Bruno Mars – That’s What I Like
The official music video for Bruno Mars’ “That’s What I Like” from the album ‘24K Magic’.
Directed by Bruno Mars and Jonathan Lia.
That’s What I Like – Single by Bruno Mars from the album 24K Magic.
Released: January 30, 2017
Charted No. 1 in US and No.12 in UK.
The song was written by Mars, Philip Lawrence, Christopher Brody Brown, James Fauntleroy, Johnathan Yip, Ray Romulus, Jeremy Reeves, and Ray McCullough II.
This won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 2018, beating out the weightier nominees “1-800-273-8255” and “4:44.” It came as a surprise after Sting introduced the category by describing the songwriters as “managing to convey the spirit of these challenging times while inspiring all of us to transcend them.”
“That’s What I Like” also won for Best R&B Song and Best R&B Performance. Mars took Best R&B Album with 24K Magic and Record of the Year with “the title track.”
On March 1, 2017, Mars announced on his Twitter account that he had been filming the accompanying music video for “That’s What I Like”; he said, “Just finished shootin it! I’m gonna edit it, take a bubble bath & then we party. Gimme 2 hours! Let the count down begin #TWIL”. The visual was directed by Mars and Jonathan Lia. The choreography was done by the singer and Phil Tayag prior to the shooting, allowing Lia and Mars to produce animations before filming the video. Some animations were added in post-production by GenPop. The music video was filmed against a grey background in Los Angeles using a stationary camera throughout the entire shot. Several hand-drawn animations “relating to the lyrics” appeared and vanished off-frame; to create this effect, Lia filmed Mars while the song was played at half-speed. Lia then doubled the speed of the footage, making the “synced playback” have a “surreal feel to it”, with a single, eight-minute take. Mars and Lia had a different concept for the music video, but the result was not what they expected when the two carried out a test shoot, and they decided to use a single light. When Mars started to dance, him and Lia they knew “that was the video”. The video was released on March 1, 2017, via YouTube.