Downtown Los Angeles is the setting for all kinds of music video productions, but few spots are as popular with the GNP (generator-and-playback) crowd than the Second Street Tunnel.
The white tiled interior is great for reflecting light and making rock stars look appropriately rock-starrish — a trick it also pulls for the majority of car commerciala and Bladerunners.
The visual scale is grand, but the tunnel is actually pretty small — just 1,500 feet — and easy to permit and shut down, which helps keep it popular with scouts and producers.
Here's just a few videos that have depended upon this classic shooting location.
BRUNO MARS "GRENADE" (NABIL, dir.)
Nabil had Bruno Mars drag his piano underneath Grand Avenue in the clip for "Grenade."
MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE "SING" (PR BROWN, dir.)
The clean surface of the tunnel is now marked by a few missing tiles, giving it more of a dystopian future kind of vibe. This worked perfectly for P. R. Brown and My Chemical Romance on
"Sing" as they fight our inevitable future oppressors.
BON JOVI "IT'S MY LIFE" (WAYNE ISHAM, dir.)
Wayne Isham probably delivered the Second Street Tunnel's starring role as the performance (and ahead of it's time webcast) location for Bon Jovi in 'It's My Life.'
What else?
30 Seconds to Mars kept things bit more real, with a late night underground bike ride and Spanish language superstar Chayanne scored big with the 'girlfriend dead in a car wreck' and 'pull back at the end to reveal it was all a movie' daily double - all inside the tunnel. The Goo Goo Dolls did the iconic performance thing in the tunnel, even if all the steampunk telescopes and Nic Cage were elsewhere.
There must be others missing from this list, so feel free to add them in the comments...
PS: No, it is not the location for the famous (at least amongst certain MV nerds) Jonathan Glazer "Rabbit in Your Headlights" clip, but pretty much any other tunnel-based clip ...
Doug Stern writes music video treatments and videotapes tunnels.
