Mark Pellington is one of the most successful music video directors of all time.
He's best known for directing Pearl Jam's iconic "Jeremy" video, and Pellington has also directed projects for Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson and Public Enemy, among other artists.
But there was one video in particular that still upsets him to this day: 1999's "We're In This Together" with Nine Inch Nails.
Pellington and frontman Trent Reznor had a falling out during editing, and they haven't spoken since they both released their own versions of the video, according to Stereogum.
Sixteen years later, the director has posted a column on Alternative Nation that details the situation:
We got a call one day, "Oh, they want all the footage," because the record was coming out. I could tell Trent was really nervous about how the record was going to do. This wasn't the first time I had dealt with artists being really supportive of the video, then before it comes out they start to get a little bit nervous. I understand though, it's their image.
So he re-edited it, and I'm like, "You can't fuck this video up unless you really mangle the rhythm." It wasn't even like, "Oh, I want to put more me in there." They re-edited it, and I will go on record as saying they mangled it. What was more disappointing was I didn't hear from him. I had really felt like we had gone down this road together, and if you're not happy with it, say you're not happy with it and you want to change it. But to hear it kind of second hand was a little bit disappointing...
It was just disappointing. I ask somebody to do a song for a movie, and I end up not liking or using the song, I respect the artist and call them and tell them. "Fuck dude, I'm really sorry it didn't work out. The song didn't fit, your interpretation wasn't right for it." That's just respect.
We recently wrote about Pellington's video for Cage the Elephant's "Cigarette Daydreams." Check it out here.
