I Got To Be A 'Video Chick'

I'm a 90's teen and a huge entertainment staple back then was the music video. I love music videos and as a musician and visual artist they are my favorite medium for communicating artistic content. Growing up watching music videos in the I was enamored by the visuals which often included a 'video chick.'  Generally speaking these women were placed in the videos to be eye candy and it worked because who doesn't like looking at a beautiful woman? If Instagram has taught us anything, it's that people still like to stare at meticulously crafted visuals featuring hot women.

I recently had the pleasure of getting to work on the Edges Of Seven music video 'Cave Wall.' At first I was just going to do some behind the scenes stuff like wardrobe, props and scenic art, but then I was asked to be in it as well. I jumped at the chance because for starters I'm a HUGE fan of Edges Of Seven and it's secretly been one of my bucket list items as a performer to be in a music video that wasn't my own.

The character I play is a parody of an Instagram model. Being a long time wannabe video vixen, I found the concept to be deliciously ironic and couldn't wait to ham it up on camera. The eyes moving around in the creepy masks are mine too. So without further delay...HERE IT IS!!!

Little Miss Liquid Courage: Preproduction Introduction

I was on the fence about doing another music video from my album Sex, Drugs and Shiny Brass Poles for a couple reasons. The first reason is the huge time and financial commitment involved and secondly I'm really eager to get back to work on my next EP, Blood Sweat Tears. However I feel like I'm leaving something incomplete if I don't make a music video for Little Miss Liquid Courage. It was part of the original plan to make 4 music videos for Sex, Drugs and Shiny Brass Poles and I've decided to stick to the plan.

Context Is Everything

Little Miss Liquid Courage is somewhat of an oddity both visually and sonically. I wrote the song ironically to be a pop song because the big idea behind it is "selling out" and conforming to the mainstream. Within the context of the lyrics it's specifically about the pressure as a woman to conform to mainstream beauty standards. When I was a stripper in my early 20's there was tremendous pressure to look as close as possible to a Barbie doll. The closer you resembled Barbie, the more money the booking agents could demand from the clubs. I personally was told to "soften" my look. What this meant was, dye your hair blond, get a tan, lose weight, cover your tattoos, take out your piercings, get fake tits and stop dancing to punk and metal. At first I was like, "no fucking way" but after 4 weeks of not having any work I caved and took out my piercings, dyed my hair blond, got a spray tan and began dieting. I hated myself for it. I remember being up on stage rather drunk and dancing to J Lo in a pink sequined costume laughing at myself for being a ridiculous parody of a stripper. Little Miss Liquid Courage is the inner monologue I was having at that moment in time.

Telling The Story Through Color

LITTLE MISS LIQUID COURAGE
Art prints are available through my website. Click image to purchase

Color plays a huge role in telling the story. I'm completely out of my comfort zone as far as the palette goes. I gravitate towards blue, greens, reds and purples, but for this video which is visually based on the painting the palette is literally my two most hated colors...pink and yellow. As you can see in the painting below the predominant colors are pink, yellow, red and black.

In the video there are three sequences and sets each using a different symbolic color scheme. The narrative sequence which is non-conformist me singing the song is black and red. I don't know if you've noticed, but my Borg Queen brand colors are black and red.

The play room sequence where the nurses determine whether or not my character is girly enough is predominantly yellow and white. I used yellow a symbol of conformity because in my childhood I went to a private school which was religiously and socially oppressive to the point where I had a nervous breakdown at 12 and had to leave. The uniforms were yellow and I use white to symbolize the innocence of childhood and the sterility of a clinical environment in which my character is being observed.

The operating room where the nurses transform me into a Barbie through a variety of barbaric surgical procedures is pink. Pink is a pretty obvious symbolic color and in this case is used to represent female gender stereotypes.

Here's a little preview of the storyboard video I put together. Normally storyboards don't have color, but what can I say, I'm a bit of an oddity even when it comes to artists. I always like to get feedback so feel free to shoot me an email an let me know your thoughts. Hit me up at borgqueenmusic@gmail.com

If you would like to support this project financially, you can always grab yourself a copy of the album or some merch at my online store https://www.borg-queen-music.com/store

Art Direction: Telling The Story Of 'We're All Whores'

Life is art and art is my life. Cinematic art has been a passion of mine since childhood. I remember

watching Tim Burton movies as a child and getting lost in those meticulously crafted worlds. I’ve always had an appreciation for films and TV shows with a highly stylized aesthetic. After watching the movie What Dreams May Come I knew that I wanted to become an art director.

As a child of the 90’s who grew up watching Much Music I loved watching music videos. Back then music videos were a legitimate art form, and it became a dream of mine to make music videos. As a

multidisciplinary artist, music videos have been an excellent way for me to utilize and hone every

aspect of my craft. 

Because the music videos are essentially my paintings brought to life, I use the painting as a starting point when it comes to art direction. The painting determines everything from the color pallete used in the video to which visuals I will incorporate. Every visual element is deliberate and symbolic.

'We're All Whores'
Prints can be purchased for $20US at my store www.borg-queen-music.com/paintings

The Concept

'We're All Whores' is a satirical statement about how everyone is a commodity, and we're all for sale therefore "we're all whores in our own unique way." Because we exist in a society where money is essential to our survival we are all subject to greed and want. Greed has perverted every industry and profession and that's what the concept of the music video is all about. 

Characters

In the painting there are 3 professional fields represented--medical, oil and the justice system. The professions are depicted as "corrupted" versions of their respective industries. When you watch the video notice the transformation of the doctor, oil rig worker and judge into the whore versions of themselves. The professions are literally seduced by power and greed personified as androgynous steampunk machine-like characters by myself and Charlie Monroe.

The Doctor

The doctor, depicted on the left in the painting transforms into a serpent-like pharmaceutical whore with a syringe for an arm in the video. The serpent imagery is an allusion the use of the Rod of Asclepius(snake wrapped around a staff) as the common symbol for the medical field. As the "pharmawhore" he is dressed in fetish wear to show that medical field is being "perverted" by money from the pharmaceutical industry.

The Oil Rig Worker

The center figure in the painting represents the oil industry. A well muscled male torso is chained to an oil derrick with money and oil spewing out of it's amputated limbs to show that the greedy oil companies exploit the ideal of the American Dream instilled in the working man for profit. In the video "greed" and "power" make the oil rig worker is squirted with crude oil and coins are tossed on to his naked body as he is chained like a sexual submissive to an oil rig derrick. He is transformed from the stereotypical image of hardworking manly man into a bitch with a glitter beard. 

The use of coins vs. bills was intentional because in Alberta the hub of the Canadian oil industry it is common practice to throw dollar coins known as Loonies at strippers and a good chunk of that money being thrown is made in the oil patch. The oil being squirted on to the "oil rig whore" is coming out of the cone bra of my character which I designed to resemble and oil derrick to symbolize that the oil industry workers are suckling at the teat of "Big Oil."

The Judge

The figure on the right in the painting represents the justice system. In the video the character is a judge that transforms into the whore version of Lady Justice. The scales of justice are traditionally depicted as being balanced, but in both the video and painting one side is being weighed down with money showing that justice can be bought and the side with more money wins. Lady justice wears a blindfold because justice is blind and impartial, but our "whorish lady justice"'s are wide open and she's lovin' every minute of her degradation by my character who tosses coins on to one side of the scale and throws them at her face.

  

Color and Design

You'll probably notice that the dominating colors in the painting and video are green, gold and black. Green represents money. Gold represents power. Black represents greed. There are also two sets of characters played by myself and Charlie Monroe. The green feathered dancers were part of the sequence called the "Shiny Pretty Whores" and the scenes with androgynous steampunk characters we referred to as "Greed and Power."

Shiny Pretty Whores

The "shiny pretty whores" scenes are about the allure of money. Our green costumes were designed with the idea that we would portray money as attractive and shiny so we covered everything in a ridiculous amount of glitter and rhinestones. We went for a very hyper feminine organic look that incorporated feathers, and flowers because bright feathers and flowers are nature's way of commencing with the reproductive process. We dressed up a bunch of guys in our lingerie and danced around with them to show that we're all equally whores because of money.

Greed and Power

We wanted a stark stylistic contrast between the two scenes, so with "greed and power" everything was angular, mechanical and androgynous. The costumes were black and gold and our characters are mechanical to represent the capitalist machine that our society is governed by philosophically speaking. We're wearing top hats and codpieces with extremely white skin to represent the dominance of the white male in North American politics and business.

In Conclusion

You've probably already watched the video, but I encourage you to watch it again and take notice of all the deliberate little details that tell the story of our society of whores that have sold out in every way and made money the figurehead of our collective religion.

We're All Whores: Sneak Preview

I am so beyond the moon excited for this music video! This was so much fun to shoot and I just couldn't wait to share this little snippet with you. I'm giving away a free copy of this song on my website. Just follow this link and enter your email in the form to get your copy of We're All Whores.

Fast. Cheap. Good...Pick Two

Holy Shit! It's been about a year since I posted in this blog. I guess my only excuse for not staying on top of posts is that I've been extremely busy with finishing up my album and making music videos.

It's been a very long production process but that's the nature of being an indie artist who doesn't settle for releasing poorly produced content. I don't have a huge budget and I've relied solely on myself to finance everything.

When I used to be an interior designer I would tell my clients that their choices as to how their projects could be completed are fast, cheap and good, but the catch is that they only get to pick two. If they wanted to renovate quickly and on the cheap, the quality would suffer. If they wanted quality work and we're under some serious time constraints it was going to cost them a pretty penny. This principle rings true for any production based industry ie. film, music, construction etc. Because I have chosen to create high quality recordings and videos and I don't have a lot of money to work with, it's not a quick process.

For the music I do everything myself with the exception of final mixes and mastering. I had the good fortune of scoring a fantastic engineer, Adam Fulton, who's worked with Paul McCartney, Will Smith and Master Chief(Halo). Our paths crossed when I took an audio engineering course he was teaching, and he was gracious enough despite his full workload of high profile projects to take me on. However, even when it comes to the mixing I am present in the sessions with Adam. It's been a fantastic learning experience for me on a technical level and also creatively rewarding getting to act as the producer guiding him as to how I would like the layer of sound sculpted to create what we call a "sound painting". Because artistic intent of the songs are very much conveyed by the way the music is produced and engineered on a technical level I felt it would fitting to have my engineer appear as a character in one of my music videos.

Me and my engineer Adam Fulton (3rd from left) on the set of my music video Hedonist.

Speaking of videos though,  I've decided to challenge myself by shooting 4 of them for the singles off my album Sex, Drugs and Shiny Brass Poles. Again, I do all of the pre production work myself, but have managed to score yet another talent director Arcelia Ocaña to shoot the videos. I love working with Arcelia! It's always a "yes" with her. Her positivity and enthusiasm are infectious. Not only does she produce top notch high quality work, but she fully immerses herself into the psychological head space of what ever it is that we happen to be shooting. For Hedonist, we shot a fetish orgy scene and she was yelling everybody on set that day to get "really, really horny." She wanted the sexual energy to permeate the room so that we would be drowning in it creating a truthful experience for the audience.

Arcelia Ocaña(2nd from left) immersing herself into the world of Hedonist that she helps me bring to life.

The fetish orgy scene from Hedonist. 

When it comes to fast, cheap and good, I'll never sacrifice "good" to get something done fast and cheap.  In the long run it's never worth it to cut corners. My art will be around way longer than I will so it may take longer to produce but the end results are totally worth it as can be seen from this teaser footage from my music video We're All Whores.

SPOILER ALERT! Preview For Hedonist Music Video Script - Part 4

Today's blog post is Part 3 of a 4 part series where I am giving you a preview of the actual script we'll be using to shoot my upcoming music video Hedonist.

Hedonist the music video has been a huge undertaking. As pleased as I am with my last music video Lapdance Romance, my goal is to make Lapdance Romance look like and idiot compared to Hedonist. Hedonist is going to have 4 sets  with separate action sequences that relate the overall concept of the song visually. I've decided to post the scripts I've written for each set in a 4 part series.

In my first post of this series I revealed the script for The Psychiatrist's Office of  the Mind's Eye. It' lays down the premise and overall concept for the video.

The the second of the sets is what I've called The Padded Cell of Hedonism. The set is where my character goes to escape the pain of being abused, and is a visual metaphor for my character's relationship with hedonism. Hedonism is portrayed as a physical being who rules the world inside the cell and ultimately seduces my character to over indulge in substance use until she becomes an addict.

The third set is called The Padded Cell of Terror and Art Therapy

This set is all about my character "The Patient" coming to the grim realization that she is an addict trapped in a vicious cycle of domestic abuse and substance abuse.

The fourth and final set is simply titled...

The Operating Room

The Operating Room is not only about the abusive relationship between the domestic violence victim and their abuser, but also the abusive relationship between the domestic violence victim and herself. The domestic violence victim uses substance abuse as an escape from the pain of  the violence and through the use of drugs and alcohol creates an alter ego for herself as depicted in the script below.

THE OPERATING ROOM

by JENNY KIRBY

Scene 1

INT: Operating Room

A continuation from the last scene of Little Miss Liquid Courage the patient lays motionless on the operating table. Her chest and head wounds from where she tore off her fake stapled on breasts and hair are gushing blood. Surgeon #1 and Surgeon #2 enter wearing white “Howie coats” and full biohazard masks that hide their identity. Surgeon #1 straps the patient down and places the patients head in the vice grips at the top end of the table. Surgeon #2 pries the patient’s mouth open with a metal mouth speculum, shoves a tube inside the patient’s mouth, then connects the tube to a vodka bottle suspended from an IV stand.

Next to the operating table is a metal tray with surgical instruments and power tools. Surgeon #2 marks 4 circles on the patient’s torso and then hands surgeon #1 a scalpel. Surgeon #1 slices into the patient’s skin dragging the scalpel along the perimeter of the marked circles. Surgeon #1 peels off the circles of cut out skin as Surgeon #2 wipes away the blood leaking out of the incisions.

Surgeon #1 digs into the wound with a pair of surgical tweezers and fishes around inside the wound which causes more blood to begin gushing out. Surgeon #2 uses a sponge to absorb and wipe away the excess blood. Then Surgeon #2 pokes her finger into the wound and pulls out an artery. Surgeon #1 places 2 clamps on the artery and cuts between the two clamps with a pair of scissors. Surgeon #2 lifts the bottom of Surgeon #1’s mask revealing his mouth and wipes the blood off her gloved finger on to his lips. Surgeon #1 licks the blood from his lips and smiles.

SURGEON #1

“Oh! You taste so good”

Scene 2

INT: Operating Room

In the back corner to the left of the operating table sits a cylindrical glass tank with a metal base that is made up of several small piece held together by rivets. Inside the glass tank is a living growing fetus. Several small tubes are connected to the fetus and lead down into the metal base. At the bottom of the metal base are 4 large black tubes that carry nutrients to the fetus and waste away from the fetus.

Surgeon #1 stretches the patient’s circular incisions open and inserts a short metal cylinder with a flared base into each circular incision. The flared base has screw sockets and is positioned just under the skin. The cylindrical portion juts out of the wound and will fit inside the opening of the large black tubes.  

Surgeon #2 is holding a large black tube at the open end and pulls a small catheter type tube from inside. Surgeon #1 pulls the clamped end of an artery out of one of the patient’s incisions as Surgeon #2 inserts the catheter tip into the artery.

After the surgeons have repeated this procedure for all of the catheter tubes, Surgeon #1 attaches the black hose into the circular incisions by placing the opening of the black tube over the metal cylinder jutting out of the incision an screwing the flared opening of the black tubes into the skin and down into the sockets of the flared base of the metal cylinder inside the wound.

The patient’s body now provides nourishment to the growing fetus inside the tank. Surgeon #1 pulls off his mask and reveals his face. He’s a sinister looking man with a sadistic gleam in his eye. Surgeon #2 pulls the mask off her face revealing her identity. She is the patient. She leans in towards Surgeon #2 as if to kiss him.

SURGEON #2

“I need an anesthetic to numb me to you”

Surgeon #2 leans in even closer, nose to nose, lips almost touching. Surgeon #1 is entranced, and doesn’t notice as Surgeon #2 grips his throat tightly with her bloody hand and begins to choke him.

SPOILER ALERT! Preview For Hedonist Music Video Script - Part 2

Today's blog post is Part 2 of a 4 part series where I am giving you a preview of the actual script we'll be using to shoot my upcoming music video Hedonist.

Hedonist the music video has been a huge undertaking. As pleased as I am with my last music video Lapdance Romance, my goal is to make Lapdance Romance look like and idiot compared to Hedonist. Hedonist is going to have 4 sets  with separate action sequences that relate the overall concept of the song visually. I've decided to post the scripts I've written for each set in a 4 part series.

In my first post of this series I revealed the script for The Psychiatrist's Office of  the Mind's Eye. It' lays down the premise and overall concept for the video. The the second of the sets is what I've called...

The Padded Cell of Hedonism

This set is where my character "The Patient" goes to escape the pain of being abused and forms yet another abusive relationship with "Hedonism."

THE PADDED CELL OF HEDONISM

by JENNY KIRBY

Scene 1

INT: Padded Cell

A shiny red vinyl padded cell with Hedonism, a god-like figure

with glistening silver skin reclining on a chaise lounge wearing

an opulent flowing black and silver brocade silk cloak. He is

visually a combination between the Roman god of wine Bacchus and

Gary Oldman as "old Dracula" from the 1992 film Dracula with a

gothic twist.

At Hedonism's feet is a heavily tatooed shirtless slave boy

fanning him. A female slave enters with a bottle of wine on a

tray. She pours Hedonism a glass of wine and hands it to him.

Hedonism chugs back the entire glass and hands it back to the

female slave.

Hedonism claps his hands summoning two nurses each with a slave

on a leash. The nurses inject the slaves with a drug that has an

aphrodisiac effect. The slaves fall to the floor and begin making

out while Hedonism watches with a satisfied look on his face.

Scene 2

INT: Padded Cell

Hedonism reclines on his chaise lounge as he is fanned by a male

slave at his feet and fed hors d'erves by a female slave.

Hedonism is surrounded by an entourage of hedonists dancing,

drinking and making out with each other.

As his face is being stuffed with food, a female hedonist "The

Hedonist" approches him. She is dressed in what could be

described best as black shiny Victorian fetish wear. Hedonism

motions for her to sit down with him. He summons for his female

slave to bring wine. The female slave pours two glasses of wine

and hands one to Hedonism and one to The Hedonist. The Hedonist and Hedonism clink their glasses as a toast to their union.

Hedonism motions for his male slave to come over and attend to

The Hedonist's every desire. The male slave moves behind The

Hedonist and begins stroking and kissing her neck. The Hedonist

turns her face to the male slave and kisses him passionately. As

they're kissing a nurse enters and straps a collar around The

Hedonist's neck.

Scene 3

INT: Padded Cell

Nurse #1's contorted body is positioned on the chaise lounge.

Nurse #2 has The Hedonist handcuffed with a leash attached to the

collar around her neck. Nurse #2 lays out two lines of a powdered

substance on Nurse #1's contorted body. Nurse #2 snorts a line

off of Nurse #1's body and then commands The Hedonist to do a

line as well. The Hedonist complies.

Music Video Pre Production Madness(literally)

One of the benefits and pitfalls of being an indie, diy musician or whatever they're calling it these days is that you get to do pretty much everything yourself. It's a huge workload and things tend to move slowly, but the work itself is rewarding in a way that I can't even adequately describe with words. I'm a multimedia artist and for me the most fun thing I get to do as a musician is make music videos! I get to use literally every artistic and technical discipline I've ever studied or worked in professionally.

Here's a little step by step visual synopsis of what I've done so far production designwise for one of the scenes for my music video Hedonist.

1. First I needed to design the set.

The concept behind this padded cell is that it is a metaphor for the insanity of addiction which is one of the central themes of the song. The insane subject scrawling the lyrics of the song in blood on the walls of the padded cell is a visual representation of my addict brain feeling trapped, isolated and overwhelmed by the world I created for myself through drug and alcohol abuse.

2. Then I had to make the set(this process almost drove ME insane)

This was a multi step process which involved me having to scavenge bike shop recycling bins for enough cardboard to make the backer pieces for 104 cell pads.

 Did I mention that I had to make 104 padded squares?!?! I had to cut 104  21" x 21" squares of card board, then 104 squares of quilt batting, THEN 104 squares of fabric to cover them with

             

 There was glue gunning and a lot of burned finger tips in the assembly process. After making 104 of these damn cell pads I had to apply layers of "grunge" to make them appear weathered, soiled and old. I used a powdered temepera paint to create a worn effect with layers of dust, mildew, hand prints and oxidation.

3. Costumes!!!!

Ever since I was a child, I have loved playing dress-up. Now I get to do it professionally so this is a dream come true. For this particular scene in the music video there is myself dressed as a disgraced Victorian mental patient and some nurses who symbolize the drugs themselves.

Making my Victorian underwear involved not only sewing it, but also adding a layer of "grunge" to match the filthy aesthetic of the padded cell. To keep the color palette consistent I used the same tempera paint to dirty up my lingerie as seen below.

                  

4. Hair, Make-Up and SFX

For the hair I thought it'd be fun to make and install some synthetic dreads as I figured my character would have been locked away for some time and not have access to a hair brush.

 We experimented with a few make-up looks, but finally decided on a combination of what we played around with. 

 

I also made some long fake dirty fingernails to add to the overall effect and also because there will be some close ups of my hands as I bite a wound into my hand and they scrawl bloody lyrics all over the walls.

5. The Test Shoot!!!

If you've managed to read this far down then congratulations because these are the real money shots from the test shoot where we played with some lighting and visual concepts. The hard work is really paying off and I'm very proud of what we've come up with. So enjoy the fruits of our labor so far!

Begging & Bragging For Votes

My music video Lapdance Romance is on the BEAT100 chart and I really need some votes to make it climb higher.

NOTE: To vote click on the blue link that says "View on BEAT100"  and then click the "Vote" button, or click here

My dilemma is how do I get my social media "friends" to vote for it without coming off as desperate and annoying. Truthfully, I know that of my 700+ facebook friends only a small fraction of them actually give a fuck about what I do as an artist and an even smaller portion actually enjoy the style of music I create. Now don't get me wrong, I don't want to come off as cynical because nobody like a whiny little bitch, but how do I get people to care about what I do?

I hate begging because it's undignified and I hate boasting because I don't want to be a Kanyesque douche who claims they're a "big deal." However, how do I reach a wider audience unless I start acting like I am a big deal and asking for people to help me?

Should I just do it? Should I just Kanye it up and tell everyone I'm a big deal enough times until they believe it too? It seemed to work for him. Maybe I should make a bigger deal about myself. After all I am pretty talented.

Should I beg for votes? I mean really, marketing experts tell us that it takes 3 impressions of an ad for us to even take notice of it. Maybe I should advertise my video 3 times a day on my feed and make a heartfelt plea about how much it means to me to have my art supported.

At the time that I'm writing this blog entry I've received 15 votes from friends on facebook. It's kinda disheartening. I'd love to get more votes. The votes won't make me any money, but the higher I climb in the charts is another achievement that I can add to my bio which will in turn make me look like a bigger deal when I submit my music to larger market media outlets.

So fuck it! Fuck my dignity, I'm going to be shameless, PLEASE VOTE!!!!!

Surgery: A Visual Metaphor For Domestic Violence

I'm truly grateful to be able to express myself  as Borg Queen through several different mediums. Right now I'm in the thick of production design for another music video for my upcoming album Sex, Drugs & Shiny Brass Poles. The video in question is for Hedonist, a song about domestic violence. Surgery is the visual I've chosen to convey the profoundly deep violation of being abused by a partner. Much like surgery, the recovery process for abuse can be just as painful as the actual acts of abuse.

Today, I designed the surgeon character for the operating room scenes. I'm still torn between which set design I'm going to use for the operating room. Any feedback would be welcome. Let me know which operating room you like best in the comments section.

The Surgeon Character Design For Hedonist

Victorian Inspired Operating Room Set

Retro Inspired Operating Room Set

Costume Design For The Hedonist Music Video

As much as I love trying to promote the hell out of my music video Lapdance Romance what I really love to do is make music videos. As a visual artist and a musician music videos are the perfect medium for a creative such as myself. My next music video Hedonist is what I'm now focusing my attention on.  The music video/song is about a descent into insanity and using various forms of hedonism to escape the pain of domestic abuse. 

Today I came up with a costume design that I'll be wearing in the video. I'll be wearing it in the scenes that take place in the Hedonist's padded cell. 

The Hedonist in her padded cell

The song is based on my own experience with domestic violence and how enduring years of abuse fractured my psyche into different people - The Good Girl(the real me), The Hedonist(the alcoholic me) and The Lunatic(the mentally ill me). The two costumes below are The Hedonist(left) and The Good Girl(right).

The Good Girl

The Hedonist