Jason Aldean’s ‘Try That in a Small Town’ Video Undergoes Edits, Loses Footage of BLM Protests Used Without Permission
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In the firestorm over Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town” video, some attention has been trained on the different sources for the supposed U.S. news footage of protests that was incorporated into the video, some of which has been reported to have come from foreign countries. In the meantime, though, one clip that definitely did come from the U.S. has been removed, reportedly because it was not properly licensed.
The Washington Post was first to report that Aldean’s music video had been shortened by six seconds as a result of trims made by the artist’s team. Notably cut from the original video was two separate uses of footage of Black Lives Matter protests that came from Fox 5 Atlanta. Aldean’s label, BBR, told the Post in a statement that “the video footage was edited due to third party copyright clearance issues.”
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TMZ went further, reporting that Fox, in a “polite ultimatum,” had complained to the production company that the footage was used without permission and had asked a week ago to have its clips removed from the video. The Nashville-based company, Tacklebox Films, which is run by the video’s director, Shaun Silva, complied with the demand.
According to TMZ’s sources, the production company had contacted Fox back on May 8 and asked to use six seconds of video footage from a BLM protest in Atlanta. Tacklebox responded with a link to Aldean’s song, but did not follow the protocol of sending the lyrics in writing, so permission was never granted before the video premiered July 14.
The contested BLM footage was projected onto the front of a courthouse in Columbia, Tenn., where a Black man was famously hanged from a second floor balcony. Aldean denied in a subsequent social media post that the video was “pro-lynching” in any way.
Some of the other footage of demonstrations that remains in the video reportedly came from Canada and Germany. It’s not known whether the other clips were properly licensed.
Variety reached out to both Fox 5 Atlanta and Tacklebox Films for comment and has not received a response from either.
More benign footage has been removed from the video, as well. The Washington Post noted, “The final 30 seconds of the original video featured idyllic rural footage including a man in a baseball cap and sunglasses looking into the sun, and an older man speaking about small-town values while sitting in a wheelchair. Neither clip appears in the new version.” No speculation was offered about why these more peaceful scenes might have been deleted, or whether those closing shots represented original or adopted footage.
Aldean has come under attack since the video came out for conflating lawful protests with carjackings, robberies and other violent crimes as things that would be met with retribution in his visions of a small town. Some critics have seen racism in the footage of BLM protests being projected directly onto the site of the historically significant, public murder of a Black man, although sources connected to the production company have claimed they were not aware of the site’s history before filming a vigilantism-themed video there.
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