Actress Lana Clarkson is found shot dead in the foyer of music producer Phil Spector's California mansion in 2003, and Spector is charged with her murder while insisting she killed herself. Crime writer Aphrodite Jones guides the film through the case, working from a videotape Spector recorded in the hours after the shooting, apparently meant to establish his innocence, that instead shows him disheveled and rambling through conspiracy theories. Interviews with former colleagues describe a man known for waving guns at people and controlling everyone around him, set against archival footage of the innovative studio techniques that made him one of the most influential producers in rock and roll. The film also stages reenactments, shot in hazy, slowed-down style, of the night Spector and Clarkson met at the House of Blues, mixing that dramatized material with real courtroom footage of the trial, Spector's wigs and fashion included. The videotape remains the film's central piece of evidence, the recording Spector made to help himself and Jones treats as the case against him.