Music Video Inspirations - TV

Criminal Minds

    One inspiration for my ideas for my music video is 'Criminal Minds' in which quite a few episodes revolve around mental illness, including ones specifically focusing on Dissociative identity disorder. One of these is an episode called 'Revelations' (S2,Ep15) where one of the profilers are kidnapped by religious fanatic serial killer Tobias Hankle. The team learns Tobias was systematically abused by his Bible-obsessed father Charles, killed the fiend but developed a split personality, including his father's abusive one as Raphael, an angel of violent 'divine' vengeance. Similar to Psycho's Norman Bates, Tobias developed dissociative identity disorder due to mistreatment and subsequent murder of a parent.

Criminal Minds 'Revelations' (S2 Ep15)

      Another example is seen in the episode 'Conflicted' (S4,Ep20) with the character of Adam Jackson. Adam's mother, Rosemary, died when he was five, causing Adam's stepfather, Mark Harrison, who had been abusive towards Rosemary, to begin channelling his aggression towards Adam. Mark would beat Adam, force him to wear girl's clothes, and possibly molested him. To cope with the abuse, Adam developed Dissociative identity disorder, creating an alternate female personality that referred to itself as Amanda, and took the abuse for Adam. Years later, Adam -as his alternate personality 'Amanda'-begins killing and raping males who he sees as substitutes for his step-dad.

Criminal Minds 'Conflicted' (S4 Ep20)

Teen Wolf

    In the second half of season 3 (3b) of 'Teen Wolf', the primary antagonist is a nogitsune who possesses one of the main protagonist characters in the series. The Nogitsune is developed from the Japanese mythology of the Kitsune - Fox spirits who are depicted in stories as intelligent beings and as possessing magical abilities that increase with their age and wisdom. Foremost among these is the ability to assume human form. While some folktales speak of kitsune employing this ability to trick others—as foxes in folklore often do—other stories portray them as faithful guardians. In the series, the nogitsune is a very vengeful creature who uses the character of Stiles to conceal himself, and during the series there are shots where we see what is going on inside Stile's head and see him conversing with the spirit in its actual form. Not only did this inspire me in the idea of having the character in my narrative trapped in her own head and her physical body being used by her dissociative identity, but also the fact that once Stiles is freed from the possession the nogitsune takes his form inspired the idea of having the visuals of both of my characters in the forest making the theme clear and creating parallelisms.

 

Nogitsune Stiles and Stiles Clip From 'Teen Wolf'

  American Horror Story

'American Horror Story' is a horror anthology series with each series focusing on a different story. Not only did the content of the first and second series inspire the idea to use creepy imagery as insert shots for what the girl sees in her own head to create a nightmarish and sinister feel, but the opening credits of both 'American Horror Story' and 'American Horror Story: Asylum' inspired the idea to have these clips edited as almost a montage running along side the narrative and exterior shots in my video, and the use of flicking between one image to another - possibly to be used for when the audience sees the girl and her dissociative identity.

'American Horror Story' Opening Credits

   

'American Horror Story: Asylum' Opening Credits