The music video for "Give It Away" was made by French fashion photographer and director Stéphane Sednaoui. Kiedis wanted the video to be visually distinct and readily identifiable but disliked much of the material Warner Bros. sent for him to choose from: "I started viewing reels and reels and reels of video directors but nothing looked good to me. Everything was the same, boring, homogenized, contrived ****."
Upon finding Sednaoui's reel, however, Kiedis noticed it was "like nothing else. It was slower and poetic, shot in black and white. It seemed like authentic art, not something shot for MTV." He and Flea met with Sednaoui to talk about the video, for which the director proposed a "very desolated [and] very graphic landscape," while heavily focusing on the band members with little to no outside influence.
It was decided that the video would be filmed in black and white while Sednaoui took the idea of painting the band members with silver acrylic from previous photo shoots he had done. Sednaoui recalls that he was "amazed by what [the band] gave me because they went far far far beyond what I was expecting and I think that's one of my best experiences in that regard".[22] The overall mood of the video was intended to be a personification of the song, which is upbeat and lively.
Sednaoui experimented with a variety of cinematography techniques including wide-angle lenses, shots from below the subjects, superimposition, vertically cut screens displaying different angles of the same shot, reverse film effects, multiple lighting situations and flashy clothing to convey his concept.
Frusciante noted the feeling of the video to be extremely vibrant and over the top: "When it was us just painting ourselves silver and wearing these big silver boots and stuff, I mean it felt like glam rock or something."
The video begins with a wide-angle shot of Flea in a desert setting wearing pants with several gold colored horns protruding from each leg. The bassist is standing in a meditative stance and brings his arms together above his head when the music begins to play. The video then transitions between a variety of shots edited together that consist of the four band members standing with their eyes closed; the band dancing around in a dimly lit setting; a ground view of Frusciante playing a reflective silver Fender Stratocaster in between his legs while wearing pants made up entire of small pieces of mirror; the band members moving around with full makeup on; and the band members dancing frenziedly. Kiedis adopted a deliberately outlandish wardrobe which incorporated gold lipstick, thinly braided hair, revealing meshed shorts and bright silver boots.
During the backwards guitar solo, Frusciante was filmed waving a large aluminum ribbon; Kiedis was initially apprehensive about Sednaoui's desire for the guitarist to do so, believing he would tell the director "'**** you and take that dancing ribbon and shove it up your French ass, buddy' but [Frusciante] gladly went off and made love to the air with this dancing ribbon. He would have danced around for hours with that thing."
The footage was edited in reverse to complement the solo. While some of the scenes in the video were planned with a storyboard, much of it was improvised or made up on the spot over the two-day shoot.
During a particular scene Kiedis began to move his tongue flamboyantly to dramatically accentuate the lyrics, which Sednaoui believed was extremely beneficial to the exuberant nature of the video.
Where the video begins in what appears to be the daytime, it concludes at dusk with silhouettes of the band members running into the setting sun.
The video—which cost an estimated $140,000 to produce—was completed while Kiedis and Frusciante were on a promotional trip through Europe in support of Blood Sugar Sex Magik.[23] When the vocalist first saw it, he was "more hysterically ecstatic about that piece of visual footage than anything [the band had] ever done."
Warner Bros. executives, however, were worried that the content would be "too weird" or "too artsy" for the general public and favored a more traditional premise in contrast to the experimental approach Sednaoui took.
The video was ultimately released without being edited by the record label; since then it has been widely credited as being a considerable factor in the Red Hot Chili Peppers' success and greatly increased their international popularity.
Journalist Jeff Apter noted the video's "funky brew of goofy looks, a subtle invasive hook, Flea's spindly fingered baseline and Kiedis' crotch-hugging shorts made the clip essential viewing across MTV throughout the last few months of 1991."Steve Huey of Allmusic commented in his review of the song that "MTV jumped all over the visually distinctive video."
It was nominated for three awards—"Best Alternative Video", "Breakthrough Video", and "Best Art Direction"—at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards, for which it won the latter two.
The music video for "Wannabe" was the first for director Jhoan Camitz. Camitz was hired on Fuller's recommendation because of his commercials for Volkswagen, Diesel, and Nike. His original concept for the video was a one-take shoot of the group arriving at an exotic building in Barcelona, taking over the place, and running a riot—the same way they did when they were looking for a manager and a record company.
A few days before the shoot on 19 April 1996, Camitz was unable to get permission to use the building, and the shoot was relocated to the Midland Grand Hotel in St Pancras, London.
The video features the group running, singing, dancing, and creating mischief at an eccentric bohemian party. Among their antics is Chisholm's back handspring on one of the tables. Because the video needed to be taken in one shot, the group rehearsed the routine several times through the night, while a steadycam operator followed them.
About the experience, Halliwell wrote: "The video I remember as being very chaotic and cold. It wasn't very controlled—we didn't want it to be. We wanted the camera to capture the madness of the Spice Girls".
Virgin's executives were horrified with the final result: "the girls were freezing cold, which showed itself in various different ways", Ashley Newton recalled.
The video was later banned in some parts of Asia because of Brown's erect nipples.
Additionally, the lighting was considered too dark and gloomy; the best takes showed the girls bumping with the furniture and looking behind them. Virgin was concerned that old people appeared on the video, the part when they jump up on the table, and Halliwell's showgirl outfit would be considered too threatening by music channels. Virgin immediately opened discussions about a re-shoot of the video or creating an alternate one for the US,
but the group refused. The video was sent for trial airing in its original form.
When the music video first appeared on the British cable network The Box, it was selected so frequently that it reached the top of the viewers' chart within two hours of going on air, and stayed at number one for thirteen weeks.
It was aired up to seventy times a week at its peak and became the most requested track in the channel's history. The video won Best Dance Video at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards, and Best Video at the 1997 Comet Media Awards. It was also nominated for Best British Video at the 1997 BRIT Awards.
The promotional music video for "Smack My Bitch Up", directed by Swedish music video director Jonas Åkerlund depicts a night out in the city filmed from a first-person perspective, portraying drinking and driving, snorting cocaine, violence, vandalism, nudity and sex.
The unedited version also includes a scene of heroin use, a hit and run incident and full sex scene. The protagonist takes a stripper (played by model Teresa May) home and has sex with her. As the stripper leaves with her things, the protagonist glances in the mirror, is revealed to be a woman, and passes out on the bed.
The music video for "Smack My Bitch Up" drew fierce criticism for misogyny despite its ending, particularly from feminist groups such as the US National Organization for Women, accusing it of encouraging violence against women, despite the main protagonist being a woman. Others, however, praised the video because of the way it subverted politically correct stereotypes of domestic violence, showing that women are also abusers.
Though universally banned from television, massive demands on MTV eventually had them relent and show the video, but only after midnight and following an MTV News warning. In mid-2002, the full unedited version of this video was aired on MTV2 as part of a special countdown showing the most controversial videos ever to air on MTV. This countdown was only shown late at night because of the graphic imagery of "Smack My Bitch Up" and several other videos on the countdown, such as the video for Nine Inch Nails' "Closer". This video was at #1 on the countdown and therefore named the "Most Controversial Video" in MTV's history. Programming blocks in the United States containing the unedited video for "Smack My Bitch Up" automatically gained a rating of TV-MA-LSV (sometimes TV-M-DLSV).
Despite the controversy, the video would be nominated for four MTV Video Music Awards, and eventually won Best Dance Video and Breakthrough Video. Eight years later, the full version of the video was aired and voted #1 on New Zealand television show 'U Choose 40', screened on music channel C4 as part of their 'Most Shocking Videos' and 'Top 10 - That's Shocking!' (June 10, 2007) countdowns and voted #2 as part of the 'Banned In The USA!' countdown on August 24, 2007.
In 2010, the song was voted as the most controversial song of all time in a survey conducted by PRS for Music.
The music video for "Stupid Girl" was filmed on January 16, 1996 in Los Angeles by director Samuel Bayer. The video for "Stupid Girl" is a performance piece, inspired by the title sequence from David Fincher's 1995 movie Se7en.
The clip was shot in just four hours entirely within a warehouse.
Bayer cut the film into pieces, and soaked it in his bath, applying deliberate fingerprints and abrasions to the footage before putting it back together by hand.
Bayer later re-edited a second version of the video, with alternative footage from the original shoot for a remix version of "Stupid Girl" by Todd Terry.
The "Stupid Girl" video was nominated in the Best New Artist in a Video category at the 1996 MTV Video Music Awards, losing to the Stéphane Sednaoui-directed video for Alanis Morissette's "Ironic".
The music video was directed by Walter Stern and was filmed in an abandoned London Underground tunnel at Aldwych.
Keith Flint's appearance and the video's stark black and white also instigated controversies about being too scary for children watching it. Some television channels even refused to show the video until after the watershed.
The footage in the music video accompanies Scatman who stands in front of many backgrounds in different locations (through green screen) as he sings about the problems of the world, and invites the viewer to join him in his fantasy world called Scatland. The song expresses hope and satires the meaningless divide in the modern world between cultures and race.
There were two different videos for "Cornflake Girl". The UK version was directed by Big TV!, two directors from the UK. Tori said that is based on The Wizard of Oz, except that Dorothy goes to Hell instead. This version was considered slightly too "strange" for American audiences and a second version was made, which was co-directed by Amos herself along with Nancy Bennett. The American video features Tori driving a truck full of girls around a typical American desert
"Zombie" was released as a music video in 1994. The video was directed by Samuel Bayer, and produced by Doug Friedman and H.S.I. Productions. In the video Dolores O'Riordan is covered in gold makeup and appears in front of a cross. The video also contains shots of British soldiers on patrol in Northern Ireland. The video refers to The Easter Rising in Ireland in 1916, and is a criticism of the continuation of violence in Ireland from then until the song's release in 1994. The song is about how memories and resentment of past injustices cause a cycle of violence.
The music video for "1979" was directed by the team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, who had previously directed the music video for "Rocket". Originally, the band approached another director (possibly Spike Jonze) to film the video for "1979". His idea was that all the band members were residents in an alien hotel and they were all going to have specially made alien-elephant masks. This video would have cost over a million dollars.
The video follows a day in the life of disaffected suburban teenagers driving around in a Dodge Charger. It is based on a concept Corgan created, featuring an idealized version of teenage life, while also trying to capture the feeling of being bored as a teenager. Originally, Corgan wanted a scene of violence, in which the convenience store was trashed by the teens at the end of the video, but Dayton and Faris convinced him to go for something more tame. Aside from Corgan appearing throughout the video in the backseat of a car, the other band members had small parts in the video; James Iha appears as a convenience store clerk, D'arcy Wretzky as an irate neighbor, Jimmy Chamberlin as a policeman, and all three of them appear together as the band in the party scene. Band manager "Gooch" plays Jimmy's partner.
Upon finishing the video shoot, the band flew to New York to perform. However, all tapes of the footage were accidentally left sitting on top of a car, and were lost as the driver departed. The group later flew back to reshoot the entire video again.
The "1979" video was highly acclaimed. It won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Alternative Video in 1996. It was one of Canadian cable television music channel MuchMusic's Countdown number-one videos of 1996. Billy Corgan considers it the Pumpkins' best video, calling it "the closest we've ever come to realizing everything we wanted."
Two music videos were made for the song. The video used for the European market was filmed in the Sacré-Cœur area of Paris. It was directed by Adolfo Doring.
The video depicts the story of two lovers, a young man and a lady, who have been separated by circumstances. The woman arrives in Paris, possibly at Gare du Nord station, in search of her lover, who is also waiting for her. He is wandering in various places within the Montmartre area, including the Soleil de la Butte restaurant. In between the scenes involving the two lovers, Darren Hayes can be seen walking around Paris, in locations such as the place de la Concorde and the Jardin des Tuileries. He is singing, thereby acting as a narrator to the story involving the two lovers. Towards the end of the video, Hayes enters a small concert hall where Daniel Jones is playing guitar. Shortly afterwards, the young lady manages to find her lover, right in the centre of Paris. They are both filled with emotion on seeing each other again. The video ends with Hayes and Jones coming out of the concert hall, and coming across the two lovers who are rejoicing in their reunion. The second video, used for the Australian market, features the pair performing in the outback.
Two music videos were released for the song; a low-budget version in Australia and a second, higher-budget version for America and international markets. The first video, released in 1996, showed the band performing in a room full of disco lights and Darren Hayes singing on the back of a moving vehicle. The second video, released in 1997, features the band in a stylised futuristic warehouse and recording studio.