Heavy Metal videos are known for the use of macabre and gruesome imagery, however the new video from 8 Foot Sativa (probably New Zealand’s best known metal act) is not just senseless gore. The band, whose members are all vegan, wanted to use their music to promote their views on animal rights, by making a video that shows the “shocking reality of animal based food production in New Zealand.” The video clip for their new single “Sleepwalkers” uses footage from New Zealand Open Rescue; an organisation which provides a resource of undercover footage of animal abuse to media organisations and also undertakes “open rescues” of abused and injured animals from farms around the country.
“Making a music video with a strong animal rights message is something we have been wanting to do for some time.” said vocalist Ben Read in a press release.
We are not filmmakers but were going to attempt the video ourselves when fate intervened and a vegan director offered to make the video for us. Seeing the final cut, it was so much more than we could have achieved ourselves. It’s phenomenal.
That vegan director was Duncan Eastwood, co-owner of Sunset Studios in Auckland. Eastwood offered his services to the band when he heard about their request for footage. Meat Free Media, an animal advocacy organisation focusing on promotion of animal rights through informative and entertaining media, was also involved in the video’s production.
The video, made on a ‘shoestring’ budget, contains a mixture of band performance, staged scenes and undercover footage taken from factory farms and slaughterhouses, all in New Zealand. The video ends with the disturbing message “Thousands of animals were harmed in the making of this video”
