Taylor Swift Shows Off Directing Chops in 'The Man' Behind-the-Scenes Clip

Taylor Swift has already shared her process for becoming “The Man” for her latest music video (in short: five hours of makeup and lots of eyebrow prosthetics), but on Tuesday the pop star released a new clip showing how her directorial debut came together.

“The video concept for ‘The Man’ is something that I wrote after doing a lot of thinking about what the video would be,” she says in an on-camera interview. “I wanted to use a female director, but it just so happened that I couldn’t really get it done in time with anybody else because everybody’s busy. So I was like, ‘You know, I know exactly what I want this video to be. I know exactly who I would use as DP director of photography] and as AD assistant director]. Why don’t I just try this — directing for the first time, alone?’ It just was the easiest and quickest way to get this video done the way that I wanted to do it.”

The clip shows Swift giving directions to the actors, her assistant director Joe “Oz” Osbourne and her director of photography Rodrigo Prieto, who happens to be Martin Scorsese’s current go-to cinematographer. It’s a neat look at how a high-production pop comes together, with the added caveat that the video’s director is not only its central star but also in full gender-bent makeup while planning out each shot.

“There’s just so many incredible memories and so many hilarious experiences all packed into three days,” Swift says. “So I had the best time.”