Taylor Swift and Sadie Sink at Toronto International Film Festival. Image Source: US Weekly
Taylor Swift is talking about her process.
Taylor Swift appeared at the Toronto International Film Festival on Friday and joined the film festival’s CEO, Cameron Bailey, for a question and answer session and showcased a 35mm of ‘All Too Well: The Short Film’.
Taylor Swift candidly spoke about why she picked All Too Well for her short film and recalled and shared that her team never really saw the potential in the song for a single when she recorded it and released it, but the fans did and they loved it. The singer said that when she looks back to the moment when her team did not pick it up as a single, she could say that it was probably a blessing in disguise.
The singer continued that the song was tough because it was about something that at the point was very fresh and raw for her and she would have had a really hard time performing it at the time and there would be no world in which she could have made a visual element for All Too Well at the point when it was released.
Taylor admitted that she needed 10 years of sort of retrospect to know what she would even make to tell a version of that story visually and mentioned that she is so grateful that she was able to do that with some crazy stroke of all the different twists of fate and she cannot believe it.
All Too Well: The short film starred actor Dylan O’Brien and actress Sadie Sink and was released in November 2021, and during the press conference she shared that for her, witnessing her songs come to life visually is something she has always preferred and said that it’s all part of the process. Continuing further, Taylor said that it’s because when she starts writing a song, she instantly starts to think about how she would visually represent it on-screen.
During the question and answer session, Taylor Swift shared an incident when she was 16 years old and had pitched the idea of ‘You Belong With Me’ to the director who directed the video. She said that she reached out to the director and told him the concept she had on her mind which was the fact that she was in love with her best friend in high school who lived across the street and he is dating a cheerleader and then the football game and then there is dance and all the signs and stuff. Taylor added that people usually came up with the concept of their videos over time and she started to take on more and more responsibility and the more responsibility she took creatively the happier she was.
Taylor said that directing All Too Well: A Short Film was a baby-step process and clarified that it was not like she woke up one day and thought that maybe she wanted to direct a short film. She mentioned that directing the short film for her song was never something that she was programmed to say to herself because she didn't go to film school, but she has been on the set of 60-plus music videos, which is where she learned a lot from the process.
Taylor Swift said that directing some of her music videos, including The Man, Cardigan, and Willow, gave her the confidence and motivation to direct a short film for ‘All Too Well', which is when she thought that maybe she could pull it off and added that it was then decided that it was going to be a short film. The singer said that she chose to make a short film and not a music video for the song because she has been fascinated with the dynamic of the age of the character that Sadie Sink's playing and what a precarious age that is. She stated that although you may sort of fit back into your family house, you don't. But even if kids had a French press and all the other amenities that adults have, you could fit into an adult-cultivated flat.
When it came down to shooting, they shot them breaking up and falling in love, and some of the dialogues were used with that, but as they got closer to it, she was like, that there is going to be a fight. Taylor said that to get the shot perfect, she spoke to Dylan O’Brien and Sadie Sink in a long conversation about their characters' intentions and mentioned that it’s not just about Dylan's character just dropping Sadie's character's hand but also about the entire thing like just molecular structure where Sadie feels out of place and he feels unequipped to handle that.
The Cardigan singer said that they talked about it so much that when they shot the scene, it ended up being, according to her, 92% of that scene a one-take and further revealed that they did not cut it until the very end and she, along with the producer, was so impressed by both the actors because they aced it. Taylor said that there was a death clutch as everyone was watching it because they were all like, "Oh my God, oh my God. She added that they were injuring each other's arms at this point but also trying not to make a sound. They were just so in awe of how much they could trust these actors with every single bit of the story, the weight.
Of course, Taylor Swift was asked about the iconic red scarf which according to reports she wore at the time and probably left at her then boyfriend's place, to which she said that the scarf is a metaphor and they turned it red because red is a very important color on the album.
Taylor Swift also participated in the discussion and expressed her future creative plans. In response to the moderator's question on what other genres she would like to explore, she said that she believes she would always want to tell stories about people's experiences and emotions. Never say never, she continued, but she couldn't picture herself shooting an action scene. Taylor, who said that she doesn't always see herself delivering stories of tremendous guttural grief at your most formative age, which sort of debilitates you emotionally for years, noted that she could see it heading in a more humorous irreverent route at this time. If it occurs one day, Taylor concluded, "honestly, that'll be humorous character progress."
As for directing feature films, Taylor Swift is keeping her options open mentioning that if it were the right thing, it would be such a privilege and an honor for her.
