3. VIDEOS 4 - 2

4. "What's It Gonna Be"
Cost: $2,400,000+
Artist: Busta Rhymes (featuring Janet Jackson)

A tremendously cool video involving tons of special effects that Busta Rhymes co-directed. The story involves Busta (as some kind of morphy glass creature) hookin' up with Janet (also a morphy glass creature). They sing, they morph, they sing, and they morph a little more, and at the end of the video, they both explode into little glass shards. Gross. But in a good way.

The visuals are reminiscent of movies like The Abyss and Terminator 2: Judgment Day in which a humanoid creature is able to change its appearance, yet still appear completely believable. In "What's It Gonna Be," Janet and Busta are constantly mushing around each other, sometimes transparent (like glass), sometimes reflective (like mirrors). Believe us, you can see where the $2.4 million went.

  • Virtual set: $100,000
  • Each morph: $30,000 (boy, did these add up . . .)
  • Busta's glass costume: $40,000
  • Janet and Busta's explosion: $20,000


3. "Heartbreaker"

Cost: $2,500,000+
Artist: Mariah Carey

Here's a video that makes almost no sense. Mariah starts out on a movie date with B-level star Jerry O'Connell, when some hoodlums start throwing popcorn at them. To escape the trauma, Mariah runs to the bathroom, where she encounters her evil twin (portrayed by Mariah in a black wig). Good Mariah and Evil Mariah start getting all Jackie Chan on each other, when they turn into cartoons. Then the video ends.

Much like Missy Elliot's "She's a Bitch," we have no idea why this video turned out to be so expensive. We can only suspect that the first version stunk, so they probably did some re-shooting. We would've hated to see the first version, though.

  • Movie theater rental: $100,000
  • Mansion rental (in the movie): $40,000
  • Hairstyling: $13,000
  • Dog and its trainer: $6,000
  • Fight coordinator: $7,000
  • Animation: $80,000
  • Jerry O'Connell's cameo fee: $10,000


2. "Victory"
Cost: $2,700,000+
Artist: Puff Daddy (featuring Notorious B.I.G. & Busta Rhymes)

"Victory," like 5 others of the videos on this list, is a rap video, and what a rap video "Victory" is. It has everything, including exploding airplanes, suicidal leaps from buildings, helicopters, and shootouts. Like much of Puff Daddy's repertoire, this video is about a man's escape from the police who are wrongly accusing him of a crime. As P.D. runs across the city's rooftops, a bunch of snobs in a party look out the window at the ensuing action, obviously wishing that they had such excitement in their lives. And playing through the background of the entire video is an opera aria that lends the entire video a dramatic flair. While it may not have much computer animation, this video definitely has a "movie feel" to it; this level of detail is what makes the video cost so much, and seem so cool.

  • Building an airplane and blowing it up: $55,000
  • Pyrotechnic special effects: $100,000
  • Artificial rain: $10,000
  • Helicopter rental: $21,000
  • Stuntman fee: $5,000 per jump from building to building
  • Security on the set: $10,000