents the average woman in America
who had a family, who had a husband, but wanted more.
Then we have the baker character who represents the woman who is older
and is a working member of society
and yet she's not allowed to vote even though she's
order the eighteen-year-old boys who were voting.
We have the three of them in a line and on the other hand:
the husband of the mother, Woodrow Wilson who is facing off with Alice Paul, and then a cop who represents the long arm of the law.
It was truly amazing what these women did because they were up against an entire government.
They were up against their city government.
They were up against their state government.
(actors singing)
And then we finish with Alice Paul in the modern day.
It's a reveal of that liberation and getting to exercise our voice in public to contribute to our society.