Dove Cameron Breaks Down Her Most Iconic Music Videos (Boyfriend, Breakfast, Sand & More)

Allure Magazine

Dove Cameron breaks down her most iconic music videos, from "Boyfriend" to "Sand." Watch as Dove gets into all the nitty gritty details of every music video shoot, explaining how it all came to life and why she chose certain outfits and makeup looks.   Dove Camerons debut album, Alchemical: Volume 1 is available now: https://www.alchemicalthealbum.com/  Alchemical: Volume 2 is due in 2024.   Director: Krystal Knight Director of Photography: Matt Krueger Editors: Jess Lane, Lucy Nebeker, Christopher Jones Talent: Dove Cameron Producer: Nikola Jocic Post Producer: Claire Buss Production Managers: Andressa Pelachi, Kevin Balash Camera Operator: Shay Eberle Sound Mixer: Justin Fox Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin Post Production Coordinator: Scout Alter Supervising Editor: Erica DeLeo Additional Editor: Jason Malizia Assistant Editor: Fynn Lithgow Graphics Supervisor: Ross Rackin

Transcript

00:00 Hey guys, I'm Dove Cameron and today I will be breaking down some of my most iconic music video looks.

00:06 "Boyfriend" 2022 directed by Lauren Sick off of my debut album, Alchemical Vol. 1.

00:19 This one also came together really fast because this song blew up completely unexpectedly.

00:23 And so Columbia was like, "You should make a video."

00:27 Yesterday.

00:28 I basically sent like a mood board to a couple different directors and I was like, "I want

00:33 snakes.

00:35 I want a tunnel, like a car in a tunnel.

00:37 I want a woman who is going to be my energetic equal."

00:41 It was really, really, really important to me that we got someone who was like star energy

00:46 in their own right and that like you would write this song about.

00:50 And Char was just like walked in and she literally, like I think she literally sat down.

00:55 She's like, "I'm a f*ck star."

00:56 And I was like, "Yeah, you are."

01:00 I was like, "Sheesh, let me buy you coffee."

01:04 And my makeup artist that day was like, "It's so f*cking dark in there.

01:07 Like we need to bring some kind of shine."

01:09 So it does look, it ended up looking super euphoria.

01:12 That was her idea.

01:13 And so we were just finding this balance between like grungy, not grungy.

01:15 And then like the wet hair was for specifically for like the greased skin and a snake.

01:20 And so we just wanted to go with this very like steamy, like I think they even put like

01:23 a grease film across the front of the lens.

01:25 And so we just wanted it to feel very like, like animal steamy, like something very sensual

01:31 and touchable about that.

01:32 This was Lauren's idea.

01:33 This was not my idea.

01:34 I wanted a club setting, but she was like, "I want to cover the men's faces in masks

01:38 and have them like moshing."

01:39 And at first I was like, "It's not gonna look okay."

01:42 And you can see what started happening was because they couldn't see, they were hitting

01:47 my body over and over and over again.

01:48 And she kept being like, "Cut, stop, like you're hitting her."

01:51 And I was like, "No, no, no, no, I think we keep it."

01:53 How it translated was that they didn't give a fuck about my personal space and like there

01:57 was no awareness.

01:58 Well, me and Char see each other, lock eyes, and we have this like kind of cat-like, snake-like

02:02 weaving where it's like, "I see you.

02:05 I'm on my way."

02:07 And like this lithe thing, like cats.

02:12 Ended up translating really well.

02:13 [Music]

02:14 "Breakfast 2022" directed by Lauren Dunn off of my debut album, "Alchemical Vol. 1."

02:21 I had shot a music video for "Breakfast" already that was a very different music video.

02:26 And it was very pop girl.

02:28 And I was in like a red latex suit.

02:32 It was at the same time that Roe v. Wade was being overturned.

02:35 I was just so like debilitatingly affected.

02:37 Trying to do everything I could to be involved with helping educate people on what was going

02:43 on with Roe v. Wade and how they could vote.

02:45 It was like all I could think about.

02:46 And then it was like watching myself in a fucking pop video where I was like, "I ain't

02:49 boy like."

02:50 I just wanted to, I was like, "There's no."

02:51 I was like, "What is this?"

02:52 And so my label was like, "Okay, well, if this isn't a video you want to make, what

02:56 video do you want to make?"

02:57 We came up with this treatment where we wanted to sort of reverse the roles.

03:01 Bring in as many women, as much diversity.

03:04 Brought in this incredible trans actor to play the doctor.

03:07 It's my favorite music video I've ever, ever, ever, ever done.

03:10 It took a village.

03:12 All of the wardrobe was rented from a studio and we didn't try them on beforehand.

03:16 We just like got there and it was all of these men's suits.

03:18 I was just like, "I want to be in men's suits and then I want to be in the exact opposite."

03:22 I wanted it to feel as much like a movie as possible and not like a pop video.

03:27 You see the person's face.

03:28 And then also I wanted it to be different than the 1950s look, which was the red lip

03:31 and the starker cat eye.

03:33 And then lastly, she's in a position of power as the male character or as women would be

03:38 if the roles were reversed.

03:40 She doesn't need to dress up for anybody.

03:41 I still hear people tell me how much this video resonated with them and that's like,

03:46 what's better than that?

03:47 We Go Down Together, 2023, me and Khalid, directed by Audrey Alice Fox.

03:52 We just wanted something really beautiful and something that felt very like sort of

03:57 industrial and cold but then also romantic and dark and just sort of following the energy

04:02 of the song.

04:03 Because you know it's a beautiful song but it's very pared back.

04:06 We created this beautiful platform and like all of these rocks but then we introduced

04:09 like this silhouetted shot here.

04:11 Like it's very industrial.

04:12 Like it's just like straight out of a photo shoot, you know?

04:14 So I thought it was really cool.

04:15 It's just straight out of a photo shoot, you know?

04:16 So I thought it was a really interesting kind of creative and just left room for the vocals,

04:21 left room for the emotion of the song and the performance of that and like this kind

04:26 of like strange movement that the camera's doing as well as what we are doing and this

04:30 very languid thing.

04:31 Like no real concept, just like emotional, beautiful, intimate.

04:36 This dress was something that I gravitated towards because it felt distressed and it

04:42 felt like it had lived a life and I loved the raw edges but it was still romantic and

04:46 also cold.

04:47 I wanted the makeup and the dress to match this kind of melancholic thing especially

04:53 because the set was so muted.

04:55 But we needed to bring some color.

04:56 It was also really challenging for a while having that red hair and finding any makeup

05:00 that went with it.

05:01 Like I don't know how these girls are doing it.

05:02 They must just like always be, it must just always be black makeup because I had such

05:07 a hard time matching any colors with that hair.

05:10 But we wanted to bring out the color in the dress.

05:12 We wanted something that felt a little experimental.

05:14 I was like I want flecks of gold.

05:15 I was impulsive and then we diffused it like below the eye which I thought was really fun.

05:21 Honestly I never plan anything which is probably pretty bad but like I always rock up on set

05:26 and I'm like what if it's this?

05:27 Then I have to figure out a way to make it happen.

05:33 This is Sans off of my album Alchemical Part 1 directed by Anastasia Delmark.

05:38 In my like original idea for the music video treatment I wanted to see like two shadowy

05:42 figures in like a wide shot in the desert like doing this couple stance.

05:47 My team told me we couldn't literally bring a piano to the desert.

05:52 We ended up going with something a bit more intimate.

05:54 I wanted to kind of create this like sort of post apocalyptic aftermath after the storm

06:00 of the ending of this relationship kind of vibe.

06:03 But I wanted it to be you know cinematic and like nice to look at.

06:08 All of my music videos it's really important to me that they feel like tiny films.

06:13 This dress came out of nowhere.

06:14 It was like this very sort of like last minute Venus in the Clamshell super femmy more of

06:19 who I used to be which is like what the time that the song is set in anyway.

06:23 And I just wanted it to feel very vulnerable, very skin like, very almost nude and yeah

06:27 hyper femme because that's kind of who I was when I was with the person that the song is

06:32 about.

06:33 My makeup was done by my incredible makeup artist and like truly one of my best friends.

06:37 His name is Cale Teeter.

06:38 We wanted it to feel like it was sort of lived in and we wanted to still see the skin, see

06:44 the lips, see the cheeks but as well bring that kind of element of like there had to

06:50 be some kind of like grit to it because the environment was so gritty.

06:54 Same thing with the hair like we wanted to leave the hair really wild and we had this

06:56 crazy wind machine where the first time it turned on Josh and I had to stop the dance

07:01 because we were like streaming tears like eyelashes flying off.

07:06 It was so, so wild.

07:08 And so we just wanted the hair to feel very windswept and all of that.

07:13 I'm really happy with how it ended up looking.

07:15 I'm truly not a dancer.

07:16 I like can dance but I'm not, it's not my like number one.

07:19 I've had to learn but having a really good partner like Josh like he was doing so much

07:24 of that work.

07:25 Like everybody's like whoa nice back bend and I'm like he's holding me like he was really

07:31 doing he was doing most of the work and he's so, so lovely.

07:34 I was really happy with it.

07:35 It's very yeah lyrical and romantic.

07:38 Thank you Allure.

07:39 I hope you enjoyed me breaking down my favorite music video looks and I hope to see you again

07:43 soon.

07:44 Bye.

07:45 (upbeat music)

07:47 (upbeat music)

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