The Commissioner
The Commissioner
50 Cent - "In Da Club"
This is a Music Video Podcast - or should I say a Podcast about Music Video. An insiders look at how this classic song and video were conceived, filmed and delivered to MTV and the world. The Podcast talks about this version of the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUeaAOIAbXs
There is an "Int'l Version" of the video but that was severely edited and deleted a number of scenes that were in the original edit.
Explore home recording and music creation with Rich and Justin on 'Face Your Ears'!
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Hello, and welcome to the commissioner. My name is Randy Sawson. This podcast is focused on the music videos that I commissioned over the 12 plus years as a music video commissioner at Interscope and a and M records. The first video that 50 and I did together was Westa, which was the second single from the eight mile soundtrack. Uh, the first song obviously was lose yourself, um, El, um, and then the second single the, they had signed 50 and put that song Winta because it was becoming such a big hit. They put it on the soundtrack record, even though I don't think it was, maybe it was in the movie. Maybe they use it end credits. I don't, I don't remember. You can check it, but I should probably remember that, but I don't, but either way it was the second single and it was a huge hit, um, but more of an underground rap world hit than a pop hit. And, um, I remember, uh, made the video, Jesse Torero directed that video was amazing. We'll try and get him on season two. Um, and then the first, he, you know, they delivered get Richard die trying, and obviously the first single was in the club. Um, and it was one of the, you know, that record was an instant classic. The first time I heard the whole album, I was just so blown away by just the amazing to how many songs and just how deep and all the stuff he was talking about and how authentic and legitimate he was as a rapper. Um, but, uh, we had, we had a good time making the video on Winta. It was a pretty straightforward performance video. Um, we did shoot it in LA, but tried to make it feel like New York. Um, and then I remember 50 saying to me that he wanted to make in the club, his idea was that he would be the 6 million rapper, which I knew exactly what he was talking about, which was a reference to a seventies TV's character. Um, Steve Austin played by Lee majors in the$6 million man, right. Where like, you know, we can rebuild him. Um, so that just kind of set us off onto this path of, you know, we're gonna basically fifties, like the rapper that was made at the shady aftermath artist development center, where they, you know, manufacture rappers, it was a amazing premise for a video. Um, and that allowed us to do a lot of things for a new artist. Um, you know, having Dre and M in the video was important, but in such a clinical way, if you will. So they weren't just kind of sitting there throwing their hands up and doing nothing, cuz they weren't on the track. Right. M didn't wrap on the track, Dre produced the track. Um, but it still wasn't, you know, like, so this allowed us to have them in the video in a very, um, uh, legitimate way, you know? Um, and so we decided to do that. Um, there was a lot of people involved in this video. There was, you know, Paul Rosenberg who managed M and M there was M and M. There was Dr. Dre who has own, you know, thoughts. There was fifties manager, Chris lady rest in peace, Chris. Um, and obviously from our side, you know, Jimmy and a and R and 50 was involved, you know, so there's a lot of people, but I think we all agreed that with the premise that we had and the experience that Phil Atwell had with the whole team that we would hire Phil to do the video, which was a great decision because Phil not only knew everyone, but he had a really unique style, um, for building sets, um, so that he had complete control over everything we filmed. And this gave us a really amazing ability to have the club that 50 was in with everybody, but also be able to, you know, pan behind the wall where Dre and M were watching and as doctors in their shady aftermath lab kind of critiquing what the artist was doing and making sure that all the boxes were checked on their checklist, um, which is a kind of a nice little nice little twist, um, that made it all that more entertaining Video was filmed on December 10th and 11th, 2002 at Raleigh studios in Manhattan beach, California. Um, Manhattan beach is about, I don't know, 30, 40 minutes south of, uh, lax. So it's part of Los Angeles, but it's part what what's known as south bay. So it's a little bit off the beaten path. Um, but it it's a, it was a very, I don't know if, even if it's still there, it may be still there, but it was a really nice facility, big sound stages. Um, like you would find at paramount studios or Warner brother studios, but without the cost and without the union stuff. So we were able to, uh, have enough parking and enough, you know, uh, space to build these big sets. Um, for, you know, in videos it's, you know, you can spend 750 or million dollars, but even back then movies were 50 million today. Movies cost, you know, two, 300 million, but even back then 50 million was a lot of money. So even a million dollars while it was a lot of money, um, wasn't big enough, you know, wasn't comparative to the amount of money that was spent on films, but we still wanted to make it, you know, pay people the right way and have the high great DPS and gaffers and grips and production designers and costume designers. And we shot the video mostly in sequence. Although the club segment was kind of split up, we did do different parts and different days. Um, most of it was shot on day, two day one had everybody right. It had 50, um, and Dre, um, and we shot all the Dre looking down at 50 on the table and them looking in the club and, um, all that stuff. But during the shoot on day one, um, shook night showed up. Now we're talking about Raleigh studios in Manhattan beach, which everyone had to be cleared to get onto site. So our entire call sheet, everyone that was a guest of the artist, anyone that was, um, making a cameo, had to be sent to the front gate so that you could drive on cuz there was, I don't know, there's probably 15, 20 sound stages and production offices. And so you can't just drive on. It's not like you can just pull up to a, a area. Um, so we felt like it was secure. You know, I thought there was, there wasn't even an issue. And then about halfway through the day, as we were getting ready to film, there was this panic and people like sugar Knight is here and it was, you know, every, I, I don't know what to do and I have never done a video with death row. Um, that was before my time at Interscope, but many people had, and no one was excited about it. And obviously Dre was upset because he has, you know, chronicled history and you can watch straight outta comp and know what had transpired. Um, M was upset because he just, you know, was upset in 50. This was early in fifties career. So he had an entourage G unit, which included Tony AO Lloyd banks. This is before young buck, the game was in the video, but he wasn't a part of G unit, but there was an entourage, you know, and each, each artist of any elk has entourage, um, in the rap hip hop world, you know, it can get bigger. Um, and there's a lot of things that have to be dealt with that are just beyond music, jewelry and extras and all that stuff. So, um, and fifth wasn't like a massive entourage, but there was an entourage. And so when show night showed up, I immediately had to go to the, uh, the, the Raleigh studio security and tell them to ask him to leave. And they were like, no. And I said, well, he wasn't on a list. So who's taking responsibility. And what had happened was somebody at the front gate just assume because like M and M was there Dre, like they don't, I don't think a lot of people follow the, the beef and the, the drama of it. They just assume that SHG Knight, who's a well known character in hip hop was supposed to be there. And I think he just drove right by and was like, I'm going in, open up the gate. Um, so he and he parked, he didn't do anything. He wasn't like threatening anybody. He just kind of parked with some of his people and they had, you know, they got outta the car and he was just sitting there on the hood of the car, smoking a cigar, but it's, that's an intimidating thing. And so everyone was sent back to their trailer. We had to stop production. Um, eventually we had to call the police, even though it's private property, which the police are like, well, what do you want us to do? I'm like, well, I just wanna make you aware that there could be an incident at which point, like fifties guys, the entourage were younger as he, as he, like, once this video came out and he became 50 cent that, you know, today, this is almost before that. Right? Like he was still somebody, but he wasn't 50 cent. Um, he had guys with guns, so guns came out, which is obviously illegal, but even more so illegal on sets of music. And I had, I, you know, I'm not a tough guy like that, honestly, I'm not, um, I'm a pacifist and, you know, have been to a, uh, shooting range a couple of times just to get over my fear of guns, but I'm not a big gun person. Just truth be told. So I had to be like, everyone put their guns away. Everything goes, everyone, go back to your trailers, everyone just, you know, inhale, exhale, every, let me take care of it. I didn't know what I was gonna do. Some people from the label who had dealt with Jugg left because they were, you know, fearful. They had, they had had history with him. Um, so we had to shut down the shoot for about, I don't know, an hour. Um, and eventually I went to the front gate, the police showed up. Um, I just asked them to drive by with their sirens on, uh, as a way to just diffuse the situation. Cuz he, like I said, should didn't threaten anybody. He didn't do anything. He was just there. And I think his message was I'm here. Don't think, I don't think, I don't know what you guys are doing. Um, and so eventually the police drove by and he got in his car and drove away. And just like that, there was this, you know, kind of tension release on the set, but we were a solid hour behind schedule. And in the meantime, you know, Dre is a, a professional and just went to his trailer and you know, probably played video games, M who was a professional as well, but was a little more like rambunctious back then he started, you know, hanging out with people and drinking. And so by the time we got to film<affirmative> to filming second parts of the shoot with, he was, we were supposed to have em and Dre in every scene. We really only had him at the beginning looking at 50. And then at the end, when they, we pan past the club and you see em and Dre looking at him, um, they, then they walk away and, you know, but M had like been drinking his drink of choice back then was Bacardi Lamone. And, uh, he, he, it was like, we could, we could only get a, you know, couple of shots off because we were 2, 3, 4 hours behind schedule and he was not in really great shape to be shooting. Another interesting thing about the video is fifties close. So 50, um, as he got bigger and bigger, obviously had his own clothing line G unit clothing that was very successful and he would only wear G unit clothes. And most of the videos that we did, but in this one, he, he didn't really have his clothing line set. You, if you look at the video, when he is on the treadmill, he is wearing G unit, um, sweatpants with the 50 cent down the side, which there was, those are one of a kind like they never really came out with those. Um, because they were all prototypes. He was trying to get a clothing line and trying to do things, but this is before he was a massive hit. Um, so in subsequent videos, 21 questions, many men. And by the time we did P IM P you know, it was all G unit close all the time, every G unit video, we did every time, Yale and banks, any time we did any other videos of which I did over 50 videos with, um, 50 cent, you know, between 50 and, uh, G unit banks, buck, Yale, Olivia hot rod mop. We did some videos. I think Joe actually made a video. Um, so we did like 50 videos together. Most of those you'll notice the closer are G unit clothing from fifties brand. Um, but this one, there is some G units things. And if you see, um, there's a couple versions out there. If you, if you, the main version to watch is the MTV version, uh, which it does have the shooting range or the shooting, uh, range that we had put in there because fifties narrative was that he was shot nine times. And while we're not propagating guns, we thought it was part of his narrative. And so we did have a shooting range, so that, and so there is the, uh, the guys in the, um, uh, Bulletproof vest and on the back, it does say G unit in the international version, we had to take that scene out. So you'll notice it's not in there. Um, little funny aside about this, that scene. So we line everyone up in the shooting range and we have guns, you know, we have prop master and proper guns, but they're all blanks, but there's still real bullets, right? There's no, uh, nothing propels out of the gun, but the bullets themselves have gun powders. So they make noise and they do shoot. So even though we did shoot some, uh, inserts of, of bullets hitting the, uh, target, those were just Squibbs no real bullets were ever shot, but the fake bullets, you know, like we had cool, really cool, slow motion shots of the guys shooting the guns that never made the video. Um, but while they were doing it, one of the bullets CA like ex discharged out of the top of the gun and hit Lloyd banks in the neck, solid skin, and then got under his Bulletproof vest. And I don't know if, you know, I mean, I'm no expert on guns, but bullets are hot. Like bullets coming out of a gun are very hot and they burn skin. And so no matter how gangster you are like a hot bullet on raw skin burns. So we had a whole, it was a whole funny thing where 50 made fun of banks, you know, cuz it, he flinched, you know, it wasn't like, uh, it wasn't, uh, the tough vernacular that, or the tough veneer. Sorry. It wasn't the tough veneer that you normally see. It was, uh, hot metal on raw skin. Um, but we didn't obviously use Mo much of that scene. I think in general, we were trying to avoid with MTV, just, you know, just touching on it. There was a little bit of a performance in there. Um, but if you went back to the footage, there's some really good footage of that and some really good slowmo stuff of those guys firing guns. Um, uh, so there's that the little banks, there's your little banks story. So back to fifties close. So 50 50 changed the game and I don't know that anyone since has done it better, um, he, he made his deals for like for G unit clothing. He made his deal with Reebok and then the way he made the deal, he structured it so that he was a part, he had a, a percentage or stock in the company so that when Reebok sold to Adidas, he made a ton of money and cont continued to be the brand manager of his clothing line. Um, he did the same thing with vitamin water. Um, I think the only thing that he didn't have, um, ownership of that we put in videos was the iPod. Um, I will say Steve jobs is a brilliant marketer. And as a video commissioner, this is probably getting a little too in the weeds. But, uh, as a video commissioner product placement is, is a way to help pay for videos, but it's a real pain in the. I'm not gonna lie. Um, if you're doing a$500,000 video and brand X is giving you$50,000, that's, that's a 10, that's 10% of your budget, which is good. That's a, that's a good savings on a music video. And as far as finance and legal and everyone's concerned, they're all, you know, they always want to get as much money and try and offset costs in any way they can. But as far as dealing with the brand and the product and everything, you, you know, it's as if they're paying for the whole thing and it becomes this colosal pain in the where it doesn't look right, or they're not holding it, or even for some artists, you know, some videos, we would put the brand in the video and then they would want the artist to hold it. And I'm like, well, that's gonna co you know, like, no, we can have the product in the video, but if you want the artist to hold it, that's a whole other thing. And that's a lot more money, you know, like it just becomes a very complicated mess, not with apple. Apple basically said that, you know, Steve jobs told Jimmy and Steve Berman put the iPod in the video, send us a copy of the video. When we see it, we'll give you a hundred grand. So obviously we put that<laugh> we put the iPod in any video we could cuz it didn't matter. We put it in P I M P we put it in hated or love it. Um, we, I don't know, there was a bunch of videos that we would just put the iPod in because it was a hundred grand and it was right at the beginning and it obviously it worked. Um, and then, you know, they did their whole campaign with the white thing with the white earphones. And, but this was a little prior to that, but either way fifties, you know, his, the way he approached it, other than that, everything was something that was his brand. And he was really smart about using it and how we used it in the video and the way it was used. But in the club was one of the you'll notice he's wearing throwbacks. That's not Al G unit. Um, he, it, it it's, there's a purity to it that I really like, not that I don't like the other ones, but there's something that going back and watching it. I was like, wow, this is so genuine and authentic. And, um, to, to say the least the song is, you know, just the most incredible song. It's like no video. Sometimes you get sick of songs. This was one of those that every time we played it, it just, you know, and even in, in the club scene where we had extras and people dancing, you know, like that was all very genuine. Like it sometimes can be hard to get a party going and we, um, did not serve alcohol. It looked, you know, we had a bar right with all fake alcohol and fake, you know, it looked like it was poor in Hennessy, you were born this and that was all, you know, ice teas and sodas and stuff. So because you can't drink on set, you know, there's legalities and we don't wanna be responsible for extras being drunk. Um, so, uh, but the, it felt like when that song came on, it just felt like a party and people had this genuine enthusiasm and you can see it in the club. You know, you can see it in the, the ex because most of the time extras are extras. Um, and they're there to a B in a video probably meet the artist. Um, you know, it's not like central casting where you pay them a lot of money. There's, you know, they're not making a lot of money. Um, so you don't always get the best people and that's okay. Like that's not, I'm not saying it as a bad thing. It's like, they're not necessarily front to camera people, but you need people in the video. So you have people. Um, this one was just, there was a lot of that, but the music came on and everybody just partied. It was just a party. It just felt like a party. And by the way, I still like that song comes on in a bar or a club or anywhere people just respond. Everyone knows that opening, go, go, go show is birthday. You know, like it just, it's just a party. It just feels there's something so comforting about this song. Um, that I, We shot the, every se there was, I saw something online where it said, not that we didn't use a scene. I don't remember not using a scene. Like I said, the shooting range was taken outta the international version. Um, each scene was shot produced sequentially. Um, there was some cool cameos exhibit just was happened to be, no, he knew people. He knew like everyone knew exhibit. He was in LA. He knew Dre. So he came by, he was on the song. So he made a cameo. Um, the, some of the D 12 guys proof was in there. Um, and the game makes his first appearance in a video. This is probably a solid year and a half, two years before his record dropped. Um, and then, um, who kid was a DJ? He was, he was fifties DJ in the G unit DJ for a long time. He may still be, I don't know, but I know that's who the DJ was in there. Um, and we had, you know, the polygraph test cuz we wanted like part of it was the, you know, making sure that his words were legit, you know, like you wanted to, you know, the shady aftermath artist development center. Um, we had to, you know, make sure that the words that the artist were saying were legit. So there was that scene. It was him recording the music. There's the club. There was obviously the beginning part where they're putting him together where he's, you know, the bionic rapper. Um, I'm not, as I recall, um, we had the gym set up. That was the first setup that we really did. Um, the opening of the video where we pan past the thing and you see him come down from the bar and I think, I think it was 50. He was like, I can, you know, do a sit up and just like lean in upside down. Um, and I mean, you know, you, those are the kind of things that happen, you know, not very many times in your career where you just see an artist, even though he had done Wata, you know, this song and this thing, this, this album that was about to drop. And then, you know, the opening scene of the artist that you're doing a video for his performance is like him lowering himself down from a bar upside down wrapping. And it was just, it was magic. It really was like, we were on set like, yeah, this is, this is something, this is gonna be something. And, uh, so yeah, so that was, that was really special. So the edit was pretty, pretty solid and everyone had signed off on it. And the only one who had an issue was Marshall and the only issue we had. So at the end of the video, you'll see, we pan past the wall to, we come out of the club and em and Dre are taking notes and then they kind of like give each other, they look at each other thumbs up, like he's ready to go. Like we were ready to send him out to the world. And, um, we had this amazing wide shot of em, Andre walking down this tunnel, right. That was kind of like a super, the futuristic tunnels of the shady aftermath artist development center. And that's how we were gonna fade out. You know, like with them walking away, like the silhouette shot of em, Andre in white lab coats, you know, fi finishing their notes, ready to sign off on this artist, 50 cent coming out. And that's how it ended. And it was amazing. It was so amazing. But M because he had been drinking all night, there's a, there you can actually, and you can, when you have the wide shot, you can see him stumble a bit. If you really paid attention, that's all he looked at. He's like, I looked drunk, you can see me stumbling. And I fought so hard to keep that shot in. And he was just not, he wanted to lose the whole scene. So what we had to do was use a earlier shot of them, like a mid shot of them. And they turned and walk away, but it's not this. And then we ended up fading on 50, just like a shot of 50 in the club. And then we go away. But that the original ending had like the silhouette shot of, you know, the master, the doctors, the, you know, em and Dre, ready to release it to the world. So, but we did, I was like, we have to have the shot of you guys walking. Like we need to reveal the, you know, we come out of the club and you guys are watching him. That's the whole point of it. So the compromise was what you see in the video today, but the original stuff was, mm God. It was such a great, it was so great. But you know, it didn't hurt the project obviously. Um, as it was one of the great videos, sometimes creative, it can be so fun and frustrating and funny creative. Um, alright. The video was nominated for five VMAs that year. I think it was 2002, 2003, 2003, right. It was nominated for five VMAs, um, video of the year, which was the third one in a row for me, nominated didn't win best male video, didn't win viewer's choice, video, didn't win best rap video. It did win. And then best new artist, which it won. So it won two outta five, which is about 40%. Yeah, I think so. Um, I think what was so fascinating was how the culture shifted around 50, you know, like there was gangster rap, right? And there was a lot of people doing it. And there was a lot of successful people doing it. And it was a and hip hop. It wasn't like 50 came in and changed hip hop because hip hop was hip hop and it was very popular at the time, but culture itself and the way the pop culture and rap culture, it did shift around 50 where he was his narrative of being shot nine times. And this, he was authentically a gangster with a real genuine articulate way of saying it with the songs that worked and a real sense of co of chorus and, and music. Um, and an authenticity that, you know, you just, you can't, you can't fake that. You just can't, you can try. Some people get to a certain point, but 50 cent was, was the real deal is the real deal and get Richard die. Trying is a classic for the ages. Um, the song today is still a classic and the video is a Testament to like the early two thousands, the early knots and something that I am so proud and honored and privileged to have been a part of. Um, a little closing note, uh, at the end of the video, you'll know, you'll notice that we did some cameos. We didn't use everybody, but there's 50, there's a game thing. You'll see,'em dancing with a girl. Um, but we tried to do some closeups on key people, including Lloyd banks, which we used sitting next to 50. And then we did Tony Yale. And I remember we were filming Yale and we had a closeup right on Yale and Yale kept putting his hands in front of his face. And I remember like, yo man, what are you, what are you doing? And he's like, nothing. Nah, that's cool. Like, let's do it again. And he would do it and he'd put his hands up in front of his, like waving it in front of his face. And I was like, yo, I don't, I don't get it. Why are you putting your hands in front? And he's like, Randy, he's like, I, I have a warrant out for my arrest. And I'm like, what? You know, that's these, that's all authentic. I, I don't know. I'm like the commissioner of a video. Like, what do you put, you know, like, what is this hands in front of your face? And, um, I don't, he's like, I don't want anyone to see my face. I'm not supposed to be here. I don't, you know, I'm like, oh, okay, well, do you wanna send out to you? He's like, no, you can use it. Just make sure that the hands in front of the face, that way they can't really identify me. Um, and in true sooth Slayer, you know, Tony ye vision, he, um, two weeks later on a new year's Eve party, there was an incident with the police and they ran his thing and they, they did arrest him. They did, he ended up going to Rikers and, and come February when M and M played the Grammy's. Um, they all, I dunno if you remember, but like M and there's the D 12 guys I wore the free Yale hashtag free Yale. That became a whole thing. Um, but that was Yale in this video doing the thing to, and, and even Kanye, it became a, it became a thing, right. Everyone knows the Yale, even Kanye, who he said, like cameras flash so much that I gotta do that. Yay dance. So it was like, that's, this is where it was born, was born in this video. And it was done out of almost a necessity by Yayo, which, you know, for me was so fascinating. And, um, who knew that it would still to this day be something that people, people still do. They still do the AO. So that's it that's episode two 50 cent in the club. Um, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. That was really a fun travel down memory lane. Um, next episode's gonna be, uh, Christine Aguilera, pink, BAA, little Kim, Missy Elliot with, uh, the classic Mullan Rouge soundtrack song, lady Marlo. Um, lots of, lots of fun stories there. That was a really fun shoot, um, and, uh, more episodes to follow after that. So thank you for listening. My name is Randy Sasson, and I'll leave you with this. Water is a beverage whose flavor is temperature.