Editing Down in It (section)

==Music video==
A [[music video]] for "Down in It", filmed on location in the [[Fulton River District, Chicago|Warehouse District]] of [[Chicago]], was released in September 1989. It was produced by Jim Deloye and directed by Eric Zimmerman and Benjamin Stokes for [[H-Gun|H-Gun Productions]].<ref name="Billboard Trax"/> Special effects were applied to scenes such as a television set falling down forwards and backwards, writing in lights, and strobe flashing. In the video, Reznor runs to the top of a building while [[Chris Vrenna]] and [[Richard Patrick]] follow him. The original version of the music video ended with the implication that Reznor's character had fallen or jumped off the building, seen lying on the ground with a [[pallor mortis|deathly pallor]] created by applying starch powder to his face.<ref name="Washington Post">{{cite news |author=<!--not stated--> |date=13 September 1990 |title=No Murder, Just a Rock Video |work=[[Washington Post]] |location=Washington, D.C. |publisher=The Washington Post Company |id={{ProQuest|307331239}}}}</ref> [[MTV]] edited the scene out of all airings.<ref name="AP90">{{Cite magazine|title = Getting Down in It|date=March 1990|magazine = [[Alternative Press (magazine)|Alternative Press]]|issue = 27}}</ref> To film the ending of the video, Zimmerman and Stokes used a camera tied to a balloon, with ropes attached to prevent it from flying away. Minutes after they started filming, the ropes snapped and the balloons and camera flew away; eventually landing in a cornfield in [[Michigan]].<ref name="Washington Post"/> The farmer later handed it to the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]], who began investigating whether the footage was a [[snuff film]] portraying a person committing suicide.<ref name="Convulsion">{{cite magazine |first=Jon |last=Bains |title=Nine Inch Nails Lollapalooza 1 Summer 1991 |date=November 1991 |magazine=Convulsion |location=Edinburgh |url=https://bak.spc.org/obsolete/convulsion/interviews/convulse/frames.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927045622/http://www.obsolete.com/convulsion/interviews/convulse/1.5.html |archive-date=2007-09-27 |access-date=2008-04-12}}</ref><ref>''Welcome to the Machine'' ([http://theninhotline.net/archives/articles/manager/display_article.php?id=536 transcript]). ''Industrial Introspection'' (June 1991). Retrieved 2011-06-18.</ref> The FBI identified Reznor,<ref>Huxley (1997), p. 40</ref> who later remarked, "Somebody at the FBI had been watching too much [[Alfred Hitchcock|Hitchcock]] or [[David Lynch]] or something."<ref name="Select 1991">{{cite magazine|last=Perry|first=Neil|date=March 1991|title=Hard As Nails|magazine=[[Select (magazine)|Select]]|location=London}}</ref> 

Reznor stated the following in an interview with ''Convulsion'' Magazine:<blockquote>There was a scene w[h]ere I was lying on the ground, appearing to be dead, in a ''[[Lodger (album)|Lodger]]''-esque pose and we had a camera with a big weather balloon filled with helium hooked up to it ... the first one we did, we started the film, I was laying on the ground and the ropes that were holding the balloon snapped, the camera just took off into the atmosphere ... the camera landed two hundred miles away in a farmer's field somewhere. He finds it and takes it to the police, thinking that it's a surveillance camera for marijuana, they develop the film and think that it's some sort of snuff film of a murder, give it to the FBI and have pathologists looking at the body saying, 'yeah, he's rotting,' (I had corn starch on me, right) 'he's been decomposing for 3 weeks.' You could see the other members of the band walking away and they had these weird outfits on, and they thought it was some kind of gang slaying.<ref name=Convulsion/></blockquote>

Police distributed flyers asking for leads and were contacted by an art student who worked for H-Gun and recognised the image from the video.<ref name="Washington Post"/><ref name="Convulsion"/><ref>{{Cite news|url=http://mentalfloss.com/article/548360/nine-inch-nails-trent-reznor-fbi-murder-investigation-down-in-it|title=When the FBI Investigated the 'Murder' of Nine Inch Nails's Trent Reznor|date=2018-06-22|access-date=2018-07-19|language=en}}</ref> Establishing Reznor was alive and well, in September 1990 the [[Chicago Police Department]] told reporters, "The bottom line is we don't have a body and we don't have mystery or homicide."<ref name="Washington Post"/> The story was covered by the television news magazine show ''[[Hard Copy]]'' on their March 3, 1991 episode,<ref name="Hard Copy">{{cite web | url=http://vimeo.com/channels/prettyhatemachine/17037838 | title=NIN "Down In It" report on "Hard Copy," March 3rd 1991 | date=20 November 2010 | publisher=[[Vimeo]] | access-date=March 11, 2013}}</ref> which Reznor called, "Total junk gossip exploitative journalism. That was the icing on the cake: getting on the worst TV show in America."<ref name="Select 1991"/> Despite the sensationalist tone of the report, which likened "Down In It" video footage to a "satanic ritual" of "cult-like murder", the band's label used the controversy as a promotional tool, with clips from the Hard Copy interview included on an Island Records press kit for the UK release of [[Pretty Hate Machine]].<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NILCexAnPKk| title=Nine Inch Nails Pretty Hate Machine Island Records Electronic Press Kit (EPK) |minutes=6:45 |format=video |publisher=[[Island Records]] |via=[[YouTube]] |date=19 October 2019 |access-date=24 May 2025}}</ref>

At least two versions of the music video exist - one around 3:50 in length using the "Skin" remix also found on the ''[[Pretty Hate Machine]]'' album<ref>{{cite AV media |title=Nine Inch Nails: Down In It (1989) |url=https://vimeo.com/3608189 |publisher=Nine Inch Nails |date=13 Mar 2009 |access-date=25 May 2025 |via=[[Vimeo]]}}</ref> and a longer 6:58  edit using the "Shred" remix.<ref name="Billboard Trax"/>