It seemed very ’50s old Hollywood; maybe it reminded me of Busby Berkeley?

Yep, Bugsby’s in there. With those stages, there was another video that we didn’t end up making that had a whole intricate stage set-up. But even in the beginning, even when she was walking through the Paramount lot, we wanted that to feel like this big, classic Hollywood kind of thing. Being there informed a lot of our decision making, too. It’s always a tapestry of a million different things, and the way that we worked was collaborative. Coming back to your earlier question, the creative direction is all of those ingredients stewing together.

How has being in Miley’s world influenced your own career and the way you approach things?

It’s a very good question. I mean, I’ve certainly learned so much from watching the way that she carries herself and handles her business. She’s such a wonderful, fun, exciting person, but she is also such an astute business person who asks for what she needs and doesn’t compromise on those things.

It seems like she and the creative team at large have a handcrafted way of creating. For example, I know some projects are done on tight deadlines, but you took your time with this, right?

Oh my God, it took forever. But honestly, in most things it’s all about simplicity and clarity. Finding your way to distill something and make it clear is a huge task. We look at and hear so many things every fucking day, if something isn’t urgent and it isn’t clear, it’s difficult [to break through]. It gets swept up in all the chaos of everything else that’s going on.

So it sounds like you’re saying the secret here is knowing exactly what you want?

That’s actually one thing I’ve really learned in my experience of working with her and furthering my own career. It’s not true that all you need as a director is to know what you want, but you can at least be a very effective director knowing that. From the first thing we shot, and with “Flowers” as well, I at least knew what I wanted something to feel like. Back then, I spoke in much more emotional terms. I’d say, “I want this to feel this way, how can we get that?” Now that I have a little more technical knowledge of how to capture something, I can speak a little bit more directly about that. But, yes, clarity and knowing what you want is everything. Sometimes even finding that out can be evasive, or you realize you actually want something else. Things take shape in the way that they’re meant to.