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While there are - very, very rarely - music videos that cost $US500,000 to $US1 million now, Drake says “the majority of videos happen below $US100,000 and a ton happen below $US10,000”.
Working with Swift earlier in her career, he was struck by her professionalism.
“When she’s on set, she’s very composed and very focused on the job at hand,” he says. “When it’s time to say ‘action’, she just lights up. The Christmas tree lights turn on.
“One of the first music videos that had an effect on me”: Michael Jackson in the Thriller music video from 1983.Credit: Alamy Stock Photo
“It’s like ‘whoa. This person is larger than life’. Then it’s ‘cut’ and she’s back in her quiet place.”
Drake is not surprised that Swift has become an accomplished writer-director of her own music videos.
“She gets images, she knows what she’s doing, and she has a plan,” he says. “So it makes perfect sense that she would direct. I value that, and I think we’re seeing that more with artists now.
“Billie Eilish does it too, and I think it’s cool. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened more.”
While Swift and Eilish have avoided the all-too-common sexualisation of young women in music videos over the decades, Drake thinks the dynamic has changed.
“Sex will always sell for good or for bad,” he says. “But certain pop artists have integrated sexuality into their brand and the 360 degrees of their operation, so that, when it comes to a music video, it makes sense to keep doing that.
“We see that in really high-end pop and a lot of the hip-hop world. But when you take an artist and you sexualise them out of their context, that’s a problem. When an artist is trying to find their way and our solution is ‘let’s do sex’, that’s problematic.”
While the best music videos are often art, Drake says they are essentially commercials.
“It makes perfect sense that she would direct”: Taylor Swift in the music video for Anti-Hero, which she wrote and directed.
“The commercial is for the band’s song,” he says. “It’s the product that we’re trying to sell so you go buy their album, you go see their shows, you buy their merch. The documentaries [on singers and bands] that are coming out now are just longer forms of that.”
While some leading film directors have made classic music videos, including John Landis with Thriller, Martin Scorsese with Michael Jackson’s Bad, David Fincher with Madonna’s Express Yourself and Vogue, and Brian De Palma with Bruce Springsteen’s Dancing In The Dark, Drake wants to move in the opposite direction.
He has been developing film and television projects including a high school drama series, Save Our Generation, about the emo era he grew up in.
“I’ve always said music video is a young man’s game,” Drake says. “But I’ve been pretty stunted in a young man’s mentality for most of my life, so it works for me.”
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