Change of Plan

The first idea that I had for my video was that it would be shot in an old manor house, giving it a cosy feel with a lot of focus on the artist singing in a natural home environment. I was going to include log fires, a library etc to get a 'country house' feel to the video as I believed that this matched the lyrics in a contemplative way.

However, on the day I planned to start my shooting I looked out the window and the snow was coming down thick and fast. Before cancelling my filming, I thought that although it would be cold and risky to film in snowy conditions as i might not get all the filming i wished to have done before the snow stopped, I made the decision that my video would have more impact in the snow. I believe that the snow was an advantage as long as my actor was happy with the snowy conditions.

I roughly sketched a new storyboard (which was later then refined)that incorporated the new snowy setting as I felt it would be a waste not to use the snow as part of the video due to the feel I wanted for the video.

I took my story board and iPod with the song outside and started to shoot my video. Although my actor was very helpful he struggled to mime the song and therefore I had to find a new actor at short notice. I found another friend who was happy to learn the lyrics in one morning, however hoping the snow wouldn't stop falling was a slight worry.

Now I had a new actor who was confident with the song, filming started again.
I had an image in my head of how I wanted my artist to look and his costume, I wanted the costume to be contemporary, warm and stylish.
After shooting the first verse five times, it was time to stop as the weather conditions got too cold and dangerous.
However, after an hour break, the blizzard like conditions stopped and we started the filming again in the various locations. As shooting in the snow was very risky I made sure I had plenty of footage.

After the first day, I was more that happy at how much I had got done and was very pleased at the footage I had. I was hoping that the next morning there would be more snow, although I had checked the weather and that was what the forecast was. Indeed, the snow was thick, thicker than day one in fact which was brilliant, it meant I could hopefully get the last bits finished.
By the end of the day I had all my footage, and I was happy with the filming I had achieved.