Like some of you out there, I’ve had Sia’s ‘You’ve Changed’ stuck in my head for the past few weeks now. It’s catchy, it’s fun and how freaking cool is the video? So cool infact that I decided to track down the director of the video and have a bit of a chat about how it all came together.

Enter the talented Dennis Liu, who it seems is already a bit of a superstar in the viral video scene – his Apple viral from 2008 clocked up more than 1 million hits in a month! Not content with this, however and Liu upped the ante with his latest viral, Office 2010: The Movie receiving coverage from the likes of CNET, The Wall Street Journal, Gizmodo, Engadget, and hundreds of blogs. Based in the U.S, Liu has shot and directed several TV spots, videos and promos, and last year won the People’s Choice award at Saatchi & Saatchi’s New Director’s Showcase at Cannes.

Hello Dennis. So what’s your story?
I graduated from NYU a couple years ago and just started making music videos, then good things started happening. I used to be an ad agency producer, which was good training, but I’ve always wanted to direct. Now I shoot commercials, viral videos, and all sorts of crazy stuff and although I’ve been getting very lucky, I feel like I still have a long way to go.

You recently directed that amazing video for Sia’s ‘You’ve changed’. How did that come about?
I guess she liked my other music videos. I’m not sure. The production company I shoot out of, @radical.media, is great at helping directors hook up with awesome artists. I love Zero 7 so it was a no brainer taking it on. She’s really sweet and an absolutely incredible performer.

Can you please tell me about the inspiration for the video?
I always thought it would be fun to make a live action version of a video game and this seemed like a good excuse to make one. It was actually much, much harder than you can possibly imagine. There were all these moving parts and everything had to be measured to the scale and size of Sia (the buttons etc.). There was a ton of collaboration – Sia had a bunch of great ideas and it was all good fun in the end.

How long did the shoot take, and how many people were involved on set?
It was a pretty small crew. There were probably 15-20 crewmembers and a decent amount of extras. The shoot took 2.5 days and again, it was a lot of work as we shot in super slow motion and sped up the footage. There was no way we could feed all those words through our little contraption fast enough!

Could you please tell me about the process of making the video?
To make the words move, we had to create a conveyer belt type track made out of wood with a foam core – it was a real mess of a process. I don’t think anyone can comprehend the amount of crap we had to come up with to get the words to time properly at the bottom of the screen. These concept videos are a huge pain but I like doing them much more than the standard, no brain, three location music videos, with a bunch of costume changes. Those are lazy and lame.

Your Apple viral clocked up more than one million hits in one month. How did that feel?
Yeah that was insane, I had no idea that was going to happen. The best things happen when you’re not looking for it – I just made that video out of college for shits and giggles. I met a lot of cool people from it including some of my favorite directors working in the business. It gave me confidence… that’s all you really need to be successful in anything. I really think you’re the only person who holds yourself back.

Where do you feel most inspired?
My friends come up with the most ridiculously smart ideas, and a lot of them aren’t even filmmakers. They are much smarter than me. My girlfriend also comes up with some great ideas. Inspiration is everywhere, again where you’re not looking for it. I hate that fucking irony.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
When I quit my cushy full time job to pursue my dream of directing, which was not an easy choice but it feels like the right one now for sure.

What is your set-up like?
It really depends on the shoot. Sometimes it’s big, other times not so much. We had to secure a helicopter and heliport to shoot the Office 2010 film. But for Sia, we shot in a rather small casting room. It’s always something different.

Do you have any advice for fellow artists who wish to get their work out there and noticed?
Just do great work, and the rest will follow. I don’t make hundreds of copies of my reel and send it around. The Internet is good enough now to do that. If you can command an audience, people will come to hire you, it’s pretty much that simple.

What are you working on at the moment – what’s next?
I’m working on another music video, a couple of commercials – it’s been pretty busy.

www.dennisaliu.com