Grant Singer Talks Directing Lorde’s “Green Light” Video, Shooting on 16mm Film, and the Power of Familiarity
“When I watch the video I feel like she looks and she is alive and I love that about it.”
Earlier today, Lorde debuted her new single “Green Light,” and its Grant Singer-directed new video. The song is from her upcoming album Melodrama, the highly anticipated follow-up to her 2013 debut Pure Heroine. In an interview with Zane Lowe, Lorde described the “Green Light” concept: “This is that drunk girl at the party dancing around crying about her ex-boyfriend who everyone thinks is a mess.” Singer spoke with Pitchfork from Los Angeles about working with Lorde on the video, getting to know her months before the shoot, shooting on 16mm film, and her ability to improvise.
Pitchfork: How did the video come about?
Grant Singer: Lorde and I got in contact a couple months ago and we had dinner in New York, and it was just like a general meeting I guess. This is before even there was any discussion about making a video together. We just wanted to meet and I was immediately so struck by… She’s just a beautiful person. Anyone who meets her knows that. And I was just so struck by her passion and how thoughtful and kind and sincere and incredible she was as a person. So yeah, I guess it all started with the meeting when we had dinner and then she sent me the song a few months after that, and that was it.
Did she offer you any visual reference points for the video?
Making a video is sort of like… I would actually describe it similarly to writing a song. it’s harder to describe writing a song, where you’re like “well, I wrote the chord and then this person did the drum beat and then,” you know. It’s very collaborative. So, we kind of came up with the concept together. After meeting her—I didn’t know for sure that I was going to make the video at that point—but I knew that if I did, there was a lot of pressure for me because I adore her as a person, and when you see the passion and the artistry in someone that you respect you kind of take that responsibility on your own as a director. It’s the first video that she’s made in a couple years, and you want to do a great job, not just for yourself but because you want to do the music justice and you want to do her justice and you don’t want to let her down. And I think that was at least my process: I wanted to make a great video, not just for me but really for her.
You mention this being her first video in a while, and she a really striking visual presence when she debuted. Were there conversations on how to visually set this new project apart from the aesthetic she’d already established with Pure Heroine?
No, there were no conversations about anything that she’d done prior. It was really—at least for me—we started from scratch. We shot the video on 16mm film. Even as a music video in general—I would say most music videos are shot on Alexas or RED cameras or potentially 35mm—but rarely do you…