Music fans, think back to the turn of the 21st century. The compact disc was still the medium of choice, Total Request Live was appointment television, and world premieres of highly-anticipated music videos were always preceded by episodes of MTV’s Making the Video.
With half-hour installments, Making the Video showcased the conception, production, and even post-production of music videos from some of the 2000s’ hottest artists and bands. The show, which petered out in 2010, turns 25 years old on July 11, and devotees can still find episodes on YouTube, including ones starring the artists below.
Britney Spears
Spears got her Alias on in her “Toxic” music video — and shared steamy scenes with Tyson Beckford and Martin Henderson — as she slipped into and out of disguises and went from one action sequence to the next. “This villain girl, she’ll do anything to get what she wants,” Spears said of her character. “She goes through characters, she has all these different personalities, and she goes through all these different obstacles.”
Jennifer Lopez
Before Francis Lawrence was a go-to Hunger Games director, he got his start in music videos, including this one set at the brink of Y2K. “He came back with the concept of doing a New Year’s millennium party … like a rave in the jungle,” Lopez said in Making the Video. “It’s just intense, so many people, and it’s hot, and it’s sweaty, and there’s wild animals all over the place.”
*NSYNC
*NSYNC’s best-known music video had them switching between dance choreography and stunt choreo, with car chases, railcar rooftop runs, and that rotating blue room. Turns out, the boy band wasn’t so sure about dancing what was essentially a spinning box. “Someone’s gonna break their neck,” Justin Timberlake predicted. “Someone’s gonna get hurt.” Luckily for *NSYNC fans, no one did.
Backstreet Boys
The rival boy band of the 2000s, on the other hand, went for a stripped-back vision for their “Shape of the Heart” music video, the premise of which had the Backstreet Boys rehearsing for an emotion-packed play. “We didn’t want it to be a huge production with pyro and lights and glitz,” Kevin Richardson explained. “We just wanted to keep it real raw and simple.”
Christina Aguilera
Xtina and her high-2000s fashion — the middle part, the lace-up leather pants, the bedazzled belly button — presented a neon-hued dance party with snazzy transitions between sets in her “Come On Over” music video. “It’s all visual,” she explained, “so whenever I say it’s almost full-out choreography the whole way through, you just have to see it.”
Janet Jackson
Jackson’s music video for “Doesn’t Really Matter” starts off in a micro-unit in a futuristic city before segueing to a dance routine on a tilting platform high in the CGI skyline. That required Jackson and her backup dancers — Jenna Dewan included — to do their choreo aboard a rocking and rolling gimble. “It’s like a ride,” Jackson said. “It’s actually fun. We have harnesses on so that we don’t break our asses.”
Destiny’s Child
Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland, and Michelle Williams go through “Charlie’s Angels boot camp” in Destiny Child’s music video for “Independent Women Part 1,” which supported the 2000 adaptation of the TV show. And this Making the Video episode is a family affair, with Tina and Solange Knowles, Beyoncé’s mom and younger sister, popping up as a stylist and backup dancer, respectively.
Madonna
This Material Girl really was living in a material world — dressed in haute couture, dripping in diamonds, and even going under the needle — in her “Hollywood” music video. “It’s the city of dreams, it’s the city of distraction, it’s the city of superficiality, whatever,” Madonna said of the real-life Hollywood. “It’s a place to go and get distracted from what’s really important in life, and you can lose your memory, you can lose your vision of the future, you can lose everything, you can lose yourself.”
Aerosmith
Aerosmith’s “Jaded” music video centered on “a girl who’s trapped inside a fairy tale that’s inside of a play,” played by a teenaged Mila Kunis. And for that circus-turned-cabaret vibe, aerialists, trampoline artists, stilt walkers, and even a giraffe and an elephant packed into the Los Angeles Theatre’s opulent lobby.
Mariah Carey
That same theater also served as the backdrop for Carey’s “Heartbreaker” video, in which the R&B star pulled double duty, playing two women dating Jerry O’Connell. This Making the Video episode also shows some behind-the-scenes drama, since Carey’s stand-in thought she was being ridiculed and stormed off set. Navigating a language barrier, Carey tried to explain to the stand-in that it was all for show.
U2
Speaking of alter-egos, it’s “Good U2 vs. Bad U2” in the rock band’s “Elevation” music video — with Angelina Jolie’s Tomb Raider character thrown in for good measure. “I’m just as confused as you are,” Bono said in Making the Video. “Something about good and evil Bono, Edge gets abducted, something to do with the fourth dimension,” Bono said. (There’s an elephant, too, but we don’t know whether it’s the same pachyderm Aerosmith hired.)
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