The soon-to-be-released video for Fear Factory’s “Fear Campaign,” off this year’s Mechanize (Candlelight), lives up to the song title: Cops pushing dogs into a helpless man’s face, the band’s frontman being strangled, a creepy interrogation room. The men behind such atrocities, video directors Ian McFarland—who owns the Boston-based Killswitch Productions and has directed clips for God Forbid, Meshuggah, and Agnostic Front—and Mike Pecci fill us in on how they made the band more fearful than ever.

Read it all here:

http://www.revolvermag.com/uncategorized/web-exclusive-interview-the-directors-behind-fear-factorys-fear-campaign-vi.html

REVOLVER How did the concept for the video come about? How involved was the band in that?

IAN McFARLAND Mike and I met Burton back in 2007, when he was on tour with Ministry and Meshuggah. We talked for quite a bit and from that point on every once in a while… One day, out of the blue, I got an email from Burton telling me that Dino along with Byron Stroud and Gene Hoglan were in the lineup, and that they had just recorded a new album and that they wanted to work with Mike and me on a music video for it. I can’t tell you how excited we were to get that email.

MIKE PECCI Burton is an extremely creative person, and he had some very specific visuals in mind. He said that he wanted to bombard the audience with rapid images that supported his lyrics.

McFARLAND Our goal was to make a video that was inspired by all those really cool stock footage ’90s music videos, but rather than using stock footage of the atrocities of the world, we decided to shrink those things down to single images and objects that can be identified as the tools used to create those problems. Essentially we wanted to make an ad campaign for fear. One of the other things that Burton really wanted was to figure out a way for him to play a role in the video. He wanted to play a character that represented some sort of authoritative entity and would represent the word fear to the fullest. That’s where the cop/priest character came into play.

PECCI Both Ian and I agreed on one thing right from the start, no stock footage! It’s cliché. With my photography background, and our relationship with photographer Heather McGrath, I proposed that we take all original photos, and instead of shooting big, we should break down each issue addressed in the song down to one object that would be shot on a stark color. We spent a lot of time researching symbols and objects that would best represent each lyric or idea… The best part of working with Fear Factory is that they wanted to look original, fresh, and new. They said that they were willing to put themselves out there to make this thing that much better. We decided that we wanted to use vibrant primary colors—yellow, blue, and red—and that the video be lit with strong and revealing light.