Justin Timberlake is taking another unconventional approach to the art of the music video with "Not a Bad Thing," debuted Thursday on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and this time using the airwaves and social media to solve a romantic mystery. As the host explains, the "documentary about finding love" is based on the true story and the video is actually a search for them. The mid-tempo cheery "Mirrors"-esque pop ballad, the third single off his fourth album "The 20/20 Experience - 2 of 2," is a simple declaration of love that Timberlake tells a girl that it's "not a bad thing" to fall in love with him as he will make her dreams come true.
The new video shows two documentarians, a couple setting out to find a man who using this song and proposed to his fiancée on a Long Island Railroad train en route to New York City around 8:20 p.m. January 12, 2014. "They were so in love - you almost never see that," says a female filmmaker. "We don't know who these people are or what their story is, but maybe you do. We're making a documentary about finding love. Have you seen this couple?" It turns out the man played a Timberlake song to his lady love - the proposal is simulated at the beginning of the video - and "Not a Bad Thing" plays as the filmmakers search for the elusive couple. Timberlake's voice is the only part of him present in the video.
The rest of the video follows their endeavor to find the man and woman and also enlists real-life couples to talk about their reflections on love, their proposals, marriage, relationships, the struggles in their unions as well as what they think of the couple. The documentarians are also shown flooding the NYC streets with flyers with the hashtag #haveyouseenthiscouple, stopping by a radio interview and texting each other from borough to borough, with the messages showing up on the screen, "House of Cards" style. The question became a hastag used by Timberlake to promote the pursuit and his video.
In the meantime, a Twitter account called "Find This Couple" and its respective tumblr "HaveYouSeenThisCouple" have crowdsourced the effort. The video ends with the documentarians getting out of a van to chase down another lead. "Might be them," the female filmmaker said, "Let's try it out." Then "To be continued" is super-imposed on the screen. After the premiere, DeGeneres echoed the filmmakers' plea. "So obviously if you know this couple, contact us, because Justin is trying to find you, and we'll put y'all together," she said.
The new video shows two documentarians, a couple setting out to find a man who using this song and proposed to his fiancée on a Long Island Railroad train en route to New York City around 8:20 p.m. January 12, 2014. "They were so in love - you almost never see that," says a female filmmaker. "We don't know who these people are or what their story is, but maybe you do. We're making a documentary about finding love. Have you seen this couple?" It turns out the man played a Timberlake song to his lady love - the proposal is simulated at the beginning of the video - and "Not a Bad Thing" plays as the filmmakers search for the elusive couple. Timberlake's voice is the only part of him present in the video.
The rest of the video follows their endeavor to find the man and woman and also enlists real-life couples to talk about their reflections on love, their proposals, marriage, relationships, the struggles in their unions as well as what they think of the couple. The documentarians are also shown flooding the NYC streets with flyers with the hashtag #haveyouseenthiscouple, stopping by a radio interview and texting each other from borough to borough, with the messages showing up on the screen, "House of Cards" style. The question became a hastag used by Timberlake to promote the pursuit and his video.
In the meantime, a Twitter account called "Find This Couple" and its respective tumblr "HaveYouSeenThisCouple" have crowdsourced the effort. The video ends with the documentarians getting out of a van to chase down another lead. "Might be them," the female filmmaker said, "Let's try it out." Then "To be continued" is super-imposed on the screen. After the premiere, DeGeneres echoed the filmmakers' plea. "So obviously if you know this couple, contact us, because Justin is trying to find you, and we'll put y'all together," she said.
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