Releasing an awesome, esoteric rock album is impressive on its own; having a harrowing ten-part alien horror film made out of it is goddamn incredible. But then again, so is Black Antenna, the serialized sci-fi film Alice In Chains has commissioned to go with their sixth studio album, last year’s Rainier Fog.
As strange, gorgeous, and heartbreakingly human as Alice In Chains’ music, Black Antenna tells the story of Alpha, an alien trying to return to his home world while living in modern-day America, and Beta, his earth-born daughter less inclined towards fleeing our planet.
We spoke to director Adam Mason about the development of Black Antenna, working with Alice In Chains, and the mythical influences behind Alpha and Beta’s story.
How did Black Antenna come about? Did Rainier Fog come first, or the idea for the movie?
It was a weird coincidence. I’d been wanting to do a low-budget indie film off my own back for quite a while. There’s huge homeless problem in LA right now, and I often get my ideas from looking at people and other shit while I walk home. So one morning last year, I was walking back from my office to home, and I was looking at these homeless people, thinking about what their backstories were. Then I started thinking about all the people who were passing by them, ignoring them. Then, I got the idea of homeless people as if they were aliens, as most people seem to treat them as such, like they don’t exist. From there was born the concept of this homeless father and daughter that, throughout, you gradually find out they are aliens trying to get home.
Coincidentally, that same day, I went to meet Alice in Chains to discuss doing a couple of videos. Jerry Cantrell was telling me about the album's themes, and for whatever reason the record and my idea just came together in my mind. I pitched them the idea of Black Antenna, and they jumped on it. The next thing I knew, instead of doing one or two music videos, we did twelve and a movie.
Each episode of Black Antenna relates to a song on the album. Was that always the plan, or did that come about over time?
It’s the latter. When I first listened to the record, it wasn’t in the order as it is now, so the track listing was determined yet. It took quite a long time to write the script, so at a point I was writing episodes to the specific track. I’m someone who loves the idea of chaos, and I believe great art comes out of a chaotic vibe. Black Antenna is very much like that.
Black Antenna has a really human father-daughter story to it, but also has a lot of shock and terror to it. Was it tough to strike the perfect balance between the intense, fearful moments and the broader, human message?
There’s things go hand-in-hand for me. It’s split between the characters. Alpha is very fearful of humanity, and therefore very protective of his daughter, Beta. However, since she was born here instead of Alpha’s planet, [Beta] feels this affiliation to humanity. It’s kind of based on Pinocchio, because she dreams of being a human and being accepted. Then, you have the bad aliens, like Nil. They kind of based off the Nephilim, which are the fallen angels in the Bible who came to Earth and fucked all of the woman and did tons of crazy shit. My idea with this was to have these aliens come to Earth and fall in love with our vices, like sex and drugs.