Taylor Swift’s Grammy-nominated All Too Well: The Short Film was a resounding success, thanks largely to Swift’s vision as director. Now, Swift has offered a behind-the-scenes look at how the Sadie Sink– and Dylan O’Brien-starring video was made.
It’s a pretty unfiltered video, too, a no-frills compilation of clips of Swift on set. Throughout the video, there are points where it’s clear Swift knows what she wants to see from her actors and knows just what to say to make that happen. In one moment, for example, Swift tells Sink, “We should always see a falseness to your smile. It should be contrasted by how real your smile in the last shot was.” Then, Swift watches Sink’s performance as it’s being filmed and she’s clearly impressed.
Beyond the set, Swift was involved in the editing process as well, as there are other clips that show her bouncing ideas off of editors. The video wraps with Swift explaining what’s behind Sink’s character in the video: “We’re watching a person lose an element of innocence and naivete. We’re watching her figure out how to turn it into something beautiful, and she’s… in the older her, there’s a stillness and a stocism and a seriousness, and a… stillness but a sadness. She’s fine, but she’s not who we met. So it’s just sort of one of those things of what’s lost and what’s found and, like, we’re watching a person come of age.”
Watch the behind-the-scenes video above and revisit All Too Well: The Short Film below.