Sadly it does not happen so often to review one of the R.E.M. videos. Sadly, because finally it does not bother me so much as other videos to actually listen to the music of the video for like 10 times to write this article. “Au contraire” it took 1 or 2 plays in order to understand that the video was not stopping for buffering, but it actually was intended.

And this video has got so much to say that I guess the space I have is not enough, so don’t waste anymore of that.

Where:  Broadway Studios in the Astoria district of New York City.

When: September 1998

How: The video was filmed in stop-frame photography by the Icelandic Snorri brothers. The “Snorri Cam” rig that was invented during this video became a legendary piece of filmmaking equipment: the snorri cam is basically a technic solution where the cam is somehow attached to the body, and steady filming a part of the body. The amazing effect it produces is that the environment changes, and the filmed part is fixed. As simple as that.

Concept: “I was in New York, putting together a book of haikus that I worked on with several dear friends of mine over the course of a year. And I was walking down the steps of this building, it was probably four o’clock in the afternoon, and I come to a door — it’s apartment 3d or something — and there’s a sign on it that says “Daysleeper,” and I walked a lot more carefully, quietly down the steps, thinking about that poor person who’s trying to sleep, and me and my big old boots interrupting her sleep. So I wrote this song about a daysleeper that’s working an 11-7 shift and how furious the balance is between the life that you live and the work that you have to do in order to support the life that you live” Michael Stipe

Plot: It features Stipe as the office worker who goes to work at night. All three band members then wear pajamas and bed socks, while failing to get to sleep during the day. The video was directed  ”I think it’s about the sort of alien nature of a night shift,” explained Mike Mills. “The weird lighting, the fluorescent lights that you find and the isolation of working the graveyard shift – how it screws up your sleep patterns and that sort of thing, and I think that’s the main image we’re trying to get across.

If you want more of that, and you will, check out the behind the scenes.