The Rural Alberta Advantage 'Tornado 87' [EXTENDED VERSION]

Written & directed by Scott Cudmore
Executive producer: Michael Leblanc
Produced by Erika Lobko
Photographed by Michael Leblanc
Art directed by Zazu Myers
Editing/sound design by Scott Cudmore & Michael Leblanc
Visual FX by Paul Binney
Steadicam by Michael Heathcote
Colour by Technicolor
Production company: Leblanc + Cudmore

From the band and director:

"Being an Edmontonian, it's impossible to understate the impact that the Tornado of '87 had on the city of Edmonton. A Tornado isn't something that typically happens on the Canadian Prairies, so at the end of that July when Edmonton was struck with an F4 tornado that killed 27 people, it was something that left a permanent mark on the city. In fact, many Edmontonians still refer to July 31st as Black Friday.

As an 8 year old at the time, I don't know if I was able to truly comprehend the full impact of the event when it happened and looking back on the writing of this song, I sometimes feel like I approached it from a hypothetical perspective. However, after performing this song in front of thousands people and meeting scores of people who were touched by the Tornado, or a similar event themselves, I feel like I have a more mature appreciation of this song. Whether that's a good thing or not I still can't say, but it was definitely an unanticipated side effect when I was first dreaming of the song."

-- Nils Edenloff, songwriter

I've had the idea in my head for awhile to make a music video where the whole thing is just the band or the artist listening to the song that they've recorded. Not playing it, just listening to it. In this case I was sort of re-imagining the context in which the song would have been written...fictionalizing it and building a little miniature world around that fictionalized moment. In a way this video is my attempt at making something like science fiction.

The other thing with this project is that we wanted to make something that went a little bit beyond the traditional music video that lived somewhere closer to being a short film. I think there's still a lot of room to move around in the format of the 'music video' and play with the 'rules' of the format.
- Scott Cudmore, Director

Tornado '87 is from The Rural Alberta Advantage's newest album, Departing - available now!

Category:

Music

Tags:

• The Rural Alberta Advantage
• Departing
• Tornado 87
• Paper Bag Records

[Jatchua]

This is fantastic. The story is visuals compliment the sound and lyrics perfectly. Much like how The Black Keys treat their music videos as more than just a song played over a series of images, the Rural Alberta Advantage has truly adopted a more creative and current perspective on Audio Visual art.

thank you RAA!!!

[ManiacalMaster]

Really fucking great.

[backyardbees]

Love it! Thank you sooo much for such beauty artistry as musicians and videography!

[fudged71]

Lethbridge Alberta November 27th 2011. Black smoke blankets the city from sunlight as they are surrounded by grass fires. Listening to this song really freaked me out. So chilling.

[scudmore]

@TheHandOfFear it was cropped. it's just regular 35mm.

[TheHandOfFear]

@scudmore Was it actually shot in scope or was it cropped S35?

[scudmore]

@TheHandOfFear yup.

[TheHandOfFear]

35mm film?

[carbonmonrockside]

I enjoyed it. I think it suggests success when you consider that listening to this song now (audio only) will almost certainly evoke images from the video. Good job. It's nice to see artists trying something different.

[Northview59]

It takes over 2 minutes (of a long dark soundless intro) before we hear the first note; then its a false start; then we cut to another room with the music muffled in the background; then another song at 6:00. All set to very dark (and not very interesting) visuals. This isn't a music video: its a long tedious noirish "ART' film. The song seems to be an afterthought.