I don't know if he directed it, but yeah, I think the hardest part would be carefully checking for any corrections they needed to make since he wouldn't be able to watch as it was happening. I'm sure that Al was pretty much at least the de facto director, since he would have already planned everything out, approved costumes and the location, determined the camera moves and the path around the warehouse, rehearsed the song and all the timings with the celebs, where and on which lines they'd come in and out, and their dance moves, especially on which lines they'd do anything big like spin around, move forward, backward etc. and coordinated with the camera guys so they would be prepared for everything. All that stuff.weird user wrote:This was a good music video.
Does anybody know if Al directed this one? Considering it looks like it was all in one take, seems it would have been difficult to be behind the camera directing all this and then coming back at the end (in a different outfit).
But the biggest problem would be that he couldn't notice mistakes right away and just make mental notes of them as they went along, since like you said he had to change costume and get in place for his second appearance. He'd have to watch the whole video every time and carefully look for things he'd like to change or discuss with whoever had problems, which would be okay but slow down the process. Still, it's easier to do that digitally, and even if he wasn't the director, he probably wanted to watch it back anyway. I'm thinking if he wasn't "officially" directing, then he was probably constantly discussing with the director, who would essentially be Al's collaborator on visual ideas and another set of eyes on set, since everything had to be so carefully calibrated and Al wasn't able to see everything that was happening both in front of and behind the camera at all times. And regardless, I'm pretty sure everyone would have always deferred to Al, because duh!
Then again, I wasn't actually there so what do I know?