Producer: Alex Sanchez

Production Company: La Blogothèque

Location: Bradbury Building, Los Angeles

Composers: Justin Timberlake, Chris Stapleton, Timothy Mosley, Nate Hills, Larrance Dopson

Copyright: (C) 2018 RCA Records, Sony Music Entertainment

Plot Summary

Justin Timberlake starts alone in a room, building the track on a Maschine sampler before picking up an acoustic guitar. The camera follows him through the Bradbury Building’s corridors, balconies, elevators, and staircases in one uninterrupted movement. As the song develops, Timberlake encounters Chris Stapleton performing from another part of the building. The two artists gradually move toward one another while musicians appear throughout the building. The journey culminates in a multi-level performance with both singers, a live band, and a large choir united in the same space.

Factoids & Trivia

A genuine one-take performance: The video was filmed in a single continuous shot, with the vocals and instruments performed live rather than synchronized to a finished studio recording.

Directed by Arturo Perez Jr.: Perez directed the clip for the French music-film collective La Blogothèque, whose live-performance aesthetic is central to the video’s spontaneous feel.

The production took place inside Los Angeles’ historic Bradbury Building, a location recognizable from Blade Runner and other films. Its elevators, staircases, balconies, and interconnected levels helped create the video’s maze-like design.

The shoot involved 17 musicians, a 60-person choir, and an approximately 200-person crew. Recording live across the steel-and-glass building created major sound and wireless-transmission challenges.

After rehearsals began, the team had only about a 10-minute nighttime window to capture the deep-blue light visible through the building. The successful nighttime recording was reportedly the first take made during that window.

Perez spent roughly two and a half days walking through the Bradbury Building to work out the camera route and coordinate the performers’ movements. Pre-production lasted about two weeks.

The song’s visual concept mirrors its message: Rather than relying on narrative scenes or digital effects, the video turns the act of moving through a complicated building into a visual metaphor for connection, communication, and eventually speaking together.

“Say Something” won Best Live Video at the 2018 UK Music Video Awards and was nominated for Best Direction at the 2018 MTV Video Music Awards.

The collaboration had history: Timberlake and Stapleton had already performed together at the 2015 CMA Awards, combining Stapleton’s “Tennessee Whiskey” with Timberlake’s “Drink You Away,” before making “Say Something.”