Rodrigo Prieto, the cinematographer for Taylor Swift‘s music video for ‘Willow‘, had no idea her ninth album, ‘Evermore‘, was on the horizon either.

Prieto, who had previously worked with Swift on the video for ‘Lover‘ single ‘The Man‘ and ‘Folklore‘ single ‘Cardigan‘, gave an interview with Rolling Stone where he explained his lack-of-knowledge around ‘Evermore’.

“I thought maybe it was a video for the previous album,” he said.

“I didn’t even know what the song was at our first meeting.”

Prieto also revealed they were filming the video the same time the US election results began to pour in, and Swift was one of the only people allowed to use her phone on set, as most others were required to relinquish their phones in order to keep secrecy around the project.

“She’s next to me – six feet away, but she was next to me. And she got this text, and she showed it to me,” Prieto said.

“So I learned of the result from her at that moment, and what I told her was, ‘I will never forget this moment,’ both because it’s such a historically important moment and because she was the one who showed me this information, you know.”

The video for ‘Willow’, which was directed by Swift herself, dropped alongside ‘Evermore’, her second album of 2020 following July’s ‘Folklore’.

It was shortly followed by a remix, or ‘dancing witch’ version of the song, done by producer Elvira Anderfjärd.

In a five-star review of ‘Evermore’, NME‘s Hannah Mylrea said, “If ‘Folklore’ is an introspective, romantic older sister, ‘Evermore’ is the freewheeling younger sibling… The new album reaps the rewards the stylistic leap of faith that ‘Folklore’ represented, pushing the boundaries of that sonic palette further still.”