Music videos have always been a test bed for new video technology. Whether we’re talking about what most scholars consider the first music video, Electrocuting an Elephant in 1903, which featured groundbreaking filmmaking, groundbreaking electricity, and groundbreaking animal cruelty, or we’re talking about putting a shape-based wipe between literally every scene, you can bet that the techniques you see in the cinema were first tried in music videos.

One such technique, the green screen, is on magnificant display in this video, which appears to have been shot entirely in front of a green screen for no apparent reason. According to Wookieepedia, this filmmaking technique was first invented in the 1930s, but I think we can all agree that since Wookieepedia is editing entirely by volunteer Wookiees, that the green screen technique was probably actually invented for We Built This City by Starship.

Take a look and judge for yourself:

The video opens on this city:

Wait, this city? This city is the one that was built on rock and roll?

A close reading of the song’s lyrics (note: I did not read the lyrics at all nor did I listen to them closely) reveals that the city the song is about is San Francisco.

It’s easy to forget, but in the early 1960s, San Francisco’s population hovered right around 3,000 people. By the late 1960s, though, the population had reached over 800,000 people almost entirely due to an influx of hippies into the Haight-Ashbury district. A city-wide survey conducted in 1969 revealed that over 700,000 people in the city listed “Jefferson Airplane” as their primary reason for living in San Francisco.

In case you didn’t know (WARNING: true fact ahead) Starship used to be called Jefferson Starship which used to be called Jefferson Airplane. Try to keep up.

Some ghostly singers appear over the city as night falls.

Next, we see a man desperately trying to keep his entire body rigidly still while pretending to play a bass. Meanwhile, another man hams it up pretending to play guitar.

No one appears to have told them that the entire song is performed on keyboards.

The screen is filled up with scruffy youths while the singing man points emphatically.

Note that that none of these youths or the singer appear to exist on the same visual plane. The green screen allows the director to combine the best take by each actor into complete nonsense.

Also, the green screening is really poorly done.

It looks like by 4 year old cut out this picture from a magazine and painted it over a picture of the night sky.

The scene changes to a statue of Abraham Lincoln.

Wait, maybe this city is Washington D.C.?

The singing man pleads with him, inexplicably.

The scene rapidly changes to a man in white face paint and all white clothing jumping up and singing.

There is literally no context for this event.

The singing man reacts with mild surprise.

Next we see a woman green screened into a Las Vegas-like environment.

She is green screened among an improbable group of youths who have been green screened in with each other.

The extreme close-up over a faraway background effect allowed by the green screen gives us an exquisite view of the singer’s crazy eyes.

Some dice fall off a sign.

Everyone runs.

This appears to be the only scene that was shot without a green screen.

We have a brief interlude for the guitar solo.

The bridge section of the song (if you don’t know which part of the song that is, there’s probably no point in telling you) is pretty boring, but we do get one wonderful shot that I present here without comment:

Never mind, I have to comment. This is the beauty of the green screen. The two singer’s heads are wildly different sizes and they were probably filmed on different days in different locations. But look at the chemistry between them.

Some more youths are looking up.

They see the starship, apparently rocking out.

Next, we get an amazing shot of the poofy-haired drummer who has not appeared in the video at all until now.

I really wish we could have gotten more of him.

The band plays us out.

I’m not sure what else to say, but I’m mesmerized by this video. It shows that you can use a lot of technology and a lot of heart to produce a lot of nonsense.

-PTD