abnervaught: Lady Gaga's VMA Promo: Go Behind The Scenes!

Friday, August 19, 2011

Lady Gaga's VMA Promo: Go Behind The Scenes!

'As someone that lives halfway between reality and fantasy, so do all my friends,' pop star tells MTV News about promo's surreal vibe.
By Jocelyn Vena, with additional reporting by James Montgomery

Lady Gaga during her 2011 VMA promo shoot
Photo: MTV News

Lady Gaga's full-length VMA promo was unveiled Thursday night (August 18), the same night her "Yoü and I" video made its television premiere and she announced she'd be opening the 2011 Video Music Awards during "MTV Fist: Lady Gaga."

Find out how to win a trip to the VMAs courtesy of Foursquare and MTV!

Fans got a tease of the promo earlier this week, in clips posted online of Gaga performing a new version of "Yoü and I" while taking off her bra. In the full promo, scenes of Gaga hanging out with her crew — drinking, dancing and being merry — are mixed with Gaga chilling out with a jazz band performing a slowed-down version of the latest Born This Way single.

Sitting at the piano during the shoot, Gaga tells the room, "I'm so happy my friends are here."

MTV News was on hand when the promo was shot, and Gaga said it's meant to give fans an inside look at what it's like to hang with the Mother Monster. "I really wanted it to be real, and I knew that MTV wanted it to be a true documentation of my life, and as someone that lives halfway between reality and fantasy, so do all my friends," she told us on set. "So I felt [it would be] an injustice to not sort of honor them in this short film that we did."

Go behind the scenes of Britney Spears' VMA promo, which looks back on Brit's inspirations while looking forward to the upcoming awards show.

It seems that living "halfway between reality and fantasy" means just having a really, really great time listening to tunes and living it up. "I brought my friends here, and we did a jazz rendition of 'Yoü and I,' and we sort of just hung out together," she said. "And played around and did what we usually do, which is be creative with one another and talk about music and art and fashion and f--- around."

The 28th annual MTV Video Music Awards will air live on Sunday, August 28, from the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles at 9 p.m. ET/PT. See the list of nominees, revisit last year's highlights and vote for your favorites in the general categories by visiting VMA.MTV.com.

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