Closure

Halo 12 - Closure

Closure (also known as Halo 12) is a double VHS video set by Nine Inch Nails released on November 25, 1997. The first tape is a documentary of the Self-Destruct Tour, and the second tape is a compilation of music videos that had been created up to that point. A DVD release was planned for 2004, but never materialized. A prototype of the DVD was then leaked in 2006.

According to Russell Mills, who created the artwork, a live album was also planned as a companion to Closure and artwork was made for it, but the idea was scrapped.[1] The unused paintings can be seen here. The typeface used on Closure is Albertus.

Video listing

Part 1

Part 1 VHS artwork

Part 1 shows live and behind-the-scenes footage from the Self-Destruct Tour. The titles in brackets were given to those portions when Closure was authored for DVD.

(00:00) [introduction] (opening montage, fans, etc.)
(03:17) "Terrible Lie"
(08:33) [preparation] (fans, backstage footage)
(13:10) "Piggy"
(17:25) "Down In It"
(21:45) [complication] (Robin Finck's injury, light show problems, etc.)
(25:52) "March Of The Pigs"
(29:48) [peregrination] (travel)
(31:21) [exhibition] (Jim Rose Circus)
(33:27) "The Only Time"
(38:49) [chaos] (discussing Woodstock '94, injuries, backstage antics, instrument destruction)
(43:57) [congregation] (audience montage set to "Sanctified")
(46:01) "Wish"
(49:40) [miscellany] (injuries, working on Natural Born Killers Soundtrack, David Bowie)
(54:26) "Hurt" (with David Bowie)
(60:15) [diversion] (band or crew members goofing around)
(62:06) "Something I Can Never Have"
(68:23) [conclusion] (Super 8 footage montage set to "A Warm Place")
(71:27) [credits]

Additional items are included on the DVD version:

Appendage (newly discovered footage, 1989-1997)
Stills gallery
Easter eggs (accessed by pressing return on the respective menus)
- Live clip of NIN performing "Down In It" at Dance Party USA (accessible from main menu)
- Live clip of NIN performing "Sex Dwarf" (accessible from extras menu)

Appendage

- (00:06) MTV News dressing room interview, Reznor and Richard Patrick
  - (00:29) Live snippet of "Get Down, Make Love"
  - (00:45) MTV News dress room interview, Reznor and Patrick (continued)
  - (00:56) Live snippet of "Sin"
  - (01:17) MTV interview clip, Lollapallooza '91 opening night
- (01:43) Live footage: "Now I'm Nothing"
- (03:42) Live footage: "Terrible Lie"
- (08:57) MTV News interview, Reznor explains Phoenix Lollapalooza technical difficulties
  - (10:01) Live snippet of "Sin" (continued)
  - (10:20) MTV News dressing room interview, Reznor
- (10:52) Live footage: "Sanctified" from first NIN live show
- (14:06) MTV Lollapallooza interview, Reznor discusses large vs. small venues
  - (14:15) Live snippet of "Down In It"
  - (14:44) Lollapallooza Phoenix interview: Punishing equipment
  - (14:57) Live snippet of "Down In It" (continued)
- (15:33) Band rehearses "Big Man with a Gun"
- (16:54) Montage of live footage set to "Mr. Self Destruct"
  - (17:15) Live footage: "March of the Pigs"
  - (17:31) Keyboard destruction
- (17:37) Live footage: "Get Down, Make Love"
- (19:15) Behind-the-scenes of scrapped "Hurt" video
- (22:50) Live footage: Introduction and "Reptile" from Woodstock '94
- (29:49) Band in studio listen to prank phone sex call, ending with mix into "Memorabilia"
  - (31:37) Live: Reznor plays a keyboard solo from "Happiness In Slavery"
- (32:46) First half of alternate "March of the Pigs" video
- (34:17) Live: "Mr. Self Destruct"
- (36:25) Reznor and Danny Lohner go over chord changes for Soft Cell's "Sex Dwarf" cover
  - (37:27) Live snippet of "Closer"
  - (37:43) Live: Stage crew Stonehenge prank during "Wish"
- (38:25) Live: "Big Man with a Gun" filmed from offstage
  - (40:22) James Woolley does a trick with his eyes
  - (40:26) Snippet of alternate "March of the Pigs" video
- (40:44) "The Perfect Drug" video behind-the-scenes
- (42:50) Woodstock '94 footage: "Something I Can Never Have"

Part 2

Part 2 VHS artwork

Part 2 shows the music videos, in order, that were released up to the point of the release of Closure. The videos are linked together by interstitial footage directed by Peter Christopherson, as well as odd bits of old black and white stock footage.

"Head Like A Hole" – 4:31
"Sin" – 2:11
"Down In It" – 3:50
"Pinion" – 1:16
"Wish" – 3:42
"Help Me I Am In Hell" – 2:03
"Happiness In Slavery" – 4:48
"Gave Up" – 4:27
"March of the Pigs" – 3:03
"Eraser (live)" – 4:23
"Hurt (live)" – 5:10
"Wish (live)" – 3:49
"Closer" – 4:36
"The Perfect Drug" – 4:13

Additional items are included on the DVD version:

Behind-the-scenes footage documenting the creation of the "Closer" video with commentary by Mark Romanek
Easter egg clip of British Airways cabin crew listening to The Downward Spiral and reading the lyrics to "Reptile" from its booklet.

Other Formats

LaserDisc

Closure was originally intended to also have a release on LaserDisc, and pre-orders were taken by Trimark, but the release was canceled.[2] In 2021, a fake LaserDisc of Closure was put up for sale on the nin.com store as a joke.

DVD

An improved DVD version was announced via a QuickTime trailer on nin.com, to be released in late 2004, but due to lack of interest by Interscope Records, it did not happen. On December 20, 2006, two DVDs of Closure were posted by a user named "seed0" on The Pirate Bay's BitTorrent tracker. Shortly after the leak, a message on Trent Reznor's personal blog on The Spiral was posted, linking Reznor himself to the leak:

    12/21/2006 : HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
    This one is a guilt-free download.
    (shhhh - I didn't say that out loud).
    If you know what I'm talking about, cool.

Rob Sheridan has since confirmed that the leak was from the NIN camp.[3] The download is intended to be burned onto dual-layer discs. A three-disc, single-layer version was promised for later, but never materialized. The prototype is currently available on archive.org.[4] Closure: Part 1 and all of the bonus material from both parts of the DVD version have been uploaded to the official Nine Inch Nails Vimeo account. As was the case with the And All That Could Have Been DVD, the menus are accompanied by several different dark ambient music pieces recorded specifically for them.

Several years before this higher quality DVD was leaked, a commercial bootleg DVD version of the original VHS titled Rated 'R' - A Retrospective was released. Aside from the main menus, it is virtually identical to Closure.

Credits

Executive Producer: John A. Malm, Jr., Nothing Records, Inc.

This project was made possible through the efforts of: Jeff Anderson, Gretchen Anderson, Steve Berman, Jennifer Carpenter, Diane Mayer, Brian Pollack, Ross Rosen, Dawn Zillich, Sioux Zimmerman

Package by Gary Talpas
All Paintings by Russell Mills
Photography by Andrew Morris

Part 1:

Directed by: Jonathan Rach
Concept: Trent Reznor
Produced by: Adam Stern for Acme Filmworks, Inc.
Additional Footage Directed by: Jeff Richter
Director of Photography: Jonathan Rach
Supervising Editor: Jeff Richter
Editors: Will Godby, Chris Osterhus, Jonathan Rach, Scott Richter, David "Sketch" Sketchley
Editorial Assistants: Michael Bouchet, Brian Boyd, Tracey Browne, Frank Lagnese
Production Manager: D'arcy Mastrangelo

Nine Inch Nails: Charlie Clouser, Robin Finck, Danny Lohner, Trent Reznor, Chris Vrenna, James Woolley
Thanks to Nine Inch Nails' Special Guests: Die Krupps, Fem2Fem, Hole, Marilyn Manson, Melvins, Pig, Pop Will Eat Itself, Prick, The Jim Rose Circus, Treponem Pal, Type O Negative

Part 2:

Director (for the overall collection): Peter Christopherson
Producer: Fiz Oliver
Cameraman: Simon Archer
Editor: Peter Christopherson & Scott Richter
Production Design: Mike Grant

Special Thanks: Jeff Anderson, Steve Berman, David Bowie, Ann Brubaker, Paul Conolly, Hank Corwin, Sheria Reise Davies, Renee Dodson, James Dowdall, Erin Gilligan, David Johnson, Sam Kirby, Bob Kubic, David Lynch, Diane Mayer, Lynn McDonnell, Jacqueline McPherson, Tina Montalbano, Fiz Oliver, Michael Papale, Brian Pollack, Cordelia Plunket, Rodney Robertson, Brenda Romano, Jay Sendyk, Adam Stern, Oliver Stone, Mary Sweeney, Rick Szekelyi

Abandoned 1995 tour film

The original live document of NIN's Self Destruct Touring Cycle (more specifically, the Further Down The Spiral Tour) was helmed by Simon Maxwell, director of the videos for "Hurt", "Eraser", and the live video for "Wish". The footage was eventually rejected and Hi8 footage that had been shot concurrently by Jonathan Rach was compiled instead. Maxwell expounded on this in an interview [5]:

Yeah. I shot all this footage. This is a really funny story, actually. We shot all this footage, and put it all together, and sent it over to Trent, and.... I don’t know what was going on. But anyway… he didn’t like some of it. For various reasons. I have no idea why. So we cut three or four of the songs, and they were okay, and then… we didn’t hear from him anymore.
So to clarify, you were cutting songs from the tour, not from that studio shoot in New York you did [for "Hurt"]?
From the live tour. We were going to do a whole live thing. So we shot all across the States. And we recut it several times, and then there was – I’m not sure if there was a falling out between management – with him and Interscope? There was some politics going on in the background. And so, yeah, that was probably the last time I saw him.
So he said "no" to that stuff you’d shot with a million cameras.
Well, it was the editing side of it. Because it was such a huge thing, we had three or four editors working on it just to get through it all. So from memory, there were three or four songs that worked really well, but some of the others.... I dunno.
So from there, you all decided to cut it back and make it much simpler, and we have the "Hurt" video we know today?
Well that was done earlier. That was done about six or eight months earlier. Then Trent wanted a documentary-style thing of the tour. So we shot loads for footage of the tour. We had 35mm cameras on the main performance, and then Super 8s on the audience. There was reams and reams of footage. And from what I remember, someone stole all the Super 8 footage! It just disappeared. It was shot all over the country in the States, then it was shipped to LA and then it was shipped back to England. When we came to put it all together, a lot of the Super 8 footage had disappeared. I knew we had it – I had seen the rolls of film – but when we came to put it together – you know, we had these rolls sitting next to the telecine machine - I am going, "Where the fuck is all the Super 8?" Because that was the idea, capturing the essence of the whole gig on Super 8, and intercutting it with the high production, 35mm stuff. But – it disappeared!
How weird.
That kind of put a spanner in the works, and we were really short on that footage. It’s not something you can go back and repeat again. So yeah, that did cause a problem. And we didn’t reshoot anything as the tour had finished.

The original 1995 footage finally surfaced on YouTube on April 6, 2022.[6] It had been preserved via a personal VHS copy made by someone who worked at the London editing studio where Simon Maxwell assembled his rough cut of the footage, before sending it to Nothing Records for approval (at which point it was scrapped). It was shot in Dallas, TX and Omaha, NE in February and was the same source footage used for the aforementioned "Hurt", "Eraser", and "Wish" videos.

External Links

Discography

Previous release - "The Perfect Drug"

Halo number: 12

Next release - "The Day The World Went Away"