These days, having guns in your music video can toe a pretty delicate line of potentially sensationalizing violence. One sure fire way to avoid any misconception is to replace bullets with lipstick, add in a bunch of bright colors, and open the video with a shot of an awesome fluffy cat. This is exactly what director Ryan Andrews and Charli XCX did in the video for “You (Ha Ha Ha).” We talked to Ryan about the video, grindhouse films, and club kids.

Doug: Obviously the video's very bright, colorful, and there's a cat. It's very lighthearted and fun, but especially in light of recent events over here in the States, there could be some moments in there that can be misinterpreted as being violent or promoting violence. I notice that Charli released a statement reinforcing that it's not a violent video and it's not about violence. Was that a response to anything in particular that you know about?

Ryan: Given what had recently happened, I think it was just to make people aware. The video pretty much talks for itself. It's blatantly not pro violence. There's no violence in the video what so ever. The idea was make love not war, but in this case lipstick. The video was a reflection of a genre not of society.

Doug: A lot of this stuff that you guys do in other collaborations with Charli, the found footage and the Tumblr style stuff, is not as present in this video. Was that an intentional move to go away from that style for this video, or did it just not kind of come up when you guys were doing it?

Ryan: I think it's really good to give people, Charli's fans and people who watch Charli's videos, something different to change it up. We had been watching a lot of Grindhouse movies and noticed some bizarre similarities between that cinema movement and the modern pop world and it's female artists. We thought this would be a fun premise for a music video.

Doug: You talked about the Grindhouse movies, and the last time we spoke you mentioned pulling a lot of influence from the shows that you were watching with Charli, you and her together. Was it the same thing, you guys were watching grindhouse films together, and then from that point the idea kind of grew organically from there?

Ryan: Yeah, definitely. We thought it would be great to make a video that was based on that idea of what the grindhouse was about, a exploitation style video. Also, we thought it would be great for all the colors and textures. The girl gang was a cool idea that fit into it. I love that in grindhouse movies it's just these completely crazy, off the wall ideas. We started to think how can we work that into a video. About how can we take influence from that time, and also that kind of media that we're interested in again, but just a more filmic element.

Doug: Was it more of a general influence of the style, or were there particular movies or scenes that you guys were trying to recreate in this video?

Ryan: Definitely it was a more general sense of genre, rather than anything specific or tied down to a certain movie. I think it was just an overall kind of feel and vibe.

Doug: The cast has got this really defined style to them as well, all the girls in the video. Are they friends with you and Charli? Did they come dressed the way they were? Or did you have a lot of wardrobe and stuff there waiting for them?

Ryan: Yeah, they're Charli's friends and some of my friends, and we did have wardrobe there ready for them. I think Charli really wanted to use some of her influences from different characters from different kind of films, all her different influences. Like Party Monster from the club kids scene. There's a girl that was kind of like Wednesday Adams from The Adams Family. All these influences from the 90s that Charli was really interested in, and her friends and her talk about all those movies and are into that kind of style, so they could dress up and kind of have fun with it.

Doug: I'm curious how this video works from the financial side. Do you come up with the idea and then go to the label to try to get a budget for it, or do you guys shoot this on your own? It's a pretty significant production for this one.

Ryan: Yeah, this one was her first single, so I pitched to the label. With some of the other videos, we do off our own back. In this one, we could go to the label. I work with Charli all the time, so they helped us out more on this one. That was the kind of way it worked, like just a normal pitch for a video.

Doug: Did you still have to get it approved and that kind of thing, or was it more, "Go for it, here's money"?

Ryan: No. We chatted to them to see if they like it, and they're pretty cool guys so it was on an even keel. They were like, "What do you guys want to do next," and we're like, "This is what we're thinking." Then we have a chat with them and they're like, "Yeah, that's a pretty cool idea."

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.