HarryNorrisMusicVideoBlog

December 2000 – ‘Stan’-
Aftermath/Interscope – Phil Atwell (director)

"Stan" tells the fictional story of a fan who is obsessed with Eminem and writes to him without receiving a reply. The first three verses are delivered by Eminem as Stan, while the fourth verse is Eminem attempting to write to Stan, only to realize that he had already heard about Stan's death on the news. The music video was directed by Phil Atwell and Dr. Dre in California. It is primarily a visualization of the story the song tells, featuring Canadian actor Devon Sawa as Stan, the obsessive fan,and British pop singer Dido, who sings the chorus, as his pregnant girlfriend. The music video expands on the story told in the song. At the end of the video, a lightning strike illuminates a split-second image of Stan's face staring in through a window at his former idol. There is also an alternate version of the video where Dido's character appears only in her singing cues, not showing her bound and gagged inside Stan's trunk. This was probably edited because of the violent or cruel nature of the scene. However, this version fails to explain what happens to the character afterward. Dido reportedly did not want to do the video at first, as she was uncomfortable with the scene in the video where she had to be tied up and have her mouth covered with duct tape, but later agreed to it and got along well with Eminem and the crew on set.