If my girlfriend was a pop star and I had to direct music videos for her, I would cover her in sweaters and blankets and film her from the neck up only. Luckily, director Ryan Andrews is nothing like me in this sense. When directing music videos for his girlfriend Charli XCX, he pulls influence from Charli’s work, her Tumblr, her Twitter, and from the TV shows they watch together. We talked to Ryan about directing “Cloud Aura” by Charli XCX and how he was able to involve Brooke Candy in the project. 

Doug: A lot of your previous work for Charli has this remix style to it, taking a video that's already been shot and adding footage to it. How does this project compare to those?

Ryan: We wanted to put the artists in it and we wanted to get a bit more emotional intent in this one. We still used the GIFs and stuff but we wanted to show two different characters from two different sides of the ocean. It was just a different way of doing it. Basically, with Charli's stuff, it's getting at showing her world and just giving an insight, and it's nice to show to her fans her for a change, rather than the other ones with more GIFs. It was nice to shoot some live action stuff of her.

Doug: You and Charli have a slightly different relationship than most director/artist pairings because Charli is actually your girlfriend. Is that relationship where these projects originated?

Ryan: Yeah, definitely. We first started off when Charli sang a track on the feature film I shot, that's how I met her. Then we started going out, and then we started working together from there.

Doug: How does your relationship as a couple mix with your working relationship?

Ryan: It's great because we get to collaborate. Everything is great. We sit down, we come up with a concept, we talk it through, and then we decide where we're going. Also, it's really good for me because I know Charli well. I know her direction, I know where she's going, so you can really set out a plan of what you want.

Doug: You mention that for this video you wanted to get two perspectives from across the ocean, and one of those perspectives is of Brooke Candy. All of Brooke's footage was shot by Matthew Boman, how did that relationship with Matthew come about? Did you reach out to Brooke first and then she brought Matt on?

Ryan: Charli met Brooke before, as did I in LA. When we decided we wanted to do the video we called her up and asked for footage. Originally we were just going to get her to do some stuff on Photo Booth, and I was just going to manipulate and play with that and make GIFs. Then she told us, "I've got Matt Boman here who did my video and he's up for shooting some stuff." And we thought that was great, so Matt went out and shot a bunch of stuff. I gave him an idea of what we wanted, which was to shoot her in the streets because that what we shot with Charli. We just wanted to parallel it up because we had that same kind of thing. Then Matt went out and shot what he wanted, and took Brooke to a location that he wanted as well.

Doug: And for Brooke's performance, did you just want her to do her thing? Or did you provide more direction for what you wanted from her?

Ryan: We just said, "Go to the liquor store and do some dancing on a white wall that I might key out." It was pretty open.

Doug: Going back to the technical side of the video, and to the GIFs and stock footage that you use. How do you determine what to place in the video and where to pull footage from? Is it all pretty much influenced by the lyrics?

Ryan: Most of it is chosen from what Charli is into, or what she speaks about on her Tumblr, what she's into in real life, her Twitter, who she talking to at the time. Then within the videos, I visualize that into her work because she's just like a modern kid. There is a lot of influence by the internet generation. It's more just taking what she's into at the time and then compiling that and putting it into the video, everything she references musically and celebrity wise. For this one, because the song is emotional of her lyrics, I thought it would be really good to take emotional breakdown scenes from different films and TV shows that she watches and speaks about, and put it all together to create an emotional drawing somehow and drag you in. People crying is a good way to do it because you immediately relate to that.

Doug: Is the editing process a direct collaboration where she is with you at the computer?

Ryan: I'll start putting stuff in there that I know she likes, most of it I've been watching with her, and then she'll come in and say whether she likes it or not. It's definitely very collaborative.

Doug Klinger is the co-founder/content director of IMVDb and watches more music videos than anyone on earth. You can find him on twitter at @doug_klinger.