While it’s a pretty known fact in the Backstreet Boys fandom, some people may not know that there are actually two video versions for their song “Drowning.”
The first music video was very dark, with the boys standing in front of a green screen with CGI water around them, including a huge tidal wave at the climax of the song.
Get it. Drowning. Ha.
The CGI in the video was horrible and I don’t believe it has ever been said who was the original director of the video.
However, once Jive saw the video, they trashed it and called in a man who knew how to make a good Backstreet Boys video – Nigel Dick.
You’ll remember Nigel Dick from being the director of “As Long As You Love Me” and “All I have To Give.” He was also the director of the MTV movie about a fictional boy band, “2Gether.”
The powers that be did not like the original version of “Drowning” which was shot by someone else. My brief was: “shoot some performance with beautiful photography and don’t make it expensive or blue or grey or wet!” To get the gig I re-wrote that sentence into a seven line paragraph and that was the concept – probably the shortest one I have ever written.
From one perspective re-shoots are easy because you have a perfect example of what they don’t want – all you have to do is do the opposite – however it’s also unsettling because, whatever my feelings about the other version, I feel somehow that I’m betraying the work of the previous director. But I’ve had people reject my videos in the past and re-shoot them, and I like working with BSB, so I just got over myself and got on with the gig.
– Nigel Dick
Gotta admit, that is one beautiful video.
