Kanye West & Adam Levine
Originally uploaded by _Faith. WEST SHOOTS MACY'S VIDEO
By MACKENZIE DAWSON PARKS
RECENTLY, a homeless man and his three children were invited into the Herald Square Macy's on a Friday after closing time. They roamed the store freely, dancing and playing with lamps and reclining chairs while a kindly security guard looked on.
But first, some background: the "homeless man" was actually Kanye West; the "security guard" was Adam Levine of Maroon 5. And they were actually shooting the video for West's "Heard 'Em Say."
In the video, the security guard unlocks the door store for the homeless single father and invites him to spend the night inside. The kids pilot a bed through the aisles, sofa beds fold and unfold to the beat of the music, and suits get funky in the men's section.
Although some of West's lyrics might be controversial - the "N" word appears more than once - Macy's was excited by the video's theme, a sort of re-imagining of "Miracle on 34th Street." They were also reassured by the fact that any objectionable language would be edited out for TV.
"We moved Heaven and Earth to make it happen; we've been immortalized in movies, but never in a video," says Macy's spokeperson Elina Kazan. "We rallied the Herald Square store. We called it Operation Video Shoot."
Despite shooting in the world's largest department store, the filming went smoothly.
"Except for this one scene where the kids are flying through our carpet department, literally getting off the ground, and they looked a little weird," says Kazan. "In addition to that, we had an MTV crew filming a 'behind the scenes' of the video, so next thing we knew, it was 'Lights, Camera, Action!' in our furniture department."
And few minded the star power radiating through the store. There was West himself - "a real gentleman," says Kazan - and the dreamy Levine, "You have this guy who's a heartthrob to all the female employees, and he's standing in the lingerie department surrounded by bras! It was a surreal experience."
http://entertainment.excite.com/celebgossip/pgsixceleb/id/01_29_2006_1.html
