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"Wannabe" cover
Spice Girls
Director(s) Jhoan Camitz
Producer(s) Mod Films
Length 3:57

Wannabe is a music video by the Spice Girls.

Spice_Girls_-_Wannabe-0

Spice Girls - Wannabe-0

Music video by Spice Girls performing Wannabe.






Music Video[]

Synopsis[]

The video starts with the words "Spice Girls" and the the location of the shooting of the video "London - St. Pancras grand hotel". The Girls are then seen running across the road and then jump in unison with Melanie C exclaiming, "We're gonna do it, we gonna do it!" A car pulls up and exit a family of four prompting them to sing a verse of Wannabe, which at the same time Emma takes the hat of a man and helps him try get money from the family. Hopeless of trying to make any difference, they proceed in running into the hotel.

As they all run in, Emma and Melanie B throw up the papers containing the names of whom are permitted into the hotel, which shock the people hanging around the entrance. Melanie B and Geri then proceed on to singing the first verse together as all the other girls proceed further into the hotel. Then Melanie C sings her lines which is followed by a group dance routine on the staircase. Emma then proceeds on to sing her line, followed by the Mel B's and Geri's verse.

The girls enter a dining area where they wreck havoc and and party with the people including Melanie C doing a backflip on a table, rapping from Melanie Brown and Geri. At the end of the video the girls run out of the hotel and run past police officers called upon to take care of the problem at that the girls present. But the girls run past them and hop of the bus, as it drives away they wave a say "bye." The videos end with all the girls name in red on a black background.

Wannabe shot

The Spice Girls at the Midland Grand Hotel in St. Pancras, London

Development[]

In Girl Power! Geri wrote about the concept of the video:

"I remember the chaos and the cold. It wasn't very controlled – we didn't want it to be. We wanted the camera to capture the madness of Spice. I had very big shoes on and fell over many times. I watched it again recently and thought it was like a comedy, really. All the other girls gave me the award for being the biggest prat in it! It's the most spontaneous of our videos."

The music video for Wannabe was shot in April 1996, directed by Jhoan Camitz and produced by Mod Films. The clip appears to be one continuous take (although there were two barely noticeable edits) of the girls creating mischief at the Midland Grand Hotel in St. Pancras, when in fact it was two continous shots. 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 required to be taken in one shoot, the group rehearsed the routine several times through the night, while a guy strapped up to a steadycam ran around after them. Altogether, the music video cost up to £130,000 with minimalistic costs for costumes such as Geri's outfit costing £20.

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 the permission to use the building, so the shoot was relocated to the Midland Grand Hotel in St Pancras, London.

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. Aditionally, the lighting was considered too dark and gloomy, the best takes showed the girls bumping with the furniture and looking behind them. Virgin was also worried that music channels would consider too threatening the fact that old people appeared on the video, the part when they jumped up on the table, and Halliwell's showgirl outfit. Immediately Virgin opened discussions about a re-shoot of the video or to make a different one for the U.S., but the group refused and the video was sent for trial airing in its original form.

Promotion[]

A promotional video for the song which includes clips from the making of the video was issued by Virgin Records before the official video was released. In the promo the group is seen singing Wannabe at the recording studio; they described the origin of "Spice" and their first impressions of each other, and they also sang the chorus of One Of These Girls, which would eventually was released as the B-side for their third single, 2 Become 1.

Reception[]

Awards and honours[]

The video for Wannabe gets a trial airing on UK cable network The Box music channel, which was the premiere of the music video in the UK. It was selected so frequently that it reached the top of the viewers' chart within 2 hours of going on air, staying at number-one for 13 weeks, being aired up to 70 times a week at its peak and becoming 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 and it was also ranked at number forty-one in the Top 100 Pop Videos of all time by Channel 4.

FHM magazine has voted Wannabe as the sexiest music video:

"No, of course they don't get their bits out. But here's Baby running up and down the stairs of a fabulous mansion in her pigtails and miniskirt, Posh before she became pseudo royalty and people still fancied her, Sporty when her looks still relected her nickname and the first of many, many public outings for Mel B and Geri's astonishing breasts. Their time as band may've passed but we feel their contribution to trouser arousal must be noted."

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