Taylor Swift 'freaked out' on NZ beach

Taylor Swift in a scene from her Out Of The Woods music video that was shot in New Zealand.

Taylor Swift has called Bethells Beach "the most beautiful beach I've ever been on in my life" in a behind-the-scenes video about her time spent filming here.

Swift caused a furore when she visited New Zealand twice late last year, filming the video for her single Out of the Woods in Auckland and Queenstown before going on a road trip with family in the South Island.

The four-minute clip shows Swift between scenes on Bethells Beach, calling the shoot "so surreal all of us are just freaking out over it".

Her visit wasn't without controversy: it was alleged the New Zealand production company making the music video breached its permit by taking up to 12 vehicles on to the beach, when it only had approval for two, threatening the nesting site of local dotterel.

In the new clip, Swift calls the making of her video "emotional" and praises the New Zealand production company for building the "most elaborate sets I've ever seen".

"We've been in a desert, we've been on a rocky cliff, we've been on a glacier, we've been in a swamp ... I think they have such amazing access to trees and plants in things in New Zealand that ... that's all I can come up with as to why the sets are so good, they're really talented set designers."

Swift has previously discussed how stressful it was evading Kiwi media, saying she hid under a pile of towels on set to escape a photographer flying overhead.

"We had a helicopter flying above our video set in New Zealand for like 45 minutes just circling around with a long lens," she told Zane Lowe. "We're like, 'What do you think is happening here?'

"They didn't get the shot because I was hiding under towels."

- nzherald.co.nz