Right at 12 minutes in length, the short music film stars Imagine Dragons lead singer Dan Reynolds as Reynold, a man whose one bad choice lands him in prison and separated from the woman he loves, played by Reynolds’ real-life wife Aja Volkman.
The video goes back and forth between alternate outcomes, one of him paying his debt to society and reuniting with his love and the other is him being sentenced to death by lethal injection.
The first 5 minutes of the video tell the story of the crime, a pawn shop robbery gone awry resulting in Reynold killing the pawn store clerk. The video continues with Reynold being incarcerated and struggling with the consequences of his actions.
The video was directed by Mark Pellington, who has directed videos such as Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy” and U2’s “One.” Pellington believed that the emotional ballad deserved so much more than the usual four minute vignette. He has directed other short films for Demi Lovato, Natasha Bedingfield, Foo Fighters and Linkin Park, to name just a few.
Filming took place over 4 days, the longest in the band’s history. 3 days were spent in Los Angeles but the 1 day spent filming in Las Vegas was a grueling one. Scenes filmed in Las Vegas included the pawn shop robbery, which filmed at Bargain Pawn in North Las Vegas, and the prison scenes filmed at the (now closed) North Las Vegas Detention Center.
“The cells were tiny and I’m extremely claustrophobic because I was locked in a tiny box as a prank by one of my brothers when I was little when he was doing a magic trick and he kept me in a box too long,” Reynolds told Billboard.
Reynolds says he has definitely been bitten by the acting bug again, and he is looking at some screenplays written by Volkman that the two are thinking about turning into “homemade indie films.”
Read more here about the making of the short music film and check out the full video below!
Imagine Dragons | Next To Me
“Imagine Dragons – Next To Me” by ImagineDragonsVEVO
Congrats to all our locals that worked on this:
- Silver State Production Services
- Jason Miller
- Justin Folger
- Pat Mong
- Traiana Nescheva
- Charles Tollefson
- Alex Miller
- Rich Hopkins
- Sofia de Chazal
- Guardian Elite Medical Services (GEMS)
- Orvis Slack