Melina Matsoukas: Talks About Beyonce’s New Videos 

Speaking of working with people, you’ve worked with Rihanna, Solo. You’ve
done a whole bunch of videos with Beyoncé. What’s it like working with
those three? Do you brace yourselves for attitudes or is that not even the
case?

Not with them. Definitely, there have been some other people with attitudes
that we won’t name. But with those three, especially now that I’ve worked
with them and I’m good friends with Solange and Beyoncé and we’ve done so
much stuff together, it’s almost like we’re family. It’s like working with
your family, and we have fun. It’s collaborative. We bounce ideas off of
each other and it’s no attitude at all. Even with Rihanna, she’s definitely
really smart with her ideas and creative and she gets it. I think that’s the
thing with all of those three. I have very similar taste, so we’re able to
collaborate on ideas. And it’s not like a competition or we’re battling
each other, and that makes it fun.

How was the video shoot with Alicia Keys and Beyoncé in Brazil?

That was amazing and really hard, not because of them at all. Just being in
Brazil and I was kind of expecting like a third-world place so we could go
down there and steal everything, and shooting would be easy. But it was very
by the book, we had to get permits and the crew had union’s rules and all
that technical stuff that makes shooting not really fun, and it was like 87
million degrees and we were outside (laughs). But it was such an amazing
experience to be there with the people and we were in the favelas and we were
under the stars, so we really got a lot of love and support from the people.
But there was also a lot of corruption too. We had to hire a certain amount
of cops, too. Somebody that was like a liaison between security with their
people and our people started getting cocky and rude to the cop and there was
almost this crazy shoot out fight. It all happened at the end scene when I’m
shooting this big carnival parade. We’re just starting to shoot it, and the
[fight] is all happening behind me. I don’t even know this is happening, and
then I get people starting to come up to me saying “This is the last take. We
’ve got to get them out of here. This is starting to get scary.” Then it
got a little sketchy, so the cops pretty much quit. [They] left with all the
barricades that were pretty much holding all the people back, and the people
kind of like bum rushed our set. It was kind of an ordeal. I felt like it was
that scene from City of God where I thought someone was about to die.

For Beyoncé’s “Why Don’t You Love Me” video, whose idea was it to dub
Beyoncé “B. B. Homemaker”?

(Laughs) As the project developed and progressed, new ideas started to come
up. She came up with the name. As I was editing, she was like ‘Let’s do a “
Leave It To Beaver” type intro’ and I edited that together. I started
looking at all these shows and they all have those voiceovers. I loved in “
Leave It To Beaver” [that] they would announce the actress’ names and then
at the end they would say ‘The Beaver.’ Then I said, ‘Oh, you should be
The Beaver’ and Beyoncé was like ‘No, Melina. I can’t be The Beaver’
 (laughs). Then I was like let’s come up with like a cool name, and just off
the top of her head she was like “I don’t know, B.B. Homemaker.”

How long did it take to shoot?

We shot for one day and prepped for like two or three weeks. It was just
really chill. When we came back from Brazil shooting the other project, she
said she was thinking about doing this video for a song she had and it was
number one on the dance charts at some point. She said her and Solange wrote
it. So it was nice because it all just came together. She really loved the
whole Bette Paige idea. That’s where it kind of started. Then Bettie Page
turned into Susie Homemaker slash frustrated housewife and we just decided to
throw all that together.

Was it her idea to dust off the 8.9 million Grammys?

(Laughs) That was her idea. Then I was like ‘Well, let’s do the life of
Bettie Paige, like how she would live her life back then.’ Then it became
Beyoncé-slash-Bettie goes hood kind of (laughs). She also kind of wanted to
play off of everyone telling her to sit down and go have babies and be a
housewife. You know, just having fun with it. Then she was like ‘Hmm, now
might be a good moment where I can dust off some Grammys.’ I was like ‘I
love it!’ so that’s when she dusts off her Grammys.

Were those all her Grammys?

Actually, they were hers, Destiny’s Child’s, and Jay’s. Yeah, it was a lot
of Grammys. Everyone on set was taking picture of the Grammys.

Where was the video shot?

It was shot in L.A. on Mount Olympus. Actually, we found this house that was
owned by a 95-year-old man. And I believe he was Dorothy Dandridge’s either
agent or PR person. He’s a white man, but he really had all this stuff in
his house that had to do with the Blues. He was really on the forefront. He
had this wall of fame and he was just really interesting. The cars that were
in the video were his. It kind of all magically came together. ?

Source: HoneyMag