Demi Lovato’s Swine video has garnered more than a million views since it debuted two month ago. The song is centered around abortion rights, with numerous queer and trans people appearing in the video, which was directed by Meriel O'Connell and shot by DP Matheus Bastos. The video has a Renaissance-era aesthetic, with Lovato standing trial before a group of elders for her reproductive beliefs.
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Swine is nominated for MTV Video Music Awards (VMA) in the “Best Pop” and “Video For Good” categories. The project was edited by Zoë Mounatain, who, as a member of the LGBTQ+ community herself, was thrilled to share her talents on a project with such an important message.
“Jagger Corcione (@burberryboxers) was the producer who hired me for the job, and has got me on some of my favorite music videos,” Mountain recalls. “There was an amazing crew of women who workshopped the edit with me, along with director Meriel O’Connell (@merieloconnell) and producer Becca Standt (@beccastandt). EPs Evan Brown (@evanmbrown) and David Gelb (@allthedave) from Drmbear (@drmbear) production company are also always so great to work with!”
Mountain cut Swine using Adobe Premiere. She had just three days to deliver a locked picture from when she received the footage.
“It was nuts,” she recalls of the deadline. “This was also the first and only edit I’ve ever done where the artist had zero notes!”
The main direction she received was to make the video feel chaotic.
“I had a ton of support from the production team to get the edit where it needed to be in such a short amount of time.”
The MTV’s VMAs air on September 12th.