Whatever else British director Nigel Dick does in his career, it’s doubtful that he’ll ever make anything more famous than his video for Britney Spears’ Baby One More Time.
Released in 1998 as Britney’s debut single, the promo has now been viewed on YouTube more than a billion times, but Dick is happy to admit that the idea to set the video in a school wasn’t his.
Speaking to Music Week, he says: “My original treatment for Britney Spears’ Baby One More Time video was set in a boxing ring. The label came back and said, ‘Look, this isn’t working, but speak to Britney; she’s got an idea.’ The schoolgirl thing was hers, and it’s good it came from her. At the time I made that video, I was a 40-year-old British guy – I had no idea what was going through the mind of a 16-year-old American girl!”
Such was the strength of the song, Baby One More Time might well have been a hit even without that video, but the two remain inextricably linked, and its success followed Dick around.
“Afterwards, I would always be on the set of a video and the manager or record company would come up and say, ‘So, is this going to be iconic, like Britney?’” he says. “It was like, ‘I haven’t got a fucking clue, pal.’”
Dick also admits that, when he first met Spears, he wouldn't have predicted that she would soon become the most famous pop star on the planet.
“I didn’t know Britney was a superstar right away. I just thought, ‘Wow, she’s really good in front of the camera,’" he says. "She nailed it, was a very hard worker, and I was very impressed by her. She told me that by 23 she wanted to be as big as Madonna and I was going, ‘Yeah, right, good luck with that…’ – and she was!”
Dick would end up directing four of Spears’ videos, the last of which was for 2000 single Oops!... I Did It Again, which featured another memorable Britney look. However, he says that this was another example of the star going in a different direction to the one he originally had planned.
“For Britney’s catsuit in the Oops!… I Did It Again video, the one that we picked had a bit more character to it, rather than just being like they’d spray-tanned her with red plastic paint,” he remembers. “Of course, when she appeared on the morning of the shoot and it wasn’t that, you couldn’t have a discussion about it. But yeah, history has proven her right to switch it and me wrong!”
Indeed – Oops!... I Did It Again has now surpassed more than half a billion views. A good job, too, because it didn’t come cheap.
“That video cost $750,000 – I’ve done hundreds of videos for less than the cost of just renting that stage!” says Dick. “But the fact we’re talking about it 26 years later means that, obviously, it paid for itself!”
Nigel Dick’s memoir, Music Video Mischief, will be released on 15 September via Trouser Press Books. It will tell the story of his work with not only Britney, but also the likes of Guns N’ Roses, Oasis, Cher, Céline Dion and Band Aid.
