(AllHipHop News) Let Beyonce’s song “Pretty Hurts” be a lesson: the most immaculate things on the surface could have disastrous inner workings. In an interview with Vulture, the director of Beyonce’s “Pretty Hurts” video says it was the “slowest shoot I’ve ever been on” and accuses the film crew of quitting on the video.
At the 4:11 mark in Beyonce’s “Pretty Hurts” video she is briefly shown diving into a large body of water. According to video director Melina Matsoukas, the scene was meant to be longer and more integral to the video but ended up truncated due to her crew’s lack of support:
I originally wrote it was that she was stepping onstage and would fall, and it’d cut to her going into this water and drowning. But we didn’t get to shoot the trip, because the crew decided to quit on me because it was taking forever. But I felt like it was a good moment to break down the song and be in this really vulnerable, thought-provoking moment.
Matsoukas attributed the crew’s unwillingness to continue to New York City union rules and stated this does not occur in Los Angeles “because people actually care.” The director did admit that the shoot was long even resulted in high-profile guest actor Harvey Keitel waiting up to twenty hours to shoot.
Matsoukas has worked with Beyonce in the past on her music video for “Upgrade U”. She spoke on the pre-marriage relationship of Beyonce and Jay Z briefly:
When I worked with them they weren’t married yet. Now — I don’t know. I mean, they support each other — they’re best friends. They influence each other and they push each other to be better and to impress each other, too. I love them.
Check out the video for “Pretty Hurts” below: