Hasta La Motion!

Los Angeles band Maroon 5 is promoting the single “Sugar” with a music video inspired by the 2005 romantic comedy Wedding Crashers. Shot on December 6 2014 by Wedding Crasher and The Judge director David Dobkin, the music video replaces Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn with lead singer Adam Levine and band travelling from wedding to wedding to provide guest performances at the reception. The grooms at each reception were briefed beforehand and it seems establishing shots included a few actors. However the weddings are the real deal. Levine is well known in the US for his role as coach on NBC talent show The Voice.

Dobbin explains the thinking behind the music video. “The joy was inherent in the concept… and the love of the band,” he explains. “I wanted to do something that captured their audience and the intimate connection they have with the band in a pure way. It is a time capsule of emotion that will always have the magic of the band inside it.”

Dobkin in an interview with VH1 reveals some of the work behind the scenes.

“It was pretty intense. I was like, nobody can know, but then I realized, one person is going to have to know. I didn’t want the brides to know so we talked to the grooms. Until the week before, the groom didn’t even know who the band was. We said, this is a Grammy award winning top 10 band. We’re coming to your wedding and here’s how it’s going to work. I realized there had to be a reveal. That moment of recognition, that’s the juice. So I need them to be behind a curtain and the curtain drops and it reveals them. I had to design and build this thing that was like a pop-up tent and then you could press a button and the curtain drops. It sounds simple but it took us the better part of a month to figure it out. It was just a nightmare. Then I got to all the wedding planners around L.A. and had to go to all the venues to see how we could infiltrate them without anyone knowing. There was only going to be a 20 minute window for us to sneak in, pop up the tent, and get the band in without anyone noticing them. I had 6 cameras set up and dressed as if they were in the wedding. You really only have one shot at this. It ended up being 7 or 8 weddings, all in one day, some day, some night.”

Credits

The Maroon 5 Wedding Crashers music video was shot by director David Dobkin via Black Dog Films with executive producer Melinda Kelly.