The visionary behind Ariana Grande’s best known music videos is in awe of the pop star’s strength.
Hannah Lux Davis has directed the singer’s Side to Side, Love Me Harder, and Into You promos, as well as the video for her most recent release, Breathin', which focuses on finding inner strength in a chaotic world.
In the promo, Grande sits alone at a train station as blurred figures zoom past her, before she ascends into a peaceful skyline.
For Lux, the experience showed just how much the star has grown.
"I’ve done a lot of videos for her - Bang Bang, Love Me Harder, Into You, Focus, Side to Side, I did a perfume commercial for her, and I did her tour visuals," she tells Billboard. "So I’ve worked with her a ton, in all these different phases of her career, and she’s grown into an incredibly strong woman. I’m in awe of her."
She is also impressed with Ariana's work ethic and collaborative nature.
She adds, "It’s insane, her work ethic and drive. She's got great ideas, and it's fun to work with people who have really great ideas and who can think quickly. And her coming from comedy and TV, you can tell that it’s a learned, practised skill. She’s able to be quick like that."
Though Grande is open to ideas, she let Lux dictate much of the concept and visuals for Breathin', trusting she could execute the feel of the song.
"For Breathin' she really let me take the reins for it,” the director tells the publication. “The song is obviously about anxiety, and feeling so out-of-touch and out-of-sync and out of alignment with everything in the world around you, and feeling like you’re just not connected.
"So I had this idea of doing motion control, which I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, and I’m really glad that I ended up doing it on this project. It’s the effect that we did to shoot her in a different frame rate, in a different speed, and other people in the frame that are moving quickly around her. That was through the effect of motion control."
