Celebrity Watch: Lady Gaga Director Loves His Short Film

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Lady Gaga Director Loves His Short Film

Mariano Vivanco says, 'It's one of my favorite films I've done.'
By Jocelyn Vena

Lady Gaga
Photo: Frederick M. Brown/ Getty Images

Mere hours after completing the edit for the Lady Gaga/Mugler Born This Way collaboration that debuted in full Thursday (January 20), the short film's director, fashion photographer Mariano Vivanco, spoke to MTV News about the film, which not only debuts Nicola Formichetti as the line's creative director, but also gives fans a taste of a fresh Gaga song, remixed especially for Mugler.

The finished version of the track will appear on Gaga's album, to be released in May. Vivanco explained that what was supposed to be a small-scale Formichetti/Vivanco fashion video to display Mugler's new looks became a full-scale music video-like shoot once they knew Gaga would be involved — even if they didn't have the actual song until after they did most of the work.

"OK, I'll be 100 percent honest with you: We didn't get the music until after the video," Vivanco revealed. "Nicola hummed it to me and tried singing it to me. It was hilarious. And described it to me in a really articulate way. He said, 'It's techno meets Whitney Houston, in a really good way.'

"When he described that to me, I thought the best treatment to that would be to film it in slow motion 'cause I think house music with slow-moving images works," he continued. "I filmed a lot of scenes that were in my heart and in my mind."

It's hard to believe that Vivanco hadn't heard the song when he shot the eerie, moody scenes. But, he notes that a lot of the work to mesh the video and audio came in post-production.

After having a few hours to digest the dark, black-and-white art-house music video, Vivanco admitted that he loves the clip and said it was made only more special with the addition of the Gaga track.

"A short film for me is like a relationship: You have to love all the imperfections. Hell, I love the film. I think it's one of my favorite films I've done," he said. "Of course, words can't express the honor that [Gaga] would give us something so nice to work with. When I hear that song, and you hear it live like we did at the show, I'm like, 'She's done it again.' "

So, how does Gaga feel about it? "She called Nicola, and she said she loved the video," Vivanco said. "She's the queen of our times."

Have you seen the Born This Way short film? Give us your review in the comments!

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