Maroon 5’s music video for Sugar has over 54 million views. Chances are you’ve seen the beautifully-shot short film about Adam Levine and the band crashing weddings in L.A:
But did the band actually crash weddings? That’s the question that’s been up for debate all week. We reached out to the band for comment, but they had none to share. So here’s what we know about the realness of the video:
There are real weddings in it.We cannot say that all of the weddings are legit, but there are at least two weddings featured in the video that were really real, with completely blindsided brides and guests that went nuts about the surprise Maroon 5 performance.
Wedding photographer Eric Parsons told me (in the video above) that he was shooting one of the weddings, of Sharon and Steve, when Maroon 5 made their surprise appearance. “Sharon knew nothing about it,” he said. She’s the one who mouths “WTF” in the video.
Here’s a photo that Eric took at the wedding. (Eric Parsons via Splash News)
A second photographer, Duke Khodaverdian, said Maroon 5 crashed another wedding, Sharis and Martin’s.
“Around 10:30, some producer came up and said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we have a great surprise for you.’ Everyone went berzerk. The room was electric.”
You know the parts of the video where the band is taking shots of Cognac ? That’s from the wedding he shot. Some proof:
There are staged performance scenes.
Though the scenes from his party really happened, Parsons suspects that some of the other wedding shots were staged.
“(The bride and I) knew at least one was for sure (staged) so they could get those dramatic overhead shots from a boom arm, and some of the slow-mo scenes like the confetti falling and the break dancer. You need a lot of light to do those types of shots in slow-mo; more than the existing light you’d have at any indoor venue.”
Actors were probably used.
As Jezebel points out, there’s a groom played by an actor who got married a few years ago. Also, there are two actors who apparently played the parts of parents of the bride. They posted about their experience to Facebook, before quickly deleting it.
In Parson’s opinion:
“My feeling initially was that the Asian wedding was also staged, just from the amount of footage that was all too perfect, and again, how well-lit the venue was. That wedding shows the band sneaking through past guests and even cooks in the kitchen.”
The video is awesome.
Real, or partially-real, we think this music video rocks. What do you think?
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